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
I'm pretty sure the Coocox software is just an alternative way of programming the Atmega chip on the Gertboard. You can instead run the normal Arduino software on the Pi via SSH. [Someone correct me if I've misunderstood that].
Have you found the Gertboard User Manual? The test programs it talks about are already available in both C and Python,for free download. They look to me like the backbone of whatever I'm going to write for myself.
Does the software support CD (Coocox) only work for Windows? I have a Mac and have been running the pi thru ssh.. I am not about to purchase a Microsoft computer solely for the gertboard but it seems silly that the only software support would be windows based. I feel like I'm missing something?
Features tab says "Plugs directly onto Raspberry Pi GPIO socket". No, you can't do that, because the other end of the Gertboard touches the metal housing of the Ethernet socket.
I agree with tomgwb1, a suitable ribbon cable should have been included in the kit.
Even more annoying, I can't find a suitable cable on the Farnell website (that noise? That's me grinding my teeth).
Otherwise, I find the Gertboard seriously interesting and I'm longing to try some stuff out.
I ended up using a 90 degree double-row connector mounted on the bottom of the Gertboard replacing the female socket. Since I will be mounting the Gertboard to an acrylic plate using nylon standoffs (thus the query above regarding the drilling template) this avoids obscuring anything on the top of the Gertboard and still utilizes a female-female IDC ribbon cable.
Is there a mounting template drawing available for the Assembled Gertboard? It would be useful to have a full scale drawing of the mounting hole locations relative to the edge of the printed circuit board for mounting on something besides directly to the Raspberry Pi's GPIO connector.
I sure that some of us would perfer to connect the Gertboard via a standard (female-female) IDC ribbon cable instead of plugging it directly into the RasPi's GPIO connector. It would have been useful to either have a user installed J1 connector so that the sex of the connector could be easly changed or a male connector installed. It would relieve the effort of removing (unsoldering) the bottom-facing female connector prior to installing the desired sex (male) connector.
Also, it would be nice to offer an additional product in the for of an acrylic plate, slightly larger than the Gertboard, with pre-drilled mounting holes to mount the Gertboard to. This would allow the Gertboard to be placed directly on the workbench.
