Latest Posts

LEDs and Resistors

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In a previous post, I mentioned that you need to use a resistor when connecting an LED to the GPIO, but how do you know what value resistor to use?

The reason we need a resistor is because the LED will only stand so much current before it blows.

There are 2 output voltages from the GPIO pins, 3.3v from pins 1 and 17, and 5v from pins 2 and 4.

Lets say you have a 5mm blue LED from maplin (Something like this) there are 2 important bits of information you need to calculate the resistor to use with it. The Forward Voltage and the Forward Current.

Raspberry Pi Hardware Versions

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It's been a while since my last post, I've been very busy with lots other things (getting married, having a baby, changing jobs) so haven't had much chance to play with my Raspberry Pi or post on here.

A lot has happened in the Raspberry Pi world in that time too, there have been a number of different versions of the Raspberry Pi hardware as well as a a lot more providers of add on boards and kits built specifically for the Raspberry Pi. Here I'll take a look at the different hardware available and some other things that look interesting.

Using GPIO

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Breadboard - no wires

When using the GPIO I would recommend getting a breadboard and an Adafruit Pi Cobbler Breakout Kit. This will allow you to easily connect the Raspberry Pi to a breadboard so you can quickly and easily build circuits.

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android apt-get audio breadboard cases circuit debian first boot gpio hardware hats and phats leds linux media centre operating system photos pi zero pibow raspberry pi board raspbian raspbmc screenshots sd card terminal updating video wifi wireless network xbmc