Gertboard is the ideal add-on for Raspberry Pi. Designed by Gert van Loo, it is a flexible experimenter board that plugs directly into your Raspberry Pi, and out into the physical world, allowing you to detect and respond to external physical events. Detect and output analogue voltages. Drive powerful motors. Detect switch presses. Illuminate LEDs and drive relays. Jumper cables allow you to hook up different parts of the circuit in many different ways, allowing total flexibility. All controlled by your own Raspberry Pi.
Features:
Plugs directly onto Raspberry Pi GPIO socket
Motor controller, capable controlling a motor bi-directionally, delivering 18V and 2A maximum
Dual-channel D-to-A converter, 8-bit
Dual-channel A-to-D converter, 10-bit
Onboard AtmelATmega328ATmega328 MCU for running off-board programmes which are written, compiled and uploaded to Gertboard from Raspberry Pi
6 x open collector outputs
12 x LED indicators
3 x momentary push switches
10 x strap cables included
18 x jumpers included
Software and manuals available to operate and learn how to use Gertboard
Hello again. I just recently received a gertboard and was able to install the arduino IDE, but I cannot read the chip number on the Atmega so don't know if it's a 168 or 328, so how do I set up the IDE? Thanks in advance fo the help.
Hi, The coocox software is only Windows compatible but you don't need it to experiment with the Gertboard. The supplied software is for programming ARM Cortex M micrcontrollers - neither the Gertboard nor the Raspberry Pi use this type of processor. If you go to http://coocox.org you will find a couple of boards that can use these tools. I suspect the disk was included with the Gertboard to encourage designers to try these boards as well.
As commented further on, if the gertboard is touching your ethernet plug it's mounted the wrong way round. When properly mounted one of the plastic legs on the gertboard will probably need to be removed - it will be sitting on top of the audio connector. I think this would be true, but in fact I've made up my own ribbon cable.
I got a header from Element 14 (part is TE CONNECTIVITY / AMP - 2-111446-0 - HEADER, IDC, NO LATCH, 26WAY) costs about $5, which connects to the Gertboar. Also a female header (E14 part TE CONNECTIVITY / AMP SOCKET, NOVOLATCH, 26WAY, but I already had one, from a local electronics store). This connects to the pi. Plus a scrap of ribbon cable - I bought 1 metre from Element 14 (about 8 bucks). If you make your own cable (which is dead easy) be sure that you get the connectors the right way round. There are small arrows on the headers and you should align these with the coloured strip on the ribbon cable. Also arrange the the ribbon cable comes out the right side of the female connector so it comes out of your pi case rather than goes back over the pi (if that makes sense).
Now my pi is in its case and my Gertboard elsewhere in my desk. And I didn't have to unsolder any headers.
I think that cases can be quite awkward for those who are going to use external Hardware boards regardless to if it's physically connected to the 'Pi or via a cable as that cable generally is required to be so short that the cables are stiff and awkward
