Gertboard

[dan_in_sd]

Gert,

My 10 year old son and I appreciate all your efforts to get this worked out with Farnell. We ordered the RPi about 2 weeks ago and still have about 6 more weeks to go before it ships to us. We would like to order the Gertboard next for our 'Father and Son' project.

Cheers! And keep up the great work.


Dan
San Diego, USA

[reiuyi]

Modern flux and lead-free solder just doesn't smell the same though...

Don't worry about having to use newage solder; hobbyists are still allowed to use regular 60/40 like in the old days. The lead-free regulations are only for corporations. Most schools also still use that filthy old flux, they still have entire cupboards full of it most of the time

This reminds me lead-free solder is terrible to work with. I'm glad I don't have to use it all the time.

[DexterLB]

Are the schematics for the Gertboard available, and if not are there any plans to release them? Thanks

[southpaw]

can any of you kind souls advise me if i need a gertboard please,
what i would ideally like is a piece of hardware that i can attach to a pi, feed in maybe 6v or 12v and have control of the 6/12v output via software (if the hardware came with a software programme then all the better)
kids have a halloween project, a skull that spurts blood, my electrical skills are limited to occasional 12v automobile stuff so figured i would use a window washer motor but unsure how to interface this to the pi

any advice very welcome
mtia

[Gert van Loo]

Are the schematics for the Gertboard available, and if not are there any plans to release them? Thanks

They are freely available and attached to the end of the user manual.

[Gert van Loo]

can any of you kind souls advise me if i need a gertboard please,
what i would ideally like is a piece of hardware that i can attach to a pi, feed in maybe 6v or 12v and have control of the 6/12v output via software (if the hardware came with a software programme then all the better)
kids have a halloween project, a skull that spurts blood, my electrical skills are limited to occasional 12v automobile stuff so figured i would use a window washer motor but unsure how to interface this to the pi

any advice very welcome
mtia

The board has one big driver in the form of the motor controller. You can use that to switch on/off any device up to 48V and 4A!
Thee are six open collector output which can cope with your 6V or 12V but the are limited in current. The total current is max 500mA so you can have about 500/6 = 83mA per pin.

And no, you never need a Gertboard. The board is somewhat overkill as you would use only 25 % of it's features. You can build it all using your own logic and a lot of people do that using a flat cable plugged into a breadboard. On the other hand, it is has been proven and tested to work so you might save some money by not buying it, but you will not save time.

[gordon@drogon.net]

can any of you kind souls advise me if i need a gertboard please,
what i would ideally like is a piece of hardware that i can attach to a pi, feed in maybe 6v or 12v and have control of the 6/12v output via software (if the hardware came with a software programme then all the better)
kids have a halloween project, a skull that spurts blood, my electrical skills are limited to occasional 12v automobile stuff so figured i would use a window washer motor but unsure how to interface this to the pi

any advice very welcome
mtia

The Gertboard will work for you here - using one of the darlington driver outputs. you can feed 12v into the input pin from a car battery and the outputs will switch this to 0v.

It may be a bit overkill for just one little motor, and something like a PiFace is more compact and has mechanical relays which you may be more comfortable with, but the Gertboard is more flexible for many other projects IMO. (and both are the same price too, so get the Gertboard

Ah - quick edit - Just seen Gerts reply - Doh to me for forgetting the motor controller!!!

-Gordon

[kermitas]

Hello,

does reservation buttons at Element14 http://www.element14.com/community/groups/raspberry-pi works for you?

alexeames said here http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 16#p146416 that he used pre-order button ... but I have to be blind or something .

Thanks,
Arthur.

[Grumpy Mike]

I clicked on the notify me when in stock link. And a few weeks back I got an email from Farnell telling me it was now in stock. But non of the links worked.
I asked them what this "phantom email" was all about and just now I got an email saying the lik had changed to this:-
http://nz.element14.com/jsp/search/prod ... KU=2115337
The price looks more realistic as well.