Piface Digital 1 disrupted, but needed to fit in Piface Rack 26 pins GPIO

The PiFace Digital 1 uses a MCP23517SP port expander for its ports and this uses the SPI GPIO pins. I have checked the GPIO pin-outs for the 26way GPIO and the 40Way GPIO and the SPI allocated pins for SPI(0) seem to be the same which should mean that all Pi models should be OK with the board and software.

You do not say in what way the PiFace Digital 1 is disrupted, but if you can get any of its LEDs to light, it is probably OK. It should work well in the PiFace 26way rack as long as you have not tried to connect anything else to the alternate SPI (0) pins on the rack (19, 21, 23 and 24).

My first check would be to run the Raspi Configuration program and make sure that SPI communication is enabled. Additionally, ensure you have installed the PiFace Digital 1 software correctly. You might have installed the PiFace Digital 2 software, instead, and I have no idea if that would cause problems. It should not cause any hardware damage to the PiFace Digital or the Raspberry Pi. .

Please let us know what Raspberry Pi Version and Revision you are using, what the nature of the disruption is and what problems you have with using it with the PiFace Digital and Rack.

Thank you. My bad is that by 'disrupted', i mean that it is no longer manufactured, nor available in E.U. except old stock, and lot of people wanted to use Piface Digital with Pirack.

So my question is if there is a way to bring back manufacturing this friendly little RPI's accessory?

By the way i successfully use 2 Piface Digital 1 mounted in Piface Rack on Raspberry PI2b v1.2 which leads 2x8 SSR modules for randomly lighting up 16x 220V AC vintage filament LED lights .

There cannot be that many users of 26 Way GPIO Raspies and the PyRack who still want multiple PyFace Digital 1s. I cannot see that the market is large enough to manufacture more PyFace Digital 1s.

The PyFace Digital 1 and the PyFace Digital 2 (40 Pin) both have jumpers for Address Line 0 and 1. I assume that is how you had two PyFace Digital 1s working together on PyRack.

The solution for 40-Pin GPIO users is the PyFace Digital 2 and the following triple GPIO breakout board.

https://www.modmypi.com/raspberry-pi/breakout-boards/52pi/52pi-hat-and-triple-gpio-expansion-plate

Users of 26 pin Raspberry Pis should be able to use this downgrade header on the breakout board and connect to the Pi with a standard 26 way ribbon cable,

https://www.modmypi.com/raspberry-pi/breakout-boards/52pi/52pi-40-pin-to-26-pin-downgrade-header

Users of 40 pin Raspberry Pis who have already invested in the PyRack and PyFace Digital 1s would be able to use the, above, downgrade header to connect the Pi to PyRack.

Try this, it is the replacement for those older boards, Stackable, expandable and functionally the same (But more) as the older boards. still uses the MCP23517SP

PiFace – PiFace Relay Plus

you get it with 4 relays but you can buy an extension to add 4 more, or even a motor controller instead.