Welcome
This unofficial site is devoted to the Raspberry Pi credit card sized computer offering tutorials, guides, resources and downloads. We hope to help others get the most out of their Pi by providing clear, simple articles on configuring, programming and operating it.
You will also find information about BerryClip, the easiest, cheapest way to start experimenting with hardware and software.
Taking Hi-Res Photos With The Pi Camera Module
Taking photos with the Pi Camera Module is easy once you have plugged it in and made the correct configuration changes. In order to do this make sure you have read my Installing The Raspberry Pi Camera Module page.
Once you’ve completed the camera installation you won’t need to do it again and you can concentrate on taking photos and recording HD video.
Installing The Raspberry Pi Camera Module
The Official Raspberry Pi camera module is here at last. The full specification can be found on my Official Raspberry Pi Camera Module page. This page aims to show how to get the camera connected and ready to go. Depending on the current state of your SD card this will take between 2 and 20 minutes.
How To Disable The Red LED On The Pi Camera ModuleThe Pi camera module includes a red LED in one corner of the PCB. This lights up when the camera is active. It’s really useful in giving a visual indication that the camera is doing something and most of the time you will be glad it is there.
However there are a number of reasons you might wish it wasn’t.
In my testing here are some of the reasons it can get in the way :
It can cause reflections on objects you are trying to photograph giving them a red glow.Pi Camera Module Mechanical Dimensions
Having played around with the Pi camera I quickly realised I needed to make some sort of stand for it. The module weighs almost nothing and is tiny so it can be quite hard to keep in one place when you are experimenting. The Raspberry Pi Foundation apparently recommends Blu-tack, based on cost, simplicity and plain, old fashioned versatility.
I thought it would be best to create a template that I could print out and use to create a camera holder without using the real module. That way I could get all the dimensions correct without worrying about squashing or dropping the module itself.
So here is a diagram showing the main module measurements.
The Official Raspberry Pi Camera ModuleThe first add-on from the Raspberry Pi Foundation is the official camera module “RaspiCam”. It’s been a long time coming but it is finally available to buy from Farnell, CPC (order code SC13023) and RS. The module attaches directly to the Pi PCB via a ribbon cable and the CSI connector.
The camera module is an OV5647 made by OmniVision and measures 8.5 x 8.5 x 5mm. The whole unit including the PCB measures 25mm x 20mm x 9mm. The camera contains a fixed focus 5-megapixel CMOS image sensor and is capable of recording 720p and 1080p HD video at 30 fps.
Raspberry Pi CPU Usage Monitoring With A BerryClip
While wandering the internet I found an article Raspberry Pi: CPU usage monitoring using GPIO by chteuchteu. This explained how to display the current CPU usage on 7 LEDs attached to the GPIO header.
I thought this would be a great application to convert for use with a BerryClip 6 LED Buzzer board. So I modified the original code to use 6 LEDs and tweaked a few of the functions. Apart from the LED count I changed the script to use an array of GPIO references so it would be easier to update if you used different pins.
Raspberry Pi AA Battery Shoot-outHaving previously run my Raspberry Pi from a set of AA batteries I decided to test all the different types I had available to see which ones lasted the longest.
This wasn’t going to be a scientific test but I wanted a general feeling for how the batteries performed given their different capabilities and price.
The batteries I decided to try were :
Due to the time required to run the tests and re-charge the batteries I opted for running the tests with a Raspberry Pi Model B (rev 2) rather than a Model A. Where possible I performed two tests with each set and took the average runtime.
Berryclip 6 LED Board Testing in C
This post is for the lucky owners of the BerryClip 6 LED add on board and is the first of a series of posts to get you started with an alternative to Python.
This article covers using C, but there will be future posts for using the BerryClip directly from Scratch and also using the node.js javascript language.
The easiest way to do this in C, is to use the very popular wiringPi C library developed by Gordon Henderson, aka drogon. Continue reading
Bristol Mini Maker Faire 2013
This gallery contains 20 photos.
The Bristol Mini Maker Faire was held on 23rd March 2013 at the M Shed on the waterfront. It was my first maker faire and my main objective was to hear Eben Upton from the Raspberry Pi Foundation speak. The … Continue reading
Top 10 Things to Connect to Your Raspberry PiDuring my time with the Pi I’ve experimented with various devices and sensors. Here is my Top 10 list of devices to connect to the Raspberry Pi. In most cases they are very cheap and easy to interface and are great building blocks for more complicated future projects. I’ve included links to more detailed posts where I can and many of these include example Python scripts to help you get going.
From robot cars to security systems there are plenty of ways of combining these mini-projects into some amazing creations! If you need to buy a present for a Pi owner then these are good starting point.
