The Raspberry Pi Thread [4]

caperjack · 15 Apr 2018

thanks for the pics and info ..

alphanumeric said:

Have a look see here, https://1drv.ms/f/s!AjOYwiwlwDtpgrJY6ORLsK5AVpwNuw There is a picture of the new one, looks like I deleted the pic of the old one. I'll have a look see if I saved it on my PC some where. I do believe yours has the header soldered on the opposite side to the new one I 'm using now. If you have the Pi GPIO header pointing up, then the proto pHat, the switch header will be on the top side. Then the pHat Beat on top of that. I'm always looking at mine from the back side< Pi the proto then pHat Beat so this time around I soldered the switch header on the other side so I could see it to plug in and unplug the switches.

caperjack · 15 Apr 2018

always something ,,,drives me nuts

alphanumeric said:

Portable weather clock showed negative humidity again today.

I "think" it might be the heat given off by the electronics inside the case that's doing it. I put some more and bigger vent holes in the case. Angled to help keep water / rain out. And on the side where there isn't anything close to get wet if some does get in. Added a couple more bigger drain / vent holes on the bottom too. To let air in and any water that might get in drain out. We'll see how that goes. If it doesn't help I'm going to do a clean install with Jessie and hope that fixes it. If not I'll just put up with it until I get my BME680.

alphanumeric · 16 Apr 2018

I've had it show above 100% humidity also, which it shouldn't do. The Pi foundation said it was a 'minor' glitch in the firmware. That was an easy fix, sort of kind of. I just did an "if h > 100, h = 100. This latest issue just reinforces my belief, that the sense hat is a bit flawed, at least the humidity sensor anyway. It seems like they may have rushed things a bit to get them ready to go on the International space station. Anyway, what I may do is add a "if h < 0, h = 0 to my code. That would stop the negative values from displaying. Still not a real fix. If its showing negative values its not reading it correctly so I can't really put much faith in what its showing. I've suspected it was off for a while now, the readings just didn't seem right for the conditions. I posted on the Pi forums, will see what they say. I'll be trying to order up a BME680 this payday, I want to get a Pi 3B+ too.

caperjack · 16 Apr 2018

Interesting,, the Pi3 b+ is quite nice i have mine in the official7 in screen an no real used for it so far ,except the internet and a bit of netflix. lol

alphanumeric said:

I've had it show above 100% humidity also, which it shouldn't do. The Pi foundation said it was a 'minor' glitch in the firmware. That was an easy fix, sort of kind of. I just did an "if h > 100, h = 100. This latest issue just reinforces my belief, that the sense hat is a bit flawed, at least the humidity sensor anyway. It seems like they may have rushed things a bit to get them ready to go on the International space station. Anyway, what I may do is add a "if h < 0, h = 0 to my code. That would stop the negative values from displaying. Still not a real fix. If its showing negative values its not reading it correctly so I can't really put much faith in what its showing. I've suspected it was off for a while now, the readings just didn't seem right for the conditions. I posted on the Pi forums, will see what they say. I'll be trying to order up a BME680 this payday, I want to get a Pi 3B+ too.

alphanumeric · 16 Apr 2018

My 3B+ will go in my bread board rig with my Pi Foundation touch screen. I'll just swap it for the 3B that's in there now. I "should" be able to just swap the SD Card over. It's the latest Stretch updated and upgraded.
Something weird I noticed is xscreensaver wouldn't install, even after doing an update upgrade? I had to do a second sudo apt-get update before the install would work. Three or four packages were updated. The second sudo apt-get upgrade did nothing though, 0 upgrades?

caperjack · 16 Apr 2018

got my income tax refund today ..... so i want to build a breadboard rig like yours ,"well kind of " using my Pi foundation lcd,and case and a frame-up made up of wood ,instead of that really nice aluminum rail you have [a little more than i want to spend ],and a large bread board like you have ,,were did you get the breadboard ..im going to get a large breadboard and another Pi3 b+ and maybe one of those traffic light hat setups on Pimoroni and a few other tibits ,not too much more than that ...

Any suggestion ??

alphanumeric · 17 Apr 2018

I do believe this is the breadboard I bought, https://www.adafruit.com/product/443 I didn't use the four banana jacks. I actually cut that part off to get it closer to my Pi and screen to make the GPIO ribbon cable reach. I drilled holes in the metal base so I could mount it with screws to my beam frame. I used the CanaKit GPIO breakout, https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-gpio-breakout.html It centers nicely and has the +5V and 3.3V pins rails. I don't like the Adafruit cobbler much. It doesn't center for one thing which bugs me to no end, lol. Some nice long male to male jumpers if you don't have them already. Just about to go for my morning walk. If I think of anything else I'll post it when I get back.

alphanumeric · 17 Apr 2018

Canakit has a double wide breadboard, https://www.canakit.com/solderless-b...1660-hole.html
As far as I know, all the single ones have a double sided sticky pad on the bottom, and you can interlink them. If you already have one or two, you could put them together to make one big one. Might save you a few bucks you could spend on something else. If you look at the one in this kit, it has locking tabs on the side to lock it with another identical breadboard. https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi...imate-kit.html All depends on how big you want it. The voltage rails down the side come off too. You might have to cut the sticky pad with an exacto knife. It's what they did on the big one I have. They just left one voltage rail between breadboards. The extras they removed are across the top.

alphanumeric · 17 Apr 2018

One thing that can be tricky is running the ribbon cable down from the Pi to your Breakout board. Seeing as your Pi will be on the back of your display. I have double spacers / stand offs between my Pi and the display driver board so I had to trim the mounting plate for my breadboard to get it closer. That may not be as big an issue for you if you mount the Pi right on the back with just one stand off. I got fancy and made a cover for my driver board from the bottom of a PIBOW case.
Mine goes driver board > stand off > PIBOW spacer > PIBOW case bottom layer > stand off > Pi in identical PIBOW case. I hadn't originally done it that way and the full breadboard fit OK. It was tight but the ribbon cable reached OK. https://1drv.ms/f/s!AjOYwiwlwDtpgq9LUHdGiiRpn7dr2Q
If you skip installing those binding posts, you could probably just slide that edge under your display, maybe even bolt your display / stand too it? Then just put some rubber bumper feet on the bottom and skip having to use any wood at all. If its wide enough. Mine didn't work out that way, you'd have to look at the pictures to see why. The brackets holding my display up weren't wide enough for the breadboard to fit between them.

caperjack · 17 Apr 2018

A lot of work for sure ,something i was just thinking about doing and maybe one day i will get it done .

alphanumeric said:

One thing that can be tricky is running the ribbon cable down from the Pi to your Breakout board. Seeing as your Pi will be on the back of your display. I have double spacers / stand offs between my Pi and the display driver board so I had to trim the mounting plate for my breadboard to get it closer. That may not be as big an issue for you if you mount the Pi right on the back with just one stand off. I got fancy and made a cover for my driver board from the bottom of a PIBOW case.
Mine goes driver board > stand off > PIBOW spacer > PIBOW case bottom layer > stand off > Pi in identical PIBOW case. I hadn't originally done it that way and the full breadboard fit OK. It was tight but the ribbon cable reached OK. https://1drv.ms/f/s!AjOYwiwlwDtpgq9LUHdGiiRpn7dr2Q
If you skip installing those binding posts, you could probably just slide that edge under your display, maybe even bolt your display / stand too it? Then just put some rubber bumper feet on the bottom and skip having to use any wood at all. If its wide enough. Mine didn't work out that way, you'd have to look at the pictures to see why. The brackets holding my display up weren't wide enough for the breadboard to fit between them.