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Gertduino vs Gertboard vs Motor Controller

Former Member

I'm feeling a bit in over my head and would love some suggestions. My kids and I are interested in learning electronics and especially controlling real world things with computer programs (Motors, solenoids, LEDs, etc etc.) We've been doing things with Scratch and Lego WeDo but we want to take it up a notch both in terms of programming and physical elements. I have a little programming experience but no electronics experience.

 

Without doing a lot of research I ordered a Raspberry Pi thinking it could directly control things, but now am realizing I need some sort of shield/controller/board etc to do this correctly. I'm a little overwhelmed by all the cobblers/shields/duinos/controllers available, especially since I'm not even sure exactly what specific projects we'll be doing. I wonder if there's a good starter kit for Pi, similar to this that will get us going, that includes components and a manual.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Starter-Official-170-page-Projects/dp/B009UKZV0A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386639898&sr=8-1&keywords=arduino+kits

 

I'm not opposed to buying a Gertduino if that's what I need (Did Gertduinos supplant Gertboards?), but that still doesn't help me as far as components and tutorials.

 

Thanks for any and all help. I look forward to becoming a contributing member of this community once i figure out what the heck I'm doing.

Parents

  • Hi, Brian:

     

    You really don't need a daughterboard to get started with the RPi; take a look here for some tutorials. Some of the projects require some external hardware (breadboards, LED's, etc) .. you can buy accessory kits from several places, including Adafruit & E14.

     

    HTH and let me know if I can provide any more information.

  • in reply to bprewit

    A year ago I got a Christmas calender from Conrad's at about this time of year.  Being late in the season it cost a couple of dollars.  The contents were a CD4007 ic, a 3 inch breadboard, some leds, ceramic capacitors, and resistors.  That may be what you want.

     

    Real instructions for real control of real objects: Hardware; one red led, one 330 ohm resistor, connect them in series with Pins 11 and 13 on the GPIO connector.

    11---/\/\/\/---Long image led lead---LED---13

    Software;

    >>> import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

    The RPi.GPIO module comes with the pi, nothing to install.    Google "raspberry-gpio-python" if you need help.  One carvate, If you put GPIO code in a module the module and the main program will each need to include the import statement above.  

     

    Getting started in hardware:  Pins on everything start with pin 1 which is marked with a dot on the top of an IC, a square solder pad on a pc board, a small triangle on ribbon cable connectors, and an odd colored wire on ribbon cables themselves.  Component pins are numbered in a circle BUT pi pins are numbered like the houses on a street, a zig-zag pattern.   I suggest you cover the 5V pin on the pi connector with shrink tubing, a bit of insulation from a stripped wire, or nail polish as you won't need it and shorting it with a test probe can be a disaster.  A solderless breadboard and a few female to male jumper wires to go between it and the Pi for convenience.  Always put a resistor (330 ohms) in series with the gpio pins and use 3.3V to limit the drawn current (3.3/330 = 0.010 Amps) which is pi safe.  Opto-isolators are suggested between gpio and real world devices.  Put a 330 ohm resistor in series with the input (an led) and the pi is protected from spikes of several thousand volts.  A 10ma input current and 70V output device can be had for a few cents H11 and the ILO621 (under $2.) offers 4 isolators in a 16pin dual inline package. A shunt capacitor should be used with inductive loads.

Reply
  • in reply to bprewit

    A year ago I got a Christmas calender from Conrad's at about this time of year.  Being late in the season it cost a couple of dollars.  The contents were a CD4007 ic, a 3 inch breadboard, some leds, ceramic capacitors, and resistors.  That may be what you want.

     

    Real instructions for real control of real objects: Hardware; one red led, one 330 ohm resistor, connect them in series with Pins 11 and 13 on the GPIO connector.

    11---/\/\/\/---Long image led lead---LED---13

    Software;

    >>> import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

    The RPi.GPIO module comes with the pi, nothing to install.    Google "raspberry-gpio-python" if you need help.  One carvate, If you put GPIO code in a module the module and the main program will each need to include the import statement above.  

     

    Getting started in hardware:  Pins on everything start with pin 1 which is marked with a dot on the top of an IC, a square solder pad on a pc board, a small triangle on ribbon cable connectors, and an odd colored wire on ribbon cables themselves.  Component pins are numbered in a circle BUT pi pins are numbered like the houses on a street, a zig-zag pattern.   I suggest you cover the 5V pin on the pi connector with shrink tubing, a bit of insulation from a stripped wire, or nail polish as you won't need it and shorting it with a test probe can be a disaster.  A solderless breadboard and a few female to male jumper wires to go between it and the Pi for convenience.  Always put a resistor (330 ohms) in series with the gpio pins and use 3.3V to limit the drawn current (3.3/330 = 0.010 Amps) which is pi safe.  Opto-isolators are suggested between gpio and real world devices.  Put a 330 ohm resistor in series with the input (an led) and the pi is protected from spikes of several thousand volts.  A 10ma input current and 70V output device can be had for a few cents H11 and the ILO621 (under $2.) offers 4 isolators in a 16pin dual inline package. A shunt capacitor should be used with inductive loads.

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