MORE ABOUT Raspberry Pi

The SmartPi is an extension board to turn a Raspberry Pi into a smart energy meter. It can measure current (up to 100 A, with a hardware modification up to 300 A is possible), voltage (up to 400 V) and frequency on three phases plus neutral and calculate several flavors of power (active, reactive & apparent) and power consumption or production. The software is open source and available from GitHub.

Now available in the Elektor Store is Matthew Scarpino’s book Motors for Makers. From start to finish, you'll learn through practical examples, crystal-clear explanations, and photos. If you've ever salivated at what you could do with electric motors, stop salivating…and start making!

Since the introduction of the first Raspberry Pi (RPi) a few years ago, many similar boards have seen the light. Banana Pi (BPi) is a series of RPi-similar (not compatible) boards manufactured by the Chinese company Sinovoip. Like the RPi, several versions exist. The latest BPi is the M2 Berry and we managed to get our hands on a preproduction sample. Here are our impressions.

The Raspberry Pi is a well designed, powerful and inexpensive board, but not a complete computer. Some distributors know you need more than just a plastic case and a mains-adapter power supply (or USB cable). The ‘Pi Desktop’ kit from element14 contains everything you need and more, turning your RPi into a fully fledged computer...

Putting together a stand-alone digital audio player is remarkably easy using today's small single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi in combination with a specialized Linux distribution to match. But what if you want high-end audio specifications? To meet audiophile requirements and expectations, we assembled a Raspberry Pi, a high-end a high-end PCM 1794A DAC (Digital-to-Analogue Converter) with excellent analogue filters, a Volume Control Unit and a touch display.

With AIY Projects, Google claims, Makers can use artificial intelligence to make human-to-machine interaction more like human-to-human interactions. They promise to release a series of reference kits, starting with voice recognition. The speech recognition capability in AIY’s first project is using the Raspberry Pi, along with a voice HAT (Hardware Accessory on Top) for the audio capture. The HAT contains hardware for audio capture and playback and was designed and tested with the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. Wow! Well done Google!

For those who want to adjust the volume of the music they listen to with analog hardware but do not want to invest in servo-controlled potentiometers here is a compromise in the shape of a so-called ‘Digitally-Controlled Analog Volume Control’. It has a serial control interface, selectable zero crossing detection and a mute function. This design was intended for use with a Raspberry Pi running Volumio, but it can be used with virtually any audio source. It even adds RC control.

Maker Faire UK 2017 was held once again in Newcastle (UK). It's the oldest Maker Faire outside of the USA and over 10,000 happy visitors came to the Centre for Life science village to witness and take part in various making and science activities. With over a 100 maker stands and performing artists, the breath of activities was amazing and diverse with activities in art, coding, craft, gaming, music, science and STEM.

Take your Raspberry Pi with you in your car, your truck, your boat, your caravan, your trailer, your cabin without worrying about questionable power. With StromPi, you need not fear untimely power cuts. Thanks to this UPS card, you Raspberry PI can even send you an email when the battery needs changing.

Do you remember an invention called the backplane? It allowed you to interconnect boards in a few seconds. One, two, three, ten boards or more…. oh! that seems a long time ago…. Well, it’s back and it allows you to interconnect anything and everything to develop prototypes or produce finished products. It’s called Atomo and it has 4 common denominators: control, input-output, power and connectors.