The Raspberry Pi Thread [4]

You know guys, I don't think anyone in the personal computer/ home automation industry have come up with an add-on hardware for PC power control for Google Home or Alexa integration. That's because I can't find any. The only closest thing you can find online is "wake-on-lan" (WOL) which only works when the PC is on sleep mode. It will not start up the PC from cold shutdown.
This project that I just made is basically a PC hardware add-on that can be plugged directly into the motherboard. There's nothing like it as far as I know (for home users).
I am just talking about the idea, not the actual hardware I made. It can be re-designed. :)

badrobot said:

I am just using a regular Raspberry Pi 3 on that Google Assistant project I made. Just using the aux audio and USB mini mic with it.

Ah OK, thanks for the info. I could likely go that route with the automation pHat. I'll have to look at this more closely.

alphanumeric said:

Ah OK, thanks for the info. I could likely go that route with the automation pHat. I'll have to look at this more closely.

Youtube is your friend. Tons of tutorials out there. Find "Sid's e-Classroom" channel. He has the latest versions and he is very helpful. You might be able to ask him for some help with coding as well.
Just a heads up though, he is from India and has an accent. But the guy is very helpful and he replies right away most of the time.

badrobot said:

Youtube is your friend. Tons of tutorials out there. Find "Sid's e-Classroom" channel. He has the latest versions and he is very helpful. You might be able to ask him for some help with coding as well.
Just a heads up though, he is from India and has an accent. But the guy is very helpful and he replies right away most of the time.

Yeah, found all kinds of info, thanks. Still leaning towards getting the AIY kit with the voice Hat. It makes more sense for me, it has 4 motor drivers, 6 servo outputs etc. Right up my ally so to speak. I could have a lot of fun with one of those. =)

alphanumeric said:

Yeah, found all kinds of info, thanks. Still leaning towards getting the AIY kit with the voice Hat. It makes more sense for me, it has 4 motor drivers, 6 servo outputs etc. Right up my ally so to speak. I could have a lot of fun with one of those. =)

Yup. Those kits are the easiest way to do it. Just put them all up together and download the modified Raspbian software and you are done.
I guess, I always just wanted to be unique. Haha...
I usually start working on a Raspi project if I have a specific application I would like to use it for. And it usually takes a lot of modification. I even usually modify the code. But I can't create one.

caperjack said:

mine sitting on the shelf till summer ,,, if you want to borrow it to make sure its what you want ,,your more than welcome

I'll pass for now, thanks for the offer though.

I think I just figured out why my rover is messed up. It looks like I wired the +5V from the powerboost to the 3.3V buss on the Proto pHat. So it looks like I may have fried two Pi Zeros and one explorer pHat. I'm just firing up my soldering iron to remove the Power boost and fix my screw up. At least I now know what's going on. I'll be ordering some more stuff next month. I'll rewire it and put it all back together to see how it works though. I was getting 5 V out of the power boost but only 4.2 at the GPIO 5V pin? On power pack I got my correct +5V on the GPIO 5V pin. Looks like I soldered my jumper wire one pad over from where it should have went. Weird thing is, the Pi worked fine, the rover even moved as it should?

Fixed my error and I'm getting my 5V on the GPIO 5V pin. Still don't know if I damaged anything. I very likely did though. Did a quick run and got 4.8 V on my explorer pHat motor terminals. Still doesn't want to turn though. Its definitely moving faster in forward and revers. Almost turns, it tries but then the motors stall. I'd say I damaged the explorer pHat. See Jack, we all make mistakes. I'll buy some new parts next payday and keeps on truckin.