New
#1931
Good or bad I didn't go the MagPi route. I installed Raspbian, then ran the explorer pHat installer. Then coded it up in python to use my keyboard as a controller. Works a charm with two wheel drive, not so much with 4 wheels though. One side always seems to stall? Tried it first with the motors in servo shells, https://www.adafruit.com/product/2939 I now have 2 two wheel drive version of that link. Then I tried it with those micro motors. Same deal, one side would randomly stall.
Best guess is its an issue with the powerboost 1000c not being able to supply enough current to drive 4 motors? The MagPi version uses a USB power bank. Keep that in mind. I have one of the DFRobot 2A powerboosts that I'm tempted to try> I didn't have it on hand when testing my 4 wheel rovers. A Bilge Tank video showed the explorer phat driving 4 motors so I assume it is up to the task. I'd rather not have a great big power bank duct taped to the top of my rover though.
this pimoroni link i posted earlier , has it running from a bluetooth controller ...https://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/...g-the-tiny-4wd
Thats my ultimate plan for at least one of my rovers. I have a little controller with a joystick (really a 4 way switch) and some buttons on it. It works with the Pi Ok, tested it in Raspbian as a mouse. Just have to read the keycodes out and ode them into python to control the explorer pHat. I stopped there for some reason and never got back to it. Got sidetracked on something else. Thats one of my two wheel drive rovers. It drives around Ok in the house. Having a caster for a third wheel kind of bugs me though. And I wouldn't want to try it outside on grass etc. https://1drv.ms/f/s!AjOYwiwlwDtpgrNitzE9mWKSbll5jg
Adafruit order arived while I was out taking Ginger for play time. I'll tinker with a little bit of it tonight. We're going to have comapny for supper so most of it will have to wait till tomorrow.
Did a little tinkering today. I wanted an all red Pi Zero case so I ordered a Zero W and Zero V1.3 pibow and then swapped layers around. Its actually Red, Orange, Red but looks all red from a distance. Close enough for me. Also ordered a PI Zero 1.3 to put in the other case, it was only an extra 5 bucks so why not. I can use it as a GPIO extended on my Pi Desktop PC.
Also ordered one of these, https://www.adafruit.com/product/3253 Then stuck it to the window with some of those suction cup hooks. I think I'm going to have to refocus that camera? I'll take the screen out and clean the window first though. Its my new bird camera. Its a new version two camera. That was my last version 1 in use.
Hey Jack if you ever need a camera cable drop by lol. I have a whole bag full of them, mostly the ones that come with the official Pi camera, and the ones that come with the Official Zero cases. I either needed a really long cable of really short cable.
Did a little Arduino stuff too. I bought one of these, https://www.adafruit.com/product/275 plastic mounting plate for breadboard and Arduino.
I had a spare Arduino and one of those small breadboards. Might come in handy for small projects.
And this https://www.adafruit.com/product/292 SPI backpack for a 16x2 display I already had. It lets you use i2c instead of 6 plus data pins to drive it. I can use it on a Pi or an Arduino.