Raspberry Pi Pod and micro:bit base

GPIO problems on the Raspberry Pi 2

by Michael Horne • 9 February 2015 • 7 Comments

EDIT/UPDATE: This issue is now resolved

Simply update your Raspberry Pi to fix this issue:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

There is currently an issue with using the GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi 2. The issue concerns the RPi.GPIO Python library, which currently does not work properly. The reason for this is a bug in the Raspbian operating system. Until this bug is fixed, RPi.GPIO cannot work correctly. The author of the RPi.GPIO library, Ben Croston, is currently working on a fix for this and has had some success. However, his work is currently in an unstable ‘development’ state and hasn’t been brought into the main repositories.

At this present time, I recommend just being patient. Please do not do the following things:

DO NOT run rpi-update
DO NOT install the development version

Both of these things may leave your Pi doing unexpected things – they represent the ‘bleeding edge’ of development and they’re just not suitable for the vast majority of users.

It is likely that the issue will be fixed in the next week or two. I will report as soon as I receive word on a proper fix and how to install it.

Pimoroni have issued rather good advice concerning their products and agree with me on the state of things and the need to be patient for the proper fix.

Please bear in mind that this bug will affect everything using RPi.GPIO, including the very-popular Pibrella board and also the CamJam EduKits that we sell through The Pi Hut.

GPIO diagram at the top from Raspberry Pi Spy

Accessories, Games, Making, Programming, Tutorials

Seven segment Raspberry Pi Ping-Pong

by Michael Horne • 9 February 2015 • 0 Comments

JCR Matos has created a circuit layout in Fritzing for a ping-pong game that you can reproduce for a bit of fun with your Pi. You need several components, including driver chips for the seven-segment displays. He’s included all the code you need to run the game and published it over at Fritzing. Take a look here.

Environment, Home automation, Internet of things, Making, Nature, Sensors

Automated mushroom cultivation with a Raspberry Pi

by Michael Horne • 9 February 2015 • 1 Comment

Kyle Gabriel grows mushrooms (the non-hallucinogenic kind!) and wanted to control the environment in which they grow to achieve a better yield. He’s now using a Pi to monitor temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide concentration. When the Pi detects an undesirable change in conditions, it triggers relays to control heaters and fans that return conditions to optimum. To read more about how he’s set this up, and to look at his code, take a look on his blog.

GPIO boards, Video

Overview of the Unicorn HAT on the Raspberry Pi

by Michael Horne • 8 February 2015 • 0 Comments

Matt Manning, from Raspberry Pi IV Beginners, has done a short video looking at Pimoroni’s Unicorn HAT which has an array of Neopixels that you can control direct from the Pi. If you haven’t seen the Unicorn in action, take a look – it’s a lovely little add-on board with much blinkies!

You can buy a Unicorn HAT from The Pi Hut or Pimoroni, amongst others.

Software, Tutorials

WhatsApp on the Raspberry Pi

by Michael Horne • 8 February 2015 • 0 Comments

Max over at EmmeShop has posted a great tutorial on communicating with the mobile messenger app WhatsApp through the Raspberry Pi. He takes you through installing the software required (called yowsup) and then using it to send messages. It’s actually a Python library, although he doesn’t take you through using that, just a command line interface. Read it here.

Emulation, Games, Raspberry Pi 2

Improved emulator performance on the Raspberry Pi 2

by Michael Horne • 6 February 2015 • 0 Comments

The Foundation have blogged about some advances in the field of emulation since the launch of the Raspberry Pi 2. According to them, the CPU performance of previous models of the Pi meant that only 3rd and 4th generation games consoles could be emulated adequately. The quad-core Pi 2, however, can run emulation of 5th-generation consoles. You can see videos of some of these consoles on their blog page.