Accessory watch: New boards for the #RaspberryPi ahoy!

Ahoy… we’re not at sea, Mike! Anyway…

I always keep an eye out for new boards and here are a couple I’ve just spotted.

GeekRoo All-in-One Breakout Board – ModMyPi – £14.99

ModMyPi | GeekRoo All-In-One Breakout Board

The GeekRoo All-In-One Raspberry Pi Breakout Board is one of the most advanced prototyping breakout boards available to date! This board plugs directly in to the GPIO pins on the Raspberry Pi, and then extends the GPIO pins through itself, giving you the ability access the GPIO pins (without using the board), and hence ‘stack’ boards up!

Simultaneously, the board breaks out the 3.3V GPIO pins to a separate stack (Picture 1.), breaks the SPI pins in two groups, in addition breaking out the I2C pins, with a jumper setting to enable both 3.3V and 5V operation (Picture 2.). The board also features an external power source Input (Picture 3.) with 8-Way Output which, provided with further current amplification using a Darlington Driver IC (pre-soldered), can supply up to 50V, 600mA for each output. It therefore has more than enough power to directly drive relays, 1W high-power LED, servos, stepper motors, etc.

Finally, the board also features a power LED and 2A fuse, so you know when it’s on, and your Raspberry Pi is protected! It even has space to add a Mini Breadboard so you can really customise this board to suit whatever project you’re working on, without permanently soldering it all together.

GeekRoo Cockatoo RTC Clock Board – ModMyPi – £17.99

ModMyPi | GeekRoo All-In-One Breakout Board

The GeekRoo Clockatoo Raspberry Pi Breakout Board allows you to Transform your Raspberry Pi in to a Fully Functioning Clock! The board features a coin-battery powered real time clock (RTC) module, in addition to an LED screen that can be mounted both horizontally and vertically across the board, which turns you Pi into a beautiful clock. It also has an integrated programmable buzzer so you can use it as an alarm, and reset switch!

The board comes pre-assembled, so there’s no soldering, there’s a full set up guide available from on the GeekRoo Wiki, and the source drivers are available from the GeekRoo Github. All parts come in GeekRoo’s super stylish component tin, so it’s the perfect gift for any Raspberry Pi lover.

Bird feeder cam now online

I’ve set-up my Pi and router so that you can see a live video of a bird feeder in our front garden! I’ve only today filled everything up so there should be a decent amount of avian traffic 🙂

The feed does use the VLC media player browser plugin, so you will need a browser that supports that.

Watch the feed

Fast I/O output to a TFT screen on a #RaspberryPi

» Fast I/O on a Raspberry Pi JeeLabs

Jean-Claude Wippler has developed a way to generate images on an LCD TFT touch screen breakout. Part of this has been to use Gordon Henderson’s WiringPi library. He has looked to see how quickly the GPIO pins can be switched with the library. He’s worked out that the Pi can double-toggle (i.e. send a pulse) over 5 million times per second. For more details, read his blog

PiBorg release motion and direction sensor for #RaspberryPi

XLoBorg - Motion and direction sensor for your Raspberry Pi | PiBorg

PiBorg, UK-based manufacturer of GPIO expansion boards, have today released the XLoBorg. This I2C board plugs into the GPIO pins and enables you to measure movement such as bumps and shocks and determine direction. It features a 3-Axis Accelerometer and 3-Axis Magnetometer

It costs £8.76 plus postage (which is free in the UK).

More information and shop on the PiBorg site