I am using python and the "import pifacedigitalio" statement and it makes it very easy

to control the Pi Face board.

I am using python and the "import pifacedigitalio" statement and it makes it very easy

to control the Pi Face board.

Hi again,

Last night I tried to download the PiFace code from University of Manchester School of Computer Science Pi Downloads. There are two versions. The first, "Raspberry Pi SDCard immage (4 Gb SanDisck.........."  took 4 hours to compleat. It failed at the end so I tried the other one, the "Latest: (approx 580 Mb download) .."

PiFaced." and the "2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian-PiFaced.sha1" fle.

I burned the SD with both of them and tried it. It did not work. Nothing happened. Only the red LED turned on.

Am I doing the right things?

Should the .sha1 file be added?

The original Raspberry NOOBS files looked very much different than those files.

Question: Are the PiFace files meant for a 4 Gb SD card? I am using an 8 Gb SD card?

Should the .sha1 file be added? What is it?

Is it possible to use the standard NOOBS program, and be able to program the PiFace by adding the line "import pifacedigitalio" to the source code?

Regards,

Åke

What exactly do you do when you say "burn the SD" ?

I mean that I insert the SD into a slot in my PC. The SD appears as a disc in Windows. I then take the file that i wish to program and copy it to the SD. The copying takes some time, 10 - 20 seconds.

Regards

Åke

That's not going to work. Please see reply number 5 in this thread, it contains a link to instructions on how to write to an SD card.

You need a special application in Windows (e.g. Win32 Disk Imager) to properly write the *.img file to the SD card.

Hi Doug,

Do you mean that you can compile Piface programs with the original NOOBS software?

In other words, you don't have to bother about those .img files?

Thanks in advance,

Åke

Dear Frederick,

I looked in the internet to find a suttable " Win32 Disk Imager" and found at least a dosen. There was one that was intended for the Raspberry Pi. It did not say which version, PC, MAC etc it was intended for.

Can you help me?

Thanks in advance!

Åke

I got another question.

The files that I have downloaded from pi.cs.man.ac.uk have all been compiled for the 4 Gb Raspberry Pi boards.

I have got 8 Gb on my board. Can an 4 Gb program execute in a 8 Gb memory?

If that is no, then is there an 8 Gb version available?

Regards,

Åke

Hi Ake; Can I ask why you appear to be downloading obsolete files from a site which says:

These images are not updated any longer -- use the latest version of Raspbian and follow the steps here

I followed the link and got to PiFace – Install PiFace Digital Software – Installing PiFace Digital modules which said:

To install the PiFace Digital software run the command:

sudo apt-get install python3-pifacedigital-emulator

Enter Y when prompted.

Then reboot

I just did it on my 4Gb card, took me under 2 minutes including reboot. At what stage is this recommended method failing for you?

Well I read the PiFace documents and under "Quick Start Guide" it said:

I believed it, so there is why I have spent several hours trying to get it to work.

I will try your recommendation as quick as possible. Unfortunatly I will be out of my home for some days, but I will tell you if it is a success or not.

Until then,

Thanks and bye-bye

Åke

Åke Webjörn I know I never loaded any .img file to get the pifacedigitalio library. 

Now mind you I am 72 so my memory isn't the greatest but I think it came with the

latest rasbian wheezy card.  I did not load NOOBS because I wanted only the Rasbian OS.

I am sure you can find it here https://github.com/piface/pifacedigitalio/

EDIT::: I found the instructions

Install

Make sure you are using the lastest version of Raspbian:

$ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get upgrade 

Install pifacedigitalio (for Python 3 and 2) with the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install python{,3}-pifacedigitalio 

Test by running the blink.py program:

$ python3 /usr/share/doc/python3-pifacedigitalio/examples/blink.py

I have used it to control the lights using a PIR sensor on the input and a 5V LED lamp on the

output.

Here is the code:

import pifacedigitalio

from time import sleep

pfd = pifacedigitalio.PiFaceDigital()

lampon = 0

while True:

    tmpval = pfd.input_pins[7].value

    if tmpval == 1:

        if lampon == 1:

            pfd.leds[7].turn_off()

            lampon = 0

        sleep(.5)

    if tmpval == 0:

        if lampon == 0:

            pfd.leds[7].turn_on()

            lampon = 1

            sleep(30)