Buying a Gertboard

[mattbrain]

In response to the original question; whilst waiting for the Gertboard (which I am with baited breath), another solution worth looking at is Phidgets. I have a couple knocking around from a previous project and have managed to get them to work on my Pi without any issues. They come in a whole bunch of configurations and are really easy to use and get your Pi talking to the real world.

My only complaint is they are quite pricey compared to the Pi and I don't see any on eBay at the moment .

[jbeale]

Before the Gertboard arrives, if you are willing to connect a few jumper wires to the GPIO pins, you should be able to use any of the I2C based sensor boards from JeeLabs. They run at 3.3V so they are directly compatible, and are fairly reasonable in price (generally less than a RasPi, anyway). Software drivers for I2C are being worked on and should be ready soonish if not already (?)

Jumper wires for GPIO pins: http://www.adafruit.com/products/266

I2C Sensor boards:


Analog Plug – 4 analog inputs with 12- to 18-bit resolution
DC Motor Plug – control up to 2 small DC motors or one stepper
Dimmer Plug – up to 16 PWM-controlled LEDs
Expander Plug – 8 extra I/O lines
Gravity Plug – 3-axis accelerometer
LCD Plug – piggyback board for standard 16-pin LCDs
Lux Plug – light sensor with large dynamic range
Memory Plug – up to 4 EEPROM chips, up to 512 Kbyte
Output Plug – 8 output pins with high-voltage drivers
Pressure Plug – atmospheric pressure sensor
Proximity Plug – 8 capacitive touch sensors
RTC Plug – real-time clock with battery backup
UART Plug – serial port with 64-byte buffers and RTS/CTS

[GizmoB73]

I think, that Gert was expecting some boards to be arriving this week...

Fingers crossed.

[fos]

I would also like to join a waiting list for the Gert Board. I wouldn't even mind paying in advance.

fos

[jacques]

if you look around, you will see that there are plenty of extension boards for the RPi on the way,
some are already available, with code example, libraries and youtube videos
Also look at the big names like Adafruit, Sparkfun ..they are preparing something.

some keywords:

• rpi_serial, BitWizard
  Piface
  Pi-Wire,Homelabs
  Slice of Pi, Ciseco
  UT Electronics
  PiDuino
  Pi Plates
  RPi Protoboard
  RPi "UserPort"
  RPi MIDI Breakout Board
  RPi RS232 Breakout Board
  Quick2Wire GPIO Expansion Board
  Raspberry Pi IO Interface
  Ponte

[jamesh]

We've all been pretty busy at work, so not heard much from Gert on the Gertboard. Did see the latest board a week ago which was looking funky, so things are still moving (not just on the gertboard but elsewhere too...)
I'm biased, but make sure, if getting a board from elsewhere, that it has definitely been tested on a RealPi (tm).

[Jim Manley]

Before the Gertboard arrives, if you are willing to connect a few jumper wires to the GPIO pins, you should be able to use any of the I2C based sensor boards from JeeLabs. They run at 3.3V so they are directly compatible, and are fairly reasonable in price (generally less than a RasPi, anyway). Software drivers for I2C are being worked on and should be ready soonish if not already (?)

These look really cool! Is JeeLabs working on the software drivers, or is there someone else whose progress can be monitored and perhaps assisted in testing?