Chapter 13. Tips and Tricks

In this project, we will discuss tips and tricks to overcome any problems one might encounter with Raspberry Pi. We also provide project ideas, general information, and a dissection of the Raspberry Pi itself.

Mission briefing

In this book, we discussed different projects, spanning different difficulty levels. Before wrapping up this book, we would like to share our experience about the challenges we encountered and share some tips and resources to overcome situations that you might encounter and possible solutions for them. We will also discuss possible project ideas that you can try to implement over a weekend. We will go into each aspect briefly.

Why is it awesome?

This project shares tips and tricks, provides project ideas, and discusses solutions to problems generally encountered in DIY projects.

Your objectives

In this project, we will discuss the following:

• Setting up Raspberry Pi as a development platform

• Project ideas that can be implemented over a weekend

• Remotely logging in to Raspberry Pi from anywhere on the Internet

• Problems that might be encountered while using Raspberry Pi

• Cool add-on hardware sources developed for the Raspberry Pi platform

• Useful resources for Raspberry Pi

Mission checklist...

Setting up Raspberry Pi as a development platform

Raspberry Pi is currently the most basic, ideal hardware environment to get started with learning to code in a particular language or advanced systems development.

#1 – Simple trick for Python development via remote login

While writing this book, we found it convenient to write Python scripts on our laptop/desktop, copy them over to Raspberry Pi, and test them via remote login. This was especially useful when we had Raspberry Pi controlling interfaced to tools on a Christmas tree. It is difficult to set up a monitor and keyboard for Raspberry Pi and work from there.

We used WinSCP (http://winscp.net/eng/index.php—since we were using a laptop running Windows) to transfer files from the laptop to Raspberry Pi. Then, we used the PuTTY SSH client (http://www.putty.org/) for a remote login to Raspberry Pi and tested the scripts:

• In order to remotely log in to Raspberry Pi or transfer files using WinSCP, OpenSSH is required. The Raspbian Wheezy image...

Remotely logging in the Raspberry Pi from anywhere on the Internet

A company called Weaved (http://www.weaved.com/) has released a tool that is still under beta testing while writing this book. It enables you to remotely log in to Raspberry Pi that is connected to the Internet from anywhere on the Web (apart from a local network). There is also a tutorial to install and use the tool (https://www.juicypi.io/access-your-raspberry-pi-anywhere-in-the-world-using-weaved/). This enables remote control/data collection.

Problems that might be encountered while using Raspberry Pi

The following are some problems we encountered while we worked on Raspberry Pi.

SD card corruption

We encountered SD card corruptions while working with Raspberry Pi. In some cases, we had to discard the SD card but in other cases, we were able to recover the SD card using Advanced Partition Scanner Wizard and re-image the SD card.

Sometimes the failure occurs because there is a power failure while the card is still being written to. Such failures are unavoidable over the life of your projects. Here are a few ways to avoid SD card corruption:

• Power down your Pi properly after use

• Charge your battery packs and make sure Pi has a constant power supply at all times

Be sure to buy good quality SD cards and as with everything else digital, have backups.

Power issues

We encountered issues related to the power draw of Raspberry Pi. We had little success with things such as a battery pack (we were able to get it working using a 2700 mAh battery...

Cool add-on hardware sources developed for the Raspberry Pi platform

There are several products and add-on hardware developed specifically for Raspberry Pi. Most of them are designed specifically for Raspberry Pi. Some of them are available through DIY product sellers such as Sparkfun and Adafruit Industries. Most products are developed through crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. We made our best effort to introduce a new piece of hardware in each project. A simple web search should pop up a new product for a specific application.

The Raspberry Pi model B versus B+, model A versus A+

The Raspberry Pi model A+ and B+ has more GPIO pins than the model A and B. The model B+ has two more USB ports while model A+ consumes less power than the model A. Hence, it is possible use a power over Ethernet module (PoE). Check out http://www.silvertel.com/component/content/article/22-latest-news/304-raspberry-pi-poe.html for more information.

If you own a Raspberry Pi B+ but the hardware...

Project ideas that can be implemented over a weekend

Besides what you have seen so far in this book, there are several cool projects that can be implemented in a week or less. These include the following:

• A smart alarm clock based on Raspberry Pi, with features such as custom alarm sounds, period, snooze options, the ability to report weather conditions, alert you about today's to-do list, and much more.

• Home automation and home surveillance systems, a camera that works on motion, VOC alarms, mood lighting, lighting controls, and so on.

• A sensor network, wired or wireless, to monitor various parameters around your house—temperature, plants, pets, and others.

• A digital photo frame network that changes images across many frames, depending on the time of the day and so on.

• Seasonal projects such as lights for Diwali, Hanukah, or Christmas.

Useful resources for the Raspberry Pi

In this section, we will discuss useful resources that are available for Raspberry Pi. While this book can cover every aspect of the projects developed in this book, we will definitely run into trouble. Let's look at some user communities that can try to address our problem.

Raspberry Pi Foundation's forums:

The Raspberry Pi Foundation (http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/) has maintained a forum since its inception. This forum provides answers to a vast spectrum of questions that you may have. It also offers an opportunity to directly interact with the creators of Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi Stack Exchange:

At the time of writing this book, the Raspberry Pi Stack Exchange (http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/) was in the public beta testing mode. If this site passes the beta testing phase, it should also contain a pool of useful resources.

Element 14's Raspberry Pi community:

The Element 14 website (http://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi...

Mission accomplished

In this project, we discussed certain project ideas, tips, and tricks and problems you might encounter while working on a project using Raspberry Pi. The authors sincerely hope that you have enjoyed this book.