RoadTest: PiFace Digital
Author: jonadair
Creation date:
Evaluation Type: Independent Products
Did you receive all parts the manufacturer stated would be included in the package?: True
What other parts do you consider comparable to this product?: A combination of the Pi Cobbler and breadboard.
What were the biggest problems encountered?: Issues unrelated to the PiFace Digital. Could not get the Raspberry Pi to properly drive the HDMI-based display we were using so we scrapped the use of the Raspberry Pi in that project.
Detailed Review:
The PiFace digital seems like a fantastic board for beginners to quickly interface the Raspberry Pi into a project. The screw terminals make wiring simple and the use of relays for switching eliminate most concerns about compatibility of voltage levels. It would be a great tool to repurpose an existing device like a RC car or motorized robot. For our application, we were using the relays to switch power to cold-cathode lights for part of our lighting display in the Red Bull Creation 2013. The PiFace digital handled this just fine and the built-in buttons made it easy to test that part of the lighting display without the rest of the system being completed yet. I loved that the PiFace Digital made the wiring trivial and we did not need to deal with a fragile breadboard circuit.
