PiFace Problems

Keith, you are not alone. The 'documentation' with the piface is worse than useless. I particularly like the typo on page 2 of the 'instructions' (etc/ which should be /etc/) and that if the emulator fails (I can't get it to work – ends with 'segmentation fault') the 'instructions' that follow are, again, useless. I will get it working in the end, but no thanks to the fools at man.ac.uk. How difficult would it have been to provide basic instructions in the box? Good luck with it - I'll reply back when I've finished arm-wrestling with it and got it doing something (I have a job in mind).

... not sure if urls are allowed here - if they are, here's some documentation for piface ...

https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B-UAZ9CyJCLGQjJ3RDlqa2pqaDg/edit?pli=1

Thanks for the quick response...

There's "No such file or directory" spidev* in /dev

$ lsmod shows spi_bcm2708     4815     0

I note that the PiFaceDigital_Get_Started_140213v1documentation for the raspi-blacklist.conf file and $ sudo modprobe spi-bcm2708 shows a hyphen in the name while your message and lsmod show an _

I tried $ sudo modprobe with both the - and the _ but still no spidev

TIA

Hi

Not sure if appropriate but I downloaded new version of  WHEEZY came out dated 9th Feb and found that it fixed a few of the problems I had.

Its hard keeping up with these updates.

Feel the whole of the Raspberry Pi project suffers from this.

Are you sure you are using the latest version of Raspbian?

Also, have you tried updating the firmware on your Raspberry Pi? Follow the instructions here: https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update

modprobe translates the hypen to an underscore, I think. So it doesn't matter which.

sudo apt-get upgrade seems to have done the trick!

I didn't do the rpi-update but I will the next time I run into a mystery.

Thank you so much, Thomas and everyone on this list!

Hi Thomas

Many thanks for your posts. I have to put aside a day to do this so I'll let you know how I get on. My target is to get the PiFace working so my daughter can program it through Scratch to control a set of traffic lights (3 LEDs) when a Matchbox car approaches (reed switch and magnet on the car).

But I've got to get it going first!

Cheers

Keith

Hello All

I have just spent my Sunday morning trying to get this working again.

Using 512Mb Pi and Transcend 8Gb SD card:

1. Downloaded latest Raspian 2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian
2. Updated Firmware https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update
3. Followed instructions in http://www.element14.com/community/servlet/JiveServlet/previewBody/53057-102-1-267727/PiFaceDigital_Get_Started_140213v1.pdf
4. Did another sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

When I run the emulator it can see the PiFace but no LED's or relays change.

This is not getting my daughter very interested in computing.

Any help will be really apreciated.

Thanks

Keith

Hi Keith,

Does the board work when just using Python? Try opening a Python shell and talking to PiFace:

    $ python
    >>> import piface.pfio as p
    >>> p.init()
    >>> p.digital_write(1, 1)

What error does that produce?

Maybe a little late, but I fixed the spi permission issue by adding myself to the spiuser group.

Hi Thomas

I tried your code in a Python shell from a LXTerminal and from Python 2.7.3 Shell.

No errors were reported when I typed in each of the lines but I guess this was going to switch on an LED or relay? Neither happened.

Thanks for your help so far.

Keith

Hi Keith, did you ever get you PiFace to work?

I spent two days struggling with this.  I found it hard to find documentation and I could have saved myself two days of trouble-shooting had I just had access to a schematic.

My PiFace was shipped without a jumper on JP7.  The absence of JP7 disables the 5 V rail for the outputs so there was no lights, no relay click.  Adding JP7 made the PiFace work as advertised.

While I'm typing I may as well add that I'm disappointed that the designer of the PiFace didn't make the unused IO ports on the Raspberry Pi available on the board.  This limits what would have otherwise been a very nice addition to the Pi.

Dave

Hi Keith, did you ever get you PiFace to work?

I spent two days struggling with this.  I found it hard to find documentation and I could have saved myself two days of trouble-shooting had I just had access to a schematic.

My PiFace was shipped without a jumper on JP7.  The absence of JP7 disables the 5 V rail for the outputs so there was no lights, no relay click.  Adding JP7 made the PiFace work as advertised.

While I'm typing I may as well add that I'm disappointed that the designer of the PiFace didn't make the unused IO ports on the Raspberry Pi available on the board.  This limits what would have otherwise been a very nice addition to the Pi.

Dave

Hi Dave

No my PiFace is still not working and both of them have a jumper 7 installed.

Thanks anyway

Keith