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Raspberry Pi Forum What gets in the way of your Raspberry Pi project?
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Forum Thread Details
  • Replies 71 replies
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  • pico
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Related

What gets in the way of your Raspberry Pi project?

cstanton
cstanton over 3 years ago

For those following along, it's become a bit of a daisy chain...

It's been about 10 years since the Raspberry Pi was released to the world, and I remember everyone being excited. It was a mixture of miscommunication, promises and new technology. An affordable embedded computer that was the size of a credit card. A lot of heated debate about open source and availability, and plenty of marketing. It hit off very well, and everyone clamored to get one, and somewhat still do, and support it. With open source libraries, packages and Linux, quite the contrast to similar boards released around the same time - I think it says a lot when someone has a project and decides 'no, this is how you do it' and leads with a direction and decision and doesn't leave it open for the herd of cats.

Still, a lot of people I know have a collection of Raspberry Pi, and the meme goes 'Yes I have one, it's sat in my drawer collecting dust, I don't know what to do with it' or 'I use it for my media server... and that's about it'. While using a Raspberry Pi as a media server is not a bad thing, it's rather justified (and frankly has spun off a lot of similar products since) it's not the only thing to use a Raspberry Pi for.

Now there's a lot of accessories available, a lot of example code (like other microcontroller boards) but there still must be something about it that trips you up when creating that project. Is it limitations with the hardware? (it is mostly 3v3 after all) or is it the physical size of it? (the compute module, pico and zero start addressing this) well right now it's obviously the availability (or lack) of it, but we can't address that right now, so let's focus on what we do with it when we have one.

We're looking at expanding our content and what we ask from Raspberry Pi (Foundation/Trading) to govern our campaigns and content on the Community, and I'm interested in what you need help with, so reply and let us know, regardless of knowledge level or what you've been doing.

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  • colporteur
    colporteur over 3 years ago in reply to scottiebabe

    I've used three different libaries to access the Pi's GPIO's over the years. I first started with RPi.gpio, then gpiozero and most recently pigpio. I liked gpiozero but the latest version referenced pigpio as the ideal solution for supporting servo's. I would prefer to one-stop-shop and not have to jump between different libraries to accomplish a task. My programming skills are not strong so learning and relearning are taxing.

    Your programming skills are much stronger than mine. You might find more benefit in pigpio than the others. The library is strongly invested in remote capabilities. That is something nice to have in your toolbox.

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  • scottiebabe
    scottiebabe over 3 years ago in reply to colporteur

    Thanks for the kind words and advise. The pigpio looks like a pretty powerful library, as it will bitbang any gpio pin via dma to create a pwm output. Or will send pin change notification via a linux file pipe.

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  • shabaz
    shabaz over 3 years ago in reply to scottiebabe

    I've not used that library or hardware PWM on the Pi so far. One thing worth checking with any library is if they are using hardware register accesses for GPIO, or Linux device files (/dev), because the latter is slow. Sometimes I'll write code and attach hardware differently with Pi compared to if I were using a microcontroller, simply to work around issues, or to accommodate the level of real-timeness that is practical with Linux in user-space code. For instance, I can reduce the number of inputs I poll, by using a single pin with all inputs OR'd, that way the code is speedy until I need to read a specific pin (for example). With a microcontroller that would be less necessary although it can still be handy. Also, I/O expanders can be handy since I2C or SPI is a very solved problem for any Linux SBC, and will run fast from your user-space code since it uses the I2C/SPI device drivers.

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  • glosvaper
    glosvaper over 3 years ago in reply to gpolder

    Would PoE not be an option? 2 birds with one stone then :-)

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  • Ameliagrace
    Ameliagrace over 3 years ago in reply to scottiebabe

    For people who wish to learn about coding, robotics, or computer hardware, a Raspberry Pi is a useful learning tool, but it can also be a source of endless...

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  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 3 years ago

    Python of course, I hate it! its childish.  you have to indent for levels you have to be kidding me, and NO semicolon. So where is the end of the statement. RUBBISH ! its almost as bad as BASIC! LOLJoy  I just use C with eclipse!  You Cant do this in Python:

    for(i, I < 100){ printf("i \n", %n);} return; 

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 3 years ago in reply to phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm said:

    You Cant do this in Python:

    for(i, I < 100){ printf("i \n", %n);} return;

    I'm pretty sure that you can make typo's in Python as well... Slight smile

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  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 3 years ago in reply to beacon_dave

    ouch you got me fingers work faster than brain. sb

    for(i, I < 100, ++i){ printf("i \n", %n);} return

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 3 years ago in reply to phoenixcomm

    not quite there yet...  Slight smile

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  • phoenixcomm
    phoenixcomm over 3 years ago in reply to beacon_dave

    Confoundedfor(i; I < 100; ++i){ printf("i \n", %n);} return Scream fingers faster than brain. and I know you cant do this in Phyton

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