Downloads and Resources

   

1. Software and Source Code

The Raspbian maintainers have been kind enough to include the SimBaMon battery monitor in their repository, so you can just do this:

  sudo apt-get install simbamond

Source code for all the projects is available on the Git Hub open source hosting site. The project is called Pi-Tronics. To get started install git and clone the master branch:

git clone git://github.com/hamishcunningham/pi-tronics.git

You can also browse the code on-line — here's the flood alarm script, for example.

1.1. Installing Pi-GATE Software

To install from our Ubuntu personal archive:

1. Add this line to /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/hamish-dcs/pi-gate/ubuntu precise main

echo deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/hamish-dcs/pi-gate/ubuntu precise main |sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-key 6C12C1CF

  sudo apt-get update

  sudo apt-get install package-name

Note: the above gets you the most recent stable release; if you want to live on the edge, you can get more recent experimental builds by adding the snapshot PPA to your sources list, e.g.:

echo deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/hamish-dcs/pi-gate-snapshots/ubuntu precise main |sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

1.2. Installing WiringPi for Raspbian

On Raspbian, you can install WiringPi from a .deb file like this:

  wget https://raw.github.com/hamishcunningham/wiringpi/master/package/2.13/unstable/wiringpi_2.13_armhf.deb
  sudo dpkg -i ./wiringpi_2.13_armhf.deb

2. Books and Sites about the Pi

Books about the Pi are proliferating almost as rapidly as the community of Pi aficionados.² These are three of my favourites:

• Eben Upton and Gareth Halfacree's book The Raspberry Pi User Guide is definitely the first place to start. Required reading.
• Gray Girling's Haynes manual is my all-time favourite so far, perhaps because I remember my brother using these manuals to figure out how to fix his Triumph Herald way back when. It also has great graphics and an excellent mix of hardware and software, plus some philosophy and history to boot. I love it.
• Slightly off the beaten track, but a great fit for the Pi's mischievous implications, I recommend Stefan Sjogelid's Raspberry Pi for Secret Agents. If the NSA and GCHQ are going to spy on every citizen for no good reason shouldn't we spy on them in return?!

If it's your birthday, ask for a book token — there's more to drool over in the next section.

There are also lots of great websites about the Pi — some that stand out:

• The Pi foundation's site is the place to start: lots of good reference material, and there's always something new to read on the blog. For discussion and advice, the community forums are excellent.
• Cambridge Univerity Computer Lab is where the original idea for the Pi came from, and they host a great set of Pi materials including these tutorials.
• The MagPi monthly eZine is well worth a look, as is the Pi Weekly email news digest.
• The WiringPi library site is also well worth a visit.

There are oodles and oodles of Pi hobby sites — really too many to make a list these days!

3. Electronics Books and Sites

For introductions to basic circuit building, breadboarding or soldering, and to hacker electronics in general, see for example:

• Simon Monk's 2013 book Hacking Electronics, which achieves a nice balance between explaining relevant theory and quickly getting on with practical stuff right from the start. Although some of the chapters are specific to the Arduino³ there's a lot of generally useful stuff too, including introductions to breadboarding, stripboard, soldering and the like. A good book if you're in a hurry.
• The 2009 Make Electronics by Charles Platt, which also has loads of great introductory material, and is a typically high quality O'Reilly production with Make Magazine's usual emphasis on colourful graphics and detailed instructions for the hobbyist. This book is very detailed and has lots of intriguing background⁴.
• The Embedded Linux wiki has great globs of Pi-related stuff, including a bunch of very useful tutorials.
• AdaFruit's tutorial pages include an excellent guide to soldering (and one for measuring).
• Another useful beginners' site is Electronics Club.

And lots and lots of others!⁵

4. Circuits: Calculators, Simulators, Diagrams

The circuit diagrams are available on Circuit Lab under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA licence.

For circuit debugging these Voltage/Resistance/Current calculators are useful: this one, this one, and this one all worked well for me at one time or another.