Gertboard rev2 video

26th of March 2012 by liz

Here’s some video from Gert on the new revision of Gertboard, an expansion board for the Raspberry Pi which brings out the GPIO. There are some lovely demos of Gertboard enabling the Raspberry Pi to work with an analog slider controller and a motor here.

Apologies to Gert, who sent me this last week while I was offline; I only saw it today. The “next week” he mentions is, in fact, this week – hooray! A general rule for everyone: if you want to get in touch with me and it’s important, please email rather than PM me. (Famous last words before being buried in a ton of mail.)

Gert should be able to answer your questions below.

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eqooo, 6 minutes ago: Interfacing (DSI, CSI, I2C, etc.) • Re: HELP I2C and DS1307
I have rtc ds1307 module. the pins are GPIO 0 (SDA) and GPIO 1 (SCL) on RPi.
texy, 9 minutes ago: CSI camera module • Re: Using VLC to stream from the camera…
LeoWhite wrote:Well I've now gotten HLS working! So my new stream is at http://109.145.254.207:8091/streaming/stream.m3u8and I launched it usingCode: raspivid -o - -w 920 -h 540 -t 9999999 | vlc -v -I "dummy" stream:///dev/stdin :sout="#std{access=livehttp{seglen=10,delsegs=true,numsegs=5, index=/var/www/streaming/stream.m3u8, index-url=http://109.145.254.207/streaming/stream-########.ts}, mux=ts{use-key-frames}, dst=/var/www/streaming/stream-########.ts}" :demux=h264Which is…
FTrevorGowen, 11 minutes ago: New Linux user help • Re: aptitude errors setting up zoneminder
Screenshot appears to be missing. Did you "sudo apt-get update" (and, maybe, also "sudo apt-get upgrade") or the equivalent aptitude options. (Although I can use both apt and aptitude I tend to use their gui-based cousin synaptic which has additional…
joan, 12 minutes ago: Interfacing (DSI, CSI, I2C, etc.) • Re: HELP I2C and DS1307
How is the I2C device connected to the Pi. Which wires to which pins/gpios?
shaunuk, 13 minutes ago: Automation, sensing and robotics • Re: RPi RC Car Part 1 -…
Only 10, thats good.Ill try and put a tutorial together and put some code up on the net (or at least some well commented code) for people to have a go.It now has a Camera and is pretty quick out…

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114 comments

Rick on
March 26, 2012 at 12:55 pm said:

Thats truly awesome. I was initially thinking “Huh, this’ll be great for an automated garage door” but you could do so much more!

Comment ↓
- Adam Sharples on
  May 27, 2012 at 6:29 pm said:
  
  I agree I think this would be cool for a dolly cam. It provides use with loads of new ways to use the pi.
  
  Comment ↓
cnxsoft on
March 26, 2012 at 1:11 pm said:

That’s a neat demo ! Thanks.

Comment ↓
mole125 on
March 26, 2012 at 1:12 pm said:

Great news, I think, couldn’t find any headphones so had to use Googles automatic captions, some of the details may have got lost in translation:

hello i would like to introduce you a
good board revision cheap
chetu uses the boards which will go into
final production
board is just like people connected to
it that came to mark the party
over here
but number of changes made to the board
there was a lot of adl composed of yet
resistance and comes as the v_ chip
alban place in my seat so that’s a
beautiful children
and the pink has been replaced by that
logic which is more compatible to the
other email photo
i thought of the cup push buttons as
buchanan could
and the reason the walls of his p_r_
interface your ido expand them
misty eyed interface that has been
replaced the now we have to you choose
to get ones analog-to-digital love’s
been good unwelcome filter
both two channels
so i think she reviewed the capabilities
of the sport
i saw again with the on the east given
the abuse
i’m only twenty five billion desire
because need a lot more
signals for the olympic faces
and out as much pakistan
the shows you’ve got to take a bit to
get the board
the next thing they cheer you other push
buttons
the push buttons
connected to push buttons and defaulting
put his height using the pull-up
resistor throughout the park
fish impression push button approved the
signal it which is shown here by that
the book going down the street
and of course that’s about it
illness like well
which you can push
so you see that direct in good faith
doesn’t we’re off to the park
and of course you can press both buttons
no land for peace and love you want
next we’re going to show you use the
analog to digital converter
i cannot show you the digital converter
yet for that you have to look at it
picture on the website
and the report form this beautiful take
you to choose ubi
due to the i’m looking for the trip
on a scope screen that’s a beautiful
square wave especially triangulation
navigate through the end looking good
would be happy to serve
horizontal bar
which shared here the and looks for
voltage coming in over these
voltage this regularly system
sort of free increase the voltage the
broncos publication nutri decreasing
guys to get the correct
and there’s no cheating he’d really
shows you
be near relation between back a-level
which
sigma brett by the rock reply
technology see very little genome
increasingly
great maxim expertise pick three
parachuting into motion
you see the motor before the previously
here but this time
connected up be roughly part posted
modulation uproot means that i can
control
the speed of the motor
what you see happening here
haha along fulfilled modulation output
but like playing with the for killing
other people would you be able to hike
and use it not going to change the
speech
but also the direction
so we still have
speed control in both directions
stock on certain yahoo reaction yeah
filtered
but i’m very too
transmit
are speaking to you what
characterisation commuters character
from robin part of the other email and
back again
and the last thing that she really is
how you can combine some of these
functions of what’s sort of taking it
take to be an or control
and using it to control the speed of the
motor
and reverse again because in the
position stuff
so the border going production
next week
so i hope to have about thousand bortz
back in about four five weeks time
and the plan is a bit unusual for moron
reply dot calm sales like

Comment ↓
- liz on
  March 26, 2012 at 1:15 pm said:
  
  Gert has a very charming Dutch accent, which automatic captioning finds even harder than a bog-standard British one… (Although I am sure he could be talked into parachuting into motion if you ask nicely enough!)
  
  Comment ↓
- Mark B on
  March 26, 2012 at 1:16 pm said:
  
  LOL
  
  Comment ↓
Rick van Loo on
March 26, 2012 at 1:19 pm said:

Great board!, Loads of possibilities in this board.
This in combination with the Raspberry Pi is the cheapest way to get interaction between software and I/O hardware.
If the Arduino software get’s released for this it’s also easy. Can’t wait to control my own written software with knobs and sliders.
Would love to buy a board, but I don’t have a Raspberry Pi already, I don’t even know when I will get one.

Comment ↓
John Sousa on
March 26, 2012 at 1:33 pm said:

I take it that with that microcontroller and additional electronics this will actually cost more than the Pi?

Comment ↓
- Chris Rowland on
  March 26, 2012 at 1:47 pm said:
  
  AIUI Gert will only be selling the unpopulated boards, leaving the user to get the components they require.for their project. The user will not need to get components they don’t need so if they don’t need the microcontroller they don’t need to buy it.
  
  Comment ↓
  - liz on
    March 26, 2012 at 1:52 pm said:
    
    Exactly right.
    
    Comment ↓
    - John Sousa on
      March 26, 2012 at 1:57 pm said:
      
      Thanks, but Liz you were saying on Twitter this came in kit form, so I thought everything was included – just not soldered in.
      
      So is this only going to be sold as PCB only?
      
      Comment ↓
      - liz on
        March 26, 2012 at 2:01 pm said:
        
        I’m not sure what Gert’s plans are: we are hoping to be able to provide the board as a bare PCB plus a parts kit, or just as the PCB itself. The parts kit is a bit fiddly for Gert to get together himself, but we at the Foundation are looking at ways to help him out at the moment.
      - Burngate on
        March 26, 2012 at 4:51 pm said:
        
        You’ve got a new girl starting soon in the shop. Get her to put the kits together – it would be a good intro to hardware, and would beat stamp-licking.
      - Kevka on
        March 27, 2012 at 8:55 am said:
        
        @Burngate: Use sockets for the ICs if someone does not have any experience with soldering she will probably apply heat for a little too long, with passive components that should be less of a problem.
    - capt jack harkness on
      March 27, 2012 at 3:51 pm said:
      
      >we are hoping to be able to provide the board as a >bare PCB plus a parts kit, or just as the PCB itself.
      
      This sounds right.
      
      Some geeks just need the PCB because they have parts or know where to get them while other people wouldnt even know where to get some.
      
      The idea I think is to make sure that mom or dad who are not geeks can still buy the kit without having much more knowledge than the kids.
      
      Comment ↓
      - Zeph on
        March 27, 2012 at 8:49 pm said:
        
        Another option is to set up a saved public Bill of Materials for the board at some electronic suppliers (eg: Mouser). Then you can buy the PCB, follow a link, and automatically have your shopping cart filled out for you (you can then edit, or add other thiings you want, before checking out). Some Do It Yourself projects do this when they don’t want to bother keeping the parts in stock themselves.
        
        In fact, please do this even if you do offer a parts kit!
Lynbarn on
March 26, 2012 at 1:44 pm said:

A sliding controller (could be rotating), flashing lights, and a motorised sprocket – add a battery and it’s all that is needed to convert a pushbike into an electric Raspberry Pi-cycle! It certainly shows how the ‘Pi can be used to control all manner of external devices. Dank u wel, Gert!

Comment ↓
jaygee on
March 26, 2012 at 1:45 pm said:

This looks good. I really missed the I/O ports, including ADC/DAC on the BBC micro when moving to PCs. The Pi aims to bring much of the ethos of the Beeb to a new generation (at a better price point!) and this board will now add the ports as an option for those who want them.

Looks like it might even overtake delivery of the Pi! I have been following since when it was expected by Christmas but despite early rising on 29th I missed the first batches and I hope the ethernet connector and CE testing issues will soon be resolved and allow enough production to provide rapid deliveries. Is there a price for Gertboard yet? (Apologies if this is posted elsewhere.)

Comment ↓
GordonH on
March 26, 2012 at 1:51 pm said:

My soldering iron is poised and waiting…

Comment ↓
smartybones on
March 26, 2012 at 2:08 pm said:

awesome work on the Gertboard, i will be getting one of these to compliment my Pi and incorporate it into my pi case design.

Its perfect for the development of robotic projects without all the messing about of developing the interface.first. That can all be done later once the IO requirements are finalized.

in the past, I have got fed up having to re-design and remake interfaces to accommodate changes in functions.

Comment ↓
geeus on
March 26, 2012 at 2:14 pm said:

That is very very cool. Do you know how much it will be retailing for and can you supply an additional parts list so i can source them ahead of time. (mmmm Raspberry Pi powered robotic internet kiosk) no need to leave your seat just whistle and it arrives.(or maybe not)
regards Gee

Comment ↓
Barnaby on
March 26, 2012 at 2:36 pm said:

Yay for ADC and DAC!

Comment ↓
- Gert on
  March 26, 2012 at 9:34 pm said:
  
  Picture of an example DAC output pattern is here:
  http://img803.imageshack.us/img803/7035/dac.jpg
  
  Comment ↓
pluggster on
March 26, 2012 at 3:00 pm said:

Thats sooo cool

Comment ↓
MuddyDogs on
March 26, 2012 at 3:27 pm said:

That is soooo great – can’t wait to get an RPI and a Gertboard and start playing. So many projects, so little time Hopefully there won’t be quite the stampede that we saw for the RPI.

Bare PCBs or Kits would be great. I know Health & Safety probably won’t allow it, but wouldn’t it be great if kids in school could build the Gertboard for themselves, hook it up so a RPI and see something THEY built working. Awesome!

Comment ↓
- Abishur on
  March 26, 2012 at 6:43 pm said:
  
  Liz made the following statement a little up the page
  
  “I’m not sure what Gert’s plans are: we are hoping to be able to provide the board as a bare PCB plus a parts kit, or just as the PCB itself. The parts kit is a bit fiddly for Gert to get together himself, but we at the Foundation are looking at ways to help him out at the moment.” (End of Liz’s quote)
  
  Comment ↓
Jay Bhagat on
March 26, 2012 at 3:42 pm said:

You could scrub through a media file with the variable resistor!

Comment ↓
- Mark Baldridge on
  March 27, 2012 at 2:33 am said:
  
  Yes!!!
  
  Comment ↓
tbar on
March 26, 2012 at 4:02 pm said:

Please, oh please, consider a version with everything soldered in! I suck at using a soldering iron but would love to play with such a device…
Pretty please with sugar on top?

Comment ↓
- andyfrommk on
  March 26, 2012 at 9:09 pm said:
  
  I also suck at using a soldering iron but I intend to get a GertBoard to learn soldering
  
  Comment ↓
- Gert on
  March 26, 2012 at 9:38 pm said:
  
  Thinking about that. For that I first have to do a new PCB version which is more suited for automated assembly. The production volume will always be much lower then the Pi so it will remain relative expensive.
  
  Comment ↓
- David on
  March 27, 2012 at 10:21 pm said:
  
  Why not find a friendly neighbourhood proto-geek and get them to build it for you…?
  
  The Gertboard is awesome. Just what is needed to allow the inquisitive to enable their programming in the hardware world.
  
  Comment ↓
fulburncams on
March 26, 2012 at 4:58 pm said:

Hi, Great Work, Is the source code (RasPI not ATMEL-AVR) available that Gert used ? In the PWM example is it using the RasPi PWM or one of the ATMEL-AVR micro channels. Many thanks
Steve

Comment ↓
- Gert on
  March 26, 2012 at 9:32 pm said:
  
  Working on giving the source code out. I just came home (10:30 pm) so it won’t be today.
  
  Comment ↓
- Gert on
  March 26, 2012 at 9:41 pm said:
  
  PWM is using the Raspi PWM generator set to 10-bit precision using one output channel only. It also uses a GPIO output and with the two I can do speed and direction control.
  
  Comment ↓
ChrisMc on
March 26, 2012 at 5:14 pm said:

If this is cheap enough ( I am fairly sure the guys here aren’t out to rob us ;o) ) it could be a game changer.

I look forward to building my niece and nephew tracked weapons of destruction and education.

Comment ↓
- Gert on
  March 26, 2012 at 9:43 pm said:
  
  The motor driver is rather expensive as it can do 48V @ 4A. But you can build the board without.
  
  Comment ↓
alexeames on
March 26, 2012 at 5:14 pm said:

That looks great Gert. Well done.

Comment ↓
TheCrazyInventor on
March 26, 2012 at 5:30 pm said:

“The pic has been replaced by an atmel chip…”.
Darn, I don’t have an AVR programmer at home.
Meh, can’t satisfy everyone, of course…

Comment ↓
- Lars T. Hansen on
  March 26, 2012 at 7:23 pm said:
  
  The RPi has SPI at the GPIO pins.
  You can program an atmel chip by using SPI via exisisting Linux tools.
  It is possible that the tools need to undergo some C hacking to use the on-board RPi SPI interface instead of a hw tool connected via rs232. Debian has packages for the tools, and i’m sure Fedora has a rpm packages too.
  
  Comment ↓
- Gert on
  March 26, 2012 at 9:49 pm said:
  
  I have seen comment from people out there who are looking at porting the whole AVR GNU environment (including debugger) to the Pi. The debug wire might need low-level bit banging so it will be a bit slow. but I am sure it can be done using a GPIO pin. I asked ATmel for support but I don’t think they understood me when I mentioned “Gertboard”, “AVR” and “Pie” in one sentence. I will repeat the request after a number of Gertboards have gone out.
  
  Comment ↓
  - DennisMe on
    March 27, 2012 at 6:53 am said:
    
    I have a tuxgraphics AVR (stk 500 compatible) programmer myself (built from a kit).
    Guido Socher, the guy who makes these has a lot of AVR and Linux experience. I can’t be sure, but this sounds like something he just might be interested in helping out with. Why not contact him and ask.
    
    Comment ↓
  - TheCrazyInventor on
    March 27, 2012 at 10:20 am said:
    
    Oh, right… I forgot that AVR chips are programmed via the SPI pins. That should make things a lot easier. Thank you for your reply.
    
    Comment ↓
Konstantins on
March 26, 2012 at 5:43 pm said:

Some FAQ could ease questioning in comments

How will end user access the board – scripts, compiled, libraries?

What are the requirements towards the R.Pi OS?

How the performance of pins scales to Frequency of RaspberryPi? Is it possible to drive something near RP processor clock? Is there any obstacles like script interpretation for microsecond precision operations?

Please scare a bit on what it is like to use “raw” R.Pi pins vs Gertboard What it is able to do different / easier / quicker?

Offtopic: Have you thought of continuing with more modular (maybe stackable) designs? For instance – a “simple” serial communication board for Arduino, minimized for cost effectiveness – I’m sure Arduino folks would consume that in volume
Or a serial to parallel expansion board, to drive/listen, say – 200 pins Now I’m kidding, but as someone said – there’s part joke in an every joke

Comment ↓
- Konstantins on
  March 26, 2012 at 5:57 pm said:
  
  Sure, I don’t mean that anyone has to prove this board – it’s a great idea, it’s just that it is spoken about a lot, but it’s hard to imagine for many readers what it exactly is in practice.
  
  Comment ↓
  - Jaseman on
    March 26, 2012 at 7:34 pm said:
    
    It’s a torture device. Just attach a circular saw onto the motor and some electrodes your victims extremeties. Pain can be controlled with the sliding voltage controller.
    
    Comment ↓
    - Abishur on
      March 26, 2012 at 7:44 pm said:
      
      Wow I can just see something like this being in a saw movie. Every inch you move your hand towards the key moves the slider increasing the voltage and bringing the circular saw closer. Bleh, never could stomach those movies!
      
      Comment ↓
    - Konstantins on
      March 26, 2012 at 8:07 pm said:
      
      I’m afraid more like sado-mazo – I’m trying to make a stepper controller work properly at this very moment.
      If this device will improve my ability to find this kind of “pleasure” in this world, a circular saw will be an option
      
      Comment ↓
meltwater on
March 26, 2012 at 7:26 pm said:

Well done Gert, it is looking brilliant!

Comment ↓
David Hardingham on
March 26, 2012 at 7:56 pm said:

Genius!

Comment ↓
bob_binz on
March 26, 2012 at 8:09 pm said:

That’s fantastic, good job! Out of interest, are you currently coding for it in C or Python (or other)??

Comment ↓
- Gert on
  March 26, 2012 at 9:51 pm said:
  
  C
  (Shortets answer I have ever given)
  
  Comment ↓
Shailesh Patel on
March 26, 2012 at 8:39 pm said:

This is amazing. Cannot wait to get one. Takes me back to my old engineering days and playing with electronic kits as a child. Soldering iron at the ready…

Comment ↓
mrasp on
March 26, 2012 at 8:55 pm said:

This looks like a great board that will be essential for anybody who wants to do stuff with the RasPi (I hope you can make more than 10k of these!!). Can anybody more informed than myself (probably everybody) explain why this will be better than using an existing technology such as arduino or PICAXE?

Comment ↓
Michelle Q. on
March 26, 2012 at 9:44 pm said:

Pure Dead Brilliant! Cannot wait to work with this!
Thank you for the demo!

Comment ↓
Andrew Waite on
March 26, 2012 at 10:12 pm said:

Great job !

The electric motor even sounds like the racing car in Acornsoft Revs.

Comment ↓
mickey on
March 26, 2012 at 10:19 pm said:

Seriously I just don’t get the value in this raspberry pi. I’ve been working out costs and the board is like £30 with shipping and it’s another £30 for a starter kit with power supply and 4gb ram so thats £60 before you even start. I know its small but £60 for 12 year old tech doesn’t seem that cheap to me. Also all this talk about it’s going to be good for schools. Who is actually going to support it, it’s linux, people don’t like linux its too hard, people like Windows or Mac, teachers are not going to understand how to even use this thing and they will end up having to pay some greeky techie to come in and help them set it up which will cost more money. I think this really is a hobbist market, for geeks who love linux and for small embedded systems but I cant see it mainstream in schools to be honest. All IMO of course:)

Comment ↓
- Gert on
  March 27, 2012 at 12:11 am said:
  
  I don’t even know where to start contradicting that statement. First it is much less then £60 but apart from that, even £60 is not much for a fully working computer. (Albeit it still is a bit slow). Also it is not 12 year old tech, it is state of the art technology. The speed is that of a 6 year old CPU. I am well aware that a user who will run the latest software, (which is so bloated nowadays that a 3GHz computer with 8Gbyte of memory is struggling) will find it lacking. In fact I am waiting for the first Pi’s to come into the hands of naive users and get complaints that its does not meet their expectations, which will be just too high for a $35 computer. But for thousands of others who have not much money and a bit more patience it will give them a personal computer with a fully working OS and all the tools they want.
  As to ‘not fit for schools’. The foundation has been, and still is, inundated with request from schools. Yes lots of those schools are in poor countries, but there are also English schools from all possible categories. So obviously the schools themselves contradict your opinion.
  As for Linux, I suggest you read the comments of all parents who had the guts to give their children Linux computers (yes, I am one). These children are happy because they work, are stable and much less frightened of viruses. My daughter knows better how to download and install new apps then I do.
  (How do you make a Linux computer emulate windows: You start a cron job which randomly crashes it )
  
  Comment ↓
  - Stuart Richards on
    March 27, 2012 at 4:35 am said:
    
    From the FAQ: “Overall real world performance is something like a 300MHz Pentium 2″
    
    That’s actually the speed of a CPU from not 6, not 12, but 15 years ago.
    
    Comment ↓
    - JamesH on
      March 27, 2012 at 9:19 am said:
      
      Although the GPU is absolutely state of the art – could a 15 year old device encode/decode 1080p video? Its a 24GFlop device….
      You need to take the two parts of the chip in to account.
      And of course, I had a P2 device all those years ago – and its worked fine for all the tasks I needed to use it for.
      
      Comment ↓
      - John Sousa on
        March 27, 2012 at 11:09 am said:
        
        Isn’t the encoding functionality of the GPU kind of locked away for the time being and inaccessible from Linux?
        
        I also recall you saying that it will only work for an upcoming camera module, you can’t just feed it any video stream.
        
        Or has this changed now?
      - Stuart Richards on
        March 27, 2012 at 12:19 pm said:
        
        I’m hoping the GPU will eventually be fully reverse engineered so that it can be used for any purpose, not just those that Broadcom allow. That’s where the real power of the Raspberry Pi resides.
      - John Sousa on
        March 27, 2012 at 1:20 pm said:
        
        Ya, reverse engineering would be good, and something like OpenCL so that GPU applications wouldn’t be locked to this platform.
        
        But I think that’s years away. Right now we don’t even have 2D X Window acceleration.
      - JamesH on
        March 27, 2012 at 1:23 pm said:
        
        @John Sousa. Correct, encode needs a more expensive licence so has been omitted at this stage. I *guessing* that once a camera module is available, the encoder will need to be present,. That *might* mean it is then available elsewhere other than the camera.
        
        @Stuart. Good luck with that reverse engineer. 1000 man years of work to replicate…(by people who knew the 18k register map)
- DennisMe on
  March 27, 2012 at 7:06 am said:
  
  I heard a nice one a while back:
  “Sure, linux is user-friendly… It just chooses its friends carefully!”
  Mickey, I agree with part of what you have to say, Linux has a bad rep. But look at something like Android, or Macos, they are 95% based on BSD / linux /gnu tools. Its just icing, the guts of linux are really indestructible, so there is a LOT of potential there. Usability will improve, it has improved so much in the last five years that I wouldn’t consider going back to windows (without my boss forcing me to). At home the kids even use a Linux laptop with 256MB, never skips a beat!
  
  Comment ↓
  - David on
    March 28, 2012 at 12:33 pm said:
    
    And, although the current interest is focussed on Linux, there is no reason why other operating systems can’t run on the Raspberry PI. In the forums there are rumors of RiscOS, and I would be very surprised if some enterprising teacher out there didn’t come up with an OS especially designed to make the teaching aspects of the RPI as accessible as possible.
    
    Comment ↓
    - liz on
      March 28, 2012 at 12:39 pm said:
      
      We expect to see RiscOS very soon; we really want to see it on the Raspberry Pi too. I was just talking to Ben and Steve, a couple of the RiscOS devs at the weekend (they’re *ever* so nice), and things seem to be going well, but they are waiting on someone else on the RiscOS project to hand over a chunk of code before they can proceed any further.
      
      Comment ↓
Ceno on
March 26, 2012 at 10:27 pm said:

This is a wonderful addition to the raspberry pi. Very exciting stuff.

There’s one thing I didn’t get. Is the ADC controlled by the GPIO pins of the pi, or is it only the atmel chip that has access? What would be the maximum sampling frequency achievable by the system?

Comment ↓
- Gert on
  March 26, 2012 at 11:46 pm said:
  
  Nothing is done by the Atmel chip in that demo. Everything you see is the Raspberry-Pi. But it is a bit more then GPIO. There is a Pulse Width Modulator (PWM) driving the motor controller and a SPI interface talking to the ADC and the DAC. Both are hardware block inside the BCM2835. So the Pi is not very busy in that program. In fact I had to add lots of “for (w=0; w<10000; w++) ; " delays to tune it a bit. (I did not want to use system sleep calls to keep the code simple).
  
  Comment ↓
JimH on
March 27, 2012 at 1:34 am said:

This looks awesome! We are looking forward to trying out the RasPi for our students (university) and I can see lots of project opportunities that include the Gertboard. Not just the standard “build a hunter killer robot with switches to set to evil / not evil”, but actual learning projects like data collection and responsive device control. Good work!

And I assume “PM” means “prime minister”?

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- Abishur on
  March 27, 2012 at 3:11 am said:
  
  … okay I intellectually know you’re most likely making a joke, but I can’t help but make sure that you know that PM (in this case) means private message
  
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  - DennisMe on
    March 27, 2012 at 7:11 am said:
    
    Mark my words; Another ten years or so and common people like us will have to go via the PM to get to speak to Sir Eben and Lady Liz!
    
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    - ashley basil on
      March 27, 2012 at 6:00 pm said:
      
      And pay £250,000 !
      
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Vindicator on
March 27, 2012 at 2:12 am said:

great job Gert thank you for you work It will add a whole new level to the Raspberrpi in the near future we hope

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heppg on
March 27, 2012 at 6:09 am said:

Hello, great board ! Could you give details on which ADC is used, and about the max concersion rate achievable ?
Thank you.

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- John Sousa on
  March 27, 2012 at 9:28 am said:
  
  I think the idea is you can use whatever 8 pin, SPI compatible ADC you want. Maybe something like the 12bit 100kSPS Microchip MCP3201.
  
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Andre_P on
March 27, 2012 at 9:03 am said:

Hi All,
Just a small question, will the push buttons need to be debounced in software or is there debounce circuitry on board ?

Thanks

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- Gert on
  March 28, 2012 at 4:29 pm said:
  
  Raw input, you have to debounce them yourselves.
  I was planning to keep it as an educational exercise for pupils to find out by themselves
  
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Rebel on
March 27, 2012 at 9:58 am said:

Good work Gert. Thanks.
I have 2 questions:
- How many motors can this driver control (with PWM and reverse)?
- How many PWM outputs are in the Gertboard?

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- John Sousa on
  March 27, 2012 at 10:38 am said:
  
  The Gertboard uses the PWMs in the Raspberry Pi, there’s two outputs.
  
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- Gert on
  March 28, 2012 at 4:30 pm said:
  
  There is only one motor controller on the board. The Raspberry Pi has 2 PWM channels but alas only one comes out on the GPIOs brought to the header.
  
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Thijs Janssen on
March 27, 2012 at 12:09 pm said:

You are writing LUL on your screen, which means DICK in my language… :S

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- liz on
  March 27, 2012 at 12:10 pm said:
  
  You know Gert is Dutch too, don’t you?
  
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Thomas Doubty on
March 27, 2012 at 12:39 pm said:

So pretty much the Raspberry Pi is an expensive RS232TTL level convertor in this video and pretty redundant.

As for the comment ‘This in combination with the Raspberry Pi is the cheapest way to get interaction between software and I/O hardware.’

Not at all the cheapest solution, and potentially completely token if it is attempting to tunnel GPIO via the UART. This board will struggle to switch 8 GPIO at 10khz, particularly as the native microcontroller is capable of much, much more.

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- liz on
  March 27, 2012 at 12:41 pm said:
  
  Blimey – there’s some nominative determinism for you.
  
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  - Billy Ebullient on
    March 27, 2012 at 1:36 pm said:
    
    I think it’s awesome! What a fantastic piece of kit! The possibilities are endless!
    
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    - liz on
      March 27, 2012 at 2:14 pm said:
      
      ROTFL. Seriously.
      
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- JamesH on
  March 27, 2012 at 1:24 pm said:
  
  Methinks its probably not for you then, since you obviously haven’t bothered to read ANYTHING about the project.
  
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- Gert on
  March 27, 2012 at 4:00 pm said:
  
  Interesting how you seem to have come to a very definitive opinion based on a totally wrong assumption.
  There is no UART tunneling going on anywhere. All I said was that there was no demo for the Atmel chip yet, but that I have tested the UART connection between the Raspi and the ATMega328 chip.
  Furthermore is extremely difficult to reliable switch a GPIO at 10 KHz from a standard Linux OS, unless of course you use build-in system hardware like the demo does, with the SPI and PWM.
  
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  - Thomas Doubty on
    March 27, 2012 at 11:30 pm said:
    
    The demo is fine as an oft seen microcontroller motor control project but it seems a little odd that before general availability that the Pi needs a crutch slave microcontroller to provide basic microcontroller functionality that ought to be native. If a $1 retail microcontroller like the MSP430G2553 can dance merry rings around the Pi for uc functionality it is not on cost grounds. The Pi seems to have pursued Linux ends at the expense (ommision? exclusion?) of basic uc function.
    
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    - Jason Ozolins on
      March 28, 2012 at 4:20 am said:
      
      Pretty sure in one of the postings about board layout it was mentioned that to bring out all the GPIOs from the BCM2835 BGA, they would have needed to use buried vias, which would have pushed the board price up for every board sold. Besides which, to then get the predictability of a uC, you’d need to do fancy stuff with Linux real-time scheduling. Fine for a highly-engineered and cost constrained embedded system, but maybe for the people/students who are doing embedded stuff it makes more sense to just write a bit of code to run on a little uC on the Gertboard. You still need the extra board to bring the I/O out to a reasonable form factor and add some chunky buffers, so why not put a cheap uC on it as well?
      
      Also, wasn’t it always the case that uC functionality was a lower priority for the Foundation than to create a self-hosting machine for students to learn about real programming? Maybe your priorities just aren’t a perfect match for the RPi.
      
      [I've got a super-cheap MSP430 board for uC fiddling btw - I just don't see it as a big problem that the RPi won't completely replace it!]
      
      Comment ↓
    - JamesH on
      March 28, 2012 at 8:36 am said:
      
      Thomas, why must the microcontroller be native? What that got to do with a low cost Linux machine for teaching programming? This Raspi is NOT intended to be a device for uC programming, but in general for higher level stuff. It just so happens it it also be used for lower level stuff as well. Adding a uC to the basic board would be a waste of money for the vast majority of purchasers. It’s much more cost effective to provide that sort of functionality using a daughter board, that way the few people who need it have it without affecting the cost for the majority. So yes, we have pursued Linux at the expense of uC, because that would be a different product entirely. Arduino anyone?
      
      Comment ↓
capt jack harkness on
March 27, 2012 at 3:46 pm said:

Im 100% behind the project and especially the educational component (I wont lie that I want some for TV-Computer use as well) and Gertboard looks very promising but I am curious as to the educational approach that will be used (for different age groups, different goals and approaches I presume).

As great as the potential for learning can be, the presentation of this as well as experiments and learning and fun has to be well blended especially with youths who have very little hands on approach to anything these days. Try to find a kid who has made a go-kart, or stilts or tennis ball bazookas or even used hammer and nail to build anything. Its getting harder and harder…

Who is working on that side of the project and could we get more info about the educational approach of the Pi and Gertboard?

My friends are all drooling at the idea of getting their 4th portable phone in the past 5yrs while the anticipation of finally getting the Pi is starting to get to me. Watching these vids isnt helping me much.

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- liz on
  March 27, 2012 at 3:48 pm said:
  
  Check out Computing at Schools, who are doing a lot of work here. There are also about six books in the works with various publishers, aimed at the educational market. We’re also producing our own learning materials (we’ve got a new employee, Myra, who is working on educational coordination). There’s also software in the works, but I’m not able to announce anything by name until it’s done for contractual reasons. We’ll be splashing all this stuff with our educational launch later in the year.
  
  When Myra’s had a little more time to settle in at the Foundation, I’ll get her to write a blog post about what’s going on at the educational end of things.
  
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  - Jason Ozolins on
    March 28, 2012 at 4:07 am said:
    
    For “settling in at the Foundation” I can’t help thinking “getting used to the idea that comment trolls will misconstrue everything you write”. If only there was a posting CAPTCHA that could somehow detect patience, tolerance and forbearance in human beings, rather than the ability to read some wibbly digitized text.
    
    Stay strong Liz and Myra and the whole ‘Pi crew…
    
    Comment ↓
Spike on
March 27, 2012 at 8:57 pm said:

That’s great. Now I have somewhere to fit the flux capacitor

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Problemchild on
March 27, 2012 at 10:54 pm said:

Good move Gert, i’m far from an AVR Fan boy but the use of one means that you can gain access to the Arduino IDE which really should be moderately easy to port on to the ‘Pi. This was I chose why I created the “Piduino” so you could simply use the IDE/Sketches/Hardware/ Expansion shields etc that folk have already created for the Arduino.

http://shropshirelug.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/piduino-expansion-for-the-raspberrypi-8/

As we all know it’s the software that takes the time to create, and ther’s no reason to re-invent the wheel. Best of luck with the board … John A

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riFFraFF on
March 28, 2012 at 7:42 am said:

I’m really impressed! Addtition of Atmel controller and DAC/ADC is a real plus. But what I’m really impressed with is that BIG SEXY MOTOR with the MASSIVE SPROCKET Gert keeps flaunting about.

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icecube_media on
March 28, 2012 at 11:08 am said:

this is good, i like the way you make the interface between the voltage on monitor showing with while moving the rod , just have a query you using Atmel, but this can be done by the pic as well, and why not to have one controller which can use and anaolog to digital and digital to analog as well. but i like the concept. embedded rocks, in every field now.

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Xenna on
March 28, 2012 at 11:29 am said:

I love it. It’s a great expansion option for the Pi. But… I’ve been doing some soldering lately, enough to know that I want to do as little of it as possible. So my money goes to the German TinkerForge guys. They have a modular setup that you can control over USB and they plan to make the software drivers (Python) work on the RaspPi. I doubt if the Gertboard option is going to be much cheaper, but it’s definitely going to be much more work.

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- liz on
  March 28, 2012 at 11:32 am said:
  
  I think that even if Gert doesn’t make populated versions available, there should be enough people putting them together and selling them on eBay etc. that you’ll be able to get one – and it’s a nice way for a student, say, or an enthusiastic kid to make a bit of extra money.
  
  Comment ↓
  - Xenna on
    March 29, 2012 at 1:22 pm said:
    
    That’s a good idea, Liz. If you guys had gone this route with the Raspi maybe we would have had them in our hands. That and you could have saved the British economy by starting up a pie baking cottage industry
    
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- Leon Van Staden on
  March 28, 2012 at 12:00 pm said:
  
  Awesome!
  
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Rishabh Dangwal on
March 28, 2012 at 1:54 pm said:

Wow..just wow..you gave me some awesome ideas ) Just release it..please

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monkeyhybrid on
March 29, 2012 at 12:05 am said:

Looks good!

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SimonEdwards on
April 2, 2012 at 5:54 pm said:

Where do you buy the GertBoard v2 ?

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dan mcg on
April 9, 2012 at 10:12 pm said:

Where can i purchase or preorder?

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Russell on
June 23, 2012 at 5:08 pm said:

Liz, any news of when the Gertboard will be on the market?

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Beach on
July 2, 2012 at 6:05 pm said:

Looks awesome Gert

Would it be possible to connect a PCI (TV-card) to the raspberry through the GPIO interface somehow?

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Scott on
July 4, 2012 at 10:37 am said:

Did I miss the Gertboard? I’ve tried to keep looking for the announcement but pessimism is beginning to creep in.

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Andrew Henson on
July 5, 2012 at 6:33 pm said:

Is there a waiting list I can join so I can order a Gertboard when it becomes available?

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Jeff Parker on
July 8, 2012 at 12:39 pm said:

Any news on a release date for either a fully built card or a kit of some form. I can’t wait as I am running out of breadboard and prototype boards for interfaces and other projects.

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Andrew Henson on
July 11, 2012 at 1:34 am said:

I searched Tandy online for the Gert board and found a listing for a ready made board and a kit version.

http://www.tandyonline.co.uk/electronics/kits.html

Both items are out of stock, you can register interest tandy will email when the items are in stock.

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Andrew on
September 20, 2012 at 1:01 am said:

What am I missing? You can already do all of that with just the arduino. Why do you need the Pi interfaced to this?

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