Author Archives: Andi

SSD, Magnetic or Hybrid Drives

Earlier, when we did not have much of a choice, PC storage options were limited to the largest capacity hard disk drive one could afford. Those days are long gone and today the average customer has to juggle between selecting different types of storage media apart from their capacity. Although it is fairly important to select the most optimum storage medium for a specific application, each of the drive types has their own advantages and disadvantages.

Magnetic hard disk drives have long been the default storage component for both desktop and laptop computers. Although the latest magnetic drives are very much advanced and better performing compared to their brethren from yesteryears, their underlying technology has remained mostly unchanged. Magnetic hard drives essentially consist of stiff magnetic platters rotating at high speeds paired with read/write heads travelling over their surface to retrieve or record data.

Magnetic hard disk drive technology is mature. Manufacturers now make highly reliable drives that users can purchase at much lower prices as compared with other storage options – most magnetic hard drives cost only a few cents per gigabyte. Moreover, they are available in relatively high capacities, going up to 4TB. Modern magnetic hard drives connect via the SATA or Serial ATA interface and do not require any special software for the operating system to recognize them. In short, magnetic hard disk drives are dirt-cheap, simple to operate and spacious.

However, the disadvantage with magnetic hard disk drives is their low storage or retrieval speeds compared to the SSDs and Hybrid products. The read and write speed depends on how fast the platter rotates – a 7200-RPM drive is faster than a 5400-RPM drive, but both are significantly slower than SSDs or even hybrid drives.

If you are just an average PC user sticking mostly to using mail, browsing the Web, and some amount of document editing, a standard magnetic hard disk drive should serve you fine.

SSDs or Solid State Drives are so called because unlike the magnetic drives, they do not have any moving parts – they are typically nonvolatile NAND flash memory. Although most SSDs connect via the SATA interface, there are PCI Express-based SSDs that offer ultrahigh-performances. SSDs store data and file just as any other drive does.

Since SSDs do not have any moving parts, they can operate at blazing speeds such as 500MB per second on average accessing data in just a few milliseconds. Compare this with the speed of a magnetic hard disk – 200MBps with access times just a shade below 8ms. In short, with SSDs you have a much snappier and a much more responsive system. With SSDs, everything is faster – boot times, application launch times and file-transfer speeds.

Without moving parts, SSDs are not susceptible to damage or degradation due to movement or vibrations. The two disadvantages with SSDs are their cost per gigabyte and their read/write life. At present, they cost about $1 per gigabyte.

Manufacturers offer Hybrid drives as a go-between. These are mostly magnetic hard drives with some SSD thrown in. The most frequently accessed data is stored in the SSD. That makes for high speed while the cost is kept low.

Can a Solar Cell Store Its Own Power?

Researchers at Ohio State University have invented a device that looks like a solar cell but has the ability to store the power it generates. The patent-pending device is the world’s first solar battery. On October 3, 2014, the researchers reported in the journal – Nature Communication – that they have succeeded in combining a solar cell and a battery into a single hybrid device.

The innovation is a special solar panel in the form of a mesh that allows entry of air into the battery. Another unique process allows electrons to be transferred between the solar panel and the electrodes of the battery. Light and oxygen entering the device enable chemical reactions to charge the battery.

According to Yiying Wu, Professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the Ohio State University, they will license the new solar battery to industry. Wu expects that the solar battery will tame the costs of renewable energy.

A solar panel is typically used to capture light for converting it to electricity, which is then stored in a cheap battery for later use. By integrating the two functions into a single device, installation becomes simpler and costs go down. The new solar battery may typically bring down the costs by about 25 percent.

The invention also has another advantage. The long interconnections between solar panels and its battery introduce ohmic resistance that reduces the solar energy efficiency because of heat generation when charging. Typically, about 20 percent of the electricity generated by the solar cells is wasted as heat when charging the battery. With the new design, nearly all the electricity generated reaches the battery.

Wu and his students have also developed a high-efficiency battery for use with their solar cells. An earlier designed battery, invented by Wu and his research team, won them the 2014 clean energy prize of $100,000 from the US Department of Energy. The researchers have created a technology spinoff – KAir Energy Systems, LLC – to develop the battery.

The high-efficiency battery is air-powered, meaning it breathes in air when discharging and breathes out when charging. The battery discharges by the chemical reaction of potassium and oxygen. The researchers faced a formidable challenge when trying to combine a solar panel with the KAir type of battery. Typical solar cells are solid panels of semiconductor material and this would prevent air from entering the battery.

Wu and his research team had to redesign the solar panel to make it permeable. They did this by using titanium gauze, a flexible fabric. They grew vertical rods of titanium dioxide on the fabric, similar to blades of grass growing on soil. The rods capture sunlight, while air passes freely through them and the gauze.

Normally, interconnecting a solar cell and a battery requires four electrodes – two on the solar panel and two on the battery. The hybrid design of the researchers has reduced the number of electrodes required to three.

The mesh in the solar panel forms the first electrode. Under this, a thin sheet of porous carbon forms the second electrode, while a lithium plate forms the third. Layers of electrolyte sandwiched between the electrodes forms the battery to store electricity.

XMP-1 the Raspberry Pi Robot

XMP-1 the Raspberry Pi Robot
The inexpensive, credit card sized single board computer, the Raspberry Pi or RBPi, can be teamed up with another inexpensive, credit card sized processor platform, the XMOS startKIT. The duo presents the unique possibility for DIY enthusiasts to construct robotics applications. An additional incentive – almost no soldering required.

The XMOS StartKit comes with an XMOS processor chip that has multiple XMOS cores. You can program these cores directly in C. Multiple programs will run in parallel within the XMOS cores, at high speeds and without jitter. That is exactly what the robotics applications ideally require.

The combination of the RBPi and the XMOS startKIT makes a simple mobile platform that its designer Shabaz chooses to call as XMP-1 – the XMOS Mobile Platform, version 1. Using only simple tools such as pliers, wire-cutters and a screwdriver, XMP-1 involves only low-cost off-the-shelf standard hardware. It is flexible enough to allow addition of more sensors and programming to make it more versatile than it is at present. The XMOS board communicates with the RBPi via the Serial Peripheral Interface or SPI and you can control the XMP-1 from a web browser.

Although XMP-1 can move at quite a high speed, it is preferable to keep its speed low when it is being taught a new route. The console output and the browser controls are available on the display on the web browser to generate keep-alive and status messages to help you see what is happening. Shabaz has recorded this project in three parts, the first of which deals with programming the XMP-1 that has no sensors. In part two, Shabaz conducts more XMOS startKIT experiments. These serve to establish the process of high-speed SPI communication between the XMOS startKIT board and the RBPi.

You will be able to get the XMP-1 up and running, if you simply take the code, compile it and plug it into the flash on the XMOS startKIT board and the RBPi. However, this project is useful to all types of enthusiasts apart from those only interested in constructing and using XMP-1. For example, on the site, you will get adequate help in the XMP-1 hardware assembly, controlling hardware using RBPi and using a web browser to do it from a remote location. The site is very informative for those who are new to the XMOS startKIT.

The RBPi is connected to the network via an 802.11 Wi-Fi USB adapter and handles all network activity. A small web server running on the RBPi provides feedback to the user via a web browser. The RBPi also transfers the motor control speeds it receives from the user over to the XMOS startKIT board via the Serial Peripheral Interface. In turn, the XMOS startKIT feeds the motors with the correct Pulse Width Modulation or PWM signals.

Based on these input signals, the hobby servomotors operate to allow the XMP-1 to run at varying speeds in a straight line or to take a turn. Usually the servomotors rotate to less than a complete revolution – within a range of nearly 180-degrees. The output shaft is connected to linkages that make the wheels turn a full right, a full left or anything in-between.

An Oscilloscope with the Raspberry Pi

An Oscilloscope with the Raspberry Pi
Making a full-fledged oscilloscope with a Raspberry Pi or RBPi, the unique low cost SBC, may be beyond the scope of many enthusiasts, but here is a proof-of-concept that RBPi can handle such a project. Although not a very practical oscilloscope, it does provide several oscilloscope-like capabilities. Additionally, all this comes at a very low cost and not much of soldering is involved – impressive incentives for any DIY enthusiast to start on the project.

The oscilloscope project has additional incentives for those seeking to advance their learning curve. Information available in the project and experience gathered during the execution may be reusable for applications involving analog sensing and plotting data onto a screen. It is perfectly possible to project the output onto a larger screen as the output of the oscilloscope is available to view in a web browser. Therefore, this project could also be used to display low-frequency waveforms in an environment that does not have a real oscilloscope. The RBPi oscilloscope is quite responsive and refreshes the display several times a second.

To make the oscilloscope all you need is an RBPi, an XMOS startKIT board and a few wires. The XMOS startKIT is another credit card sized board containing the XMOS multi-cored processor. When compared to other similar processors in the market, the XMOS processor comes with a host of advantages for projects that require real-time operations. This is especially true for data-logging purposes, as the chip also contains a 12-bit ADC or Analog to Digital Converter built into it. Having all this on a single low-cost board makes the whole arrangement very attractive for connecting to the RBPi.

Although a multimeter is a very useful instrument, it cannot show electrical signals varying over time beyond a certain rate. With the RBPi oscilloscope, you can do that see more than what the multimeter tells you. Of course, it is not the intention here to make an oscilloscope with all the features that a professional scope has. However, the project does offer some oscilloscope-like features such as sweep modes, trigger capability and on-screen cursors for trace measurements.

Unlike a regular oscilloscope, the RBPi scope lacks the entire front-end. Therefore, it does not possess a good sample rate, has no front-end filters, is without any AC/DC input capabilities and there are no gain adjustments. In fact, the XMOS Analog Examiner is good enough only to examine simple circuits at low speeds. The XMOS board actually collects analog data and transfers it to the RBPi over the Serial Peripheral Interface or SPI. The RBPi runs a web server and the XAE application using JavaScript and Node.js. Anyone connecting to the XAE application via a web browser can see the data plotted as a graphical curve.

The XMOS processor can run multiple tasks in parallel, thanks to its multiple cores that can execute different codes. The XMOS cores communicate with each other using the concept of channels. Additionally, the XMOS chip also has a 4-channel ADC built in. This ADC can resolve at 12-bits or 4096 points at 1 MSps or a million samples per second. For further details on this oscilloscope, refer to this site.

Raspberry Pi Compatible Multicore Development Board

If you are looking for a low-cost development platform for adding to your low-cost, versatile, credit-card sized, single board computer, the Raspberry Pi or RBPi, a startKIT might be just what you need. With a startKIT attached to your RBPi, you can have real-time Input/Outputs and several communication features including networking and audio, making it an ideal platform for varied applications such as digital audio, networking, motion control and robotics.

This ultra-low-cost development platform for the RBPi is made by XMOS, featuring the configurable multicore micro-controller technology – xCORE. These are an innovative family of devices that you can configure with software for a wide variety of interface and peripheral blocks. Equipped with header connections, startKIT can easily be interfaced to RBPi products. That makes it the ideal real-time IO solution for projects involving the RBPi.

XMOS provides free-to-use design tools along with the startKIT. These xTIMEcomposer design tools offer developers the right interface configurations, allowing them to write application codes quickly, using C/C++, all within a single programming environment. Developers get a full graphical development with the xTIMEcomposer, which includes a compiler, a static time analyzer, a software-based logic analysis tool and a debugger.

The entire board of the startKIT measures just 94x50mm. The kit is based around the xCORE-Analog multicore micro-controller, the XS1-A8-64-DEV. The xCORE runs at 500MIPS and has eight numbers of 32-bit logical processing cores. Along with the multicore micro-controller, the startKIT comes with an array of LEDs, 2 capacitive sense sliders, a push-button switch and a sliceCARD connector. The sliceCARD connector is compatible with several IO slices that XMOS makes available. You can connect the startKIT board to a breadboard system, as it is equipped with suitable header connectors.

For new users to start with the startKIT, XMOS provides several wide-ranging example codes. These include a web-server application, a software-defined Ethernet interface and the basic driver software necessary for operating the on-board LEDs and the push-button. If you want more, you are free to join the XCORE Exchange, a thriving community of users at xCORE; you will have access to a large variety of xCORE code.

The on-chip debug capabilities of the on-board xCORE multicore micro-controller, XS1-A8-64-DEV, allows the developer an in-circuit analysis of the complete design in comprehensive real-time. That makes it easy to see what is happening in real-time at the device interface and in the code – while the system is running – all without affecting the performance. You can also monitor the analog interfaces alongside the digital signals of the startKIT. For example, you can monitor the signals on the capacitive touch-sensors in real-time.

For those who work with applications such as digital audio, networking, motion control and robotics, the eight 32-bit logical cores of the 500MIPS xCORE multicore micro-controller can perform deterministically. Therefore, you can configure the startKIT to match your exact requirements as the software allows you to configure the interface.

The xCORE-Analog A8-DEV is a two-tile device. While Tile-0 handles the integrated debugger and USB PHY, Tile-1 is dedicated to the user-programmable eight logical cores, with its digital IO available on pins. That allows several types of peripherals to be integrated with the startKIT board.

New Method for Recycling PCB Waste

All over the world, gadgets contain Printed Circuit Boards or PCBs as a means of mounting and interconnecting the several electronic components they use. When the life of the gadget comes to an end, nearly all components are recycled. Although the recycling process is streamlined in some countries, it is still a growing industry in most developing countries. It is especially difficult to recycle the PCB and its components, since it often produced significant waste streams. Researchers in China have developed an innovative method to salvage the materials found in waste PCBs.

Every year, e-waste produced around the globe reaches nearly 50-million tons, most of which ends up in the developing countries such as China and India. Now, there is a friendly method for salvaging materials from waste PCBs. Using the solvent Dimethyl Sulfoxide or DMSO, Chinese researchers claim to have developed an environmentally friendly method that can simplify the process of recycling e-waste, especially waste PCBs.

Traditional methods of recovering precious metals from waste PCBs include using pyrolysis along with hydrometallurgical processes. The process uses aqueous solvents such as strong alkalis and acids. However, these processes are not environmentally friendly. They contaminate the environment with toxic heavy metals including persistent organic pollutants. They also generate a huge quantity of spend acids and alkalis that is difficult or impossible to recover.

At the Zhejiang Gongshang University in Hangzhou, researchers Ping Zhu and colleagues have developed a simple process of separation. They claim this process can recover valuable materials from waste PCBs at much lower recycling costs. At the same time, their method does not create the environmental pollution that other methods do.

Traditional methods decompose the polymer resins of waste PCBs to separate them. This process generates polybrominated dibenzofurans and deibenzodioxins, which are highly toxic. The new method is simple and easy as it swells the polymer resins, but does not allow it to decompose into the solution. Therefore, the process does not cause secondary pollution and the solvent can be reused.

According to the team, the process begins with stripping the waste PCBs of all electronic components. Next, the bare boards are shredded into fragments of approximately 1-3cm2. Then, the fragments are heated with DMSO – under an atmosphere of nitrogen. As the DMSO swells the brominated epoxy resin that holds the PCB layers together, they separate from one another. After abstracting and filtering the solution, it is evaporated under vacuum to regenerate the used DMSO. That leaves behind the separated polymer resin and the circuit board components.

At present, the size of the PCB fragments can be an issue in scaling the process up to industrial scales. At Ecyclex, an e-waste management company in the UAE, Saeed Nusri, a chemical engineer feels that this process could be remarkable. In his opinion, the process can solve many issues related to process complexity and solvent recovery that are typically faced in hydrometallurgical recycling of PCBs. Since only 2% of DMSO is lost in every run, there is a lot of savings in raw materials.

Raspberry Pi Gesture Control

Many smartphones are capable of gesture control, where the phone can sense movement of the owner’s hands near it and respond accordingly. Now you can add the same features to the versatile credit card sized single board computer, the Raspberry Pi or RBPi. The features are provided by the Microchip 3D Gesture Controller, the MGC3130 GestIC and a 3D Touchpad.

The hardware you will need for implementing the gesture control is the MGC3130 Hillstar Development Kit, a 5V, 1.2A power supply with a microUSB connector and an RBPi Model B, preferably V2. Initially, you will need access to a PC for parameterization and for flashing the firmware on the MGC3130. After the flashing is over, the MGC3130 can communicate directly with the RBPi via the GesturePort available of the tiny MGC3130 board on the Hillstar dev kit. The Hillstar board needs signals EIO1, EIO2, EIO3, EIO6 and EIO7, which the RBPi supplies via its GPIO connector.

3D gesture sensing and control applications require capacitive sensing, which the MGC3130 handles aptly. You can either power the Hillstar board from the USB charger, or let the RBPi power it up directly. Once connected, the MGC3130 senses the North-South and East-West hand flicks. The EIOx pins flag the gestures sensed to the RBPi, which then acts on them according to actions already assigned.

The GestIC controller has Aurea, a free graphic shell working around it. Aurea allows parameterization of several planes of different sizes and configuration. These planes make up the capacitive sensing pad and you can calibrate and configure them with good precision. For programming, you will require the Raspbian OS Debian Wheezy – version January 2014, Python – version 2.7.3, RPI.GPIO – version 0.5.4, Tkinter and Leafpad. All the above software are already included in the Raspbian OS. To demonstrate the functioning of the gesture controller, you can use the python code for the game “2048” – 2048_with_Gesture_Port_Demo.py.

The software package for the MGC3130 contains all the relevant system software and its documentation. The package, provided by Microchip, contains the PC software Aurea, the GestIC Library binary file, the GestIC Parameterization files, CDC driver for Windows and the relevant documentation. You can use the Software Development Kit, also from Microchip, for integrating the MGC3130 into a software environment, as it includes a C-reference code for the GestIC API, a precompiled library for the Windows operating system. It also includes a demo application (the game “2048”) that uses the GestIC API interface on the Hillside Development Kit.

The Hillstar Development Kit provides a reference electrode of 95×60 cm for the touchpad. This consists of one Transmit and a set of five Receive electrodes – one each for north, east, south, west and center positions. These electrodes are placed in two different layers. To shield the Transmit electrode from external influences, it has a ground layer just underneath.

The five Receive electrodes include the four frame electrodes and one center electrode. The frame electrode names follow from their cardinal directions, that is, north, east, south and west. The maximum sensing area is defined by the dimensions of the four Receive frame electrodes. The center electrode is positioned to get a similar input signal level as received by the four frame electrodes.

How Good Are Hydrostatic Drives?

Wherever a means of power transmission and variable speed are required, we typically think of using mechanical and electrical variable-speed drives and gear-type transmissions. However, there exists another equally excellent means of transmitting power, and that is through hydrostatic drives. While offering a fast response, hydraulic drives can maintain precise speed under varying loads all the while allowing infinitely variable speed control from zero to maximum.

Gear transmission systems usually have a discontinuous power curve with peaks and valleys. For increasing available torque, you need to shift gears. Hydraulic drives can overcome both these shortcomings. However, despite their superior performance, hydrostatics have a major drawback – higher cost compared to their mechanical counterparts.

However, manufacturers are driving down the economics of using hydrostatic drives. They are producing smaller and lighter packages, while boosting performance levels and offering advanced electronic controls. Many applications now prefer to use hydrostatics to other types of drives.

Hydrostatic drives have several advantages, the most significant being – a basic hydrostatic transmission is an entire hydraulic system. The simple package contains all the required controls, the motor and the pump included. The single unit provides all the advantages of a conventional hydraulic system – ability to be installed without damage; easy controllability; an entirely stepless adjustment of speed, torque and power; with smooth and controllable acceleration. All this comes with the simple convenience of a single-package procurement and installation.

Earlier, hydrostatic transmissions were limited to low-cost applications such as garden tractors and farm equipment. However, with improved designs, especially in control systems, hydrostatic transmissions are now suitable for a wide variety of applications.

This has resulted in the use of light-duty units of less than 20HP being used on equipment such as small machine tools, maintenance equipment for golf courses and lawn tractors. Medium-duty units of 25-50HP are used on vehicles such as harvesters, trenchers and steer loaders. Agricultural and large constructional equipment mostly use the heavy -duty transmission equipment rated for 60HP and above.

The increasing attractiveness of hydrostatic transmission is partly due to the improved design of motors and pumps that result in higher flow and pressure ratings in more compact packages. For example, where earlier pumps could deliver only 0.125-gpm flow for every pound of pump, current pumps can deliver more than 0.5gpm/lb., representing a four-fold increase. Similarly, where older motors could provide only about 0.5HP/lb., newer motors offer 2.5HP/lb. with ease.

Today, you can have hydrostatic transmissions with at least three standards of output performance – Variable-power/Variable-torque, Variable-power/Constant-torque and Constant-power/Variable-torque. Additionally, you can select hydrostatic drive configurations such as close-coupled or split-coupled. The transmission size is specified by corner horsepower of the work function. You obtain corner horsepower by multiplying the maximum force required with the maximum speed requirement, although you may never require these two conditions simultaneously.

Earlier control capabilities of hydrostatic transmissions were limited to simple remote electrical actuators. Today, they have advanced to packages offering complete optimization of the machine performance.

Fuel savings and increased productivity make hydrostatic proportional controls economical to use in most traction drives and propel systems, although they may not be economical for every application.

What are Leadless Packages?

Electronic components, especially semiconductors have undergone a dramatic transformation over the past few decades. Starting from the through-hole packages, semiconductors evolved into the surface mount packaging, which is the default today. With the increase in packaging density, surface mount packaging is now limited to passive components mostly, while semiconductors are moving towards current technologies involving leadless packaging.

Modern technologies involve leadless packaging such as dual/quad flats with no leads (DFN/QFN), Ball Grid Arrays or BGAs and Chip Scale Packaging or CSP. Such innovative technologies are allowing the semiconductor industry to exploit the successive IC processing shrink and achieve product performances, which were thought impossible earlier

For example, consider a simple three-pin discrete device such as a MOSFET, typically used as a switching device that can conduct currents ranging from 0.1A to more than 100A at voltages surpassing 1000V. Applications as diverse as motor controls to battery management use MOSFETs.

Leadless packaging makes discrete devices more attractive because of the assembly efficiencies involved that makes them friendlier to the environment. Although several leadless solutions are possible for packaging MOSFETs – BGAs, CSPs and DFN/QFN – the governing factor here is mainly the market price pressure. Substrate costs may be expensive, making package material sets undesirable for BGA packaging. Moreover, capital expenditure required to changeover to full production with new packaging types such as BGAs and CSPs may increase the per-unit cost.

Consequently, BGA and CSP packaging is limited to discrete semiconductor applications where the average selling price is of a secondary consideration over more important parameters such as performance. At present, the traditional surface mount packages are being replaced by the more cost-effective alternatives leadless package solutions such as the DFN and QFN.

The manufacturing steps for a typical DFN package consists of six key processes. A silicon die is attached to a copper alloy or similar leadframe using a highly conductive epoxy resin. The package pads are then attached to the silicon die using wirebonds of aluminum or gold. The silicon and leadframe package is then hermetically sealed with a mold of a halogen-free compound. Sawing the molded lead frame yields the finished package product.

Leadless packages offer several advantages. They utilize the available board-space more efficiently, while improving the thermal performance of the device. For example, the SOT23 package, being one of the most widely used packages of the semiconductor industry, has a silicon-to-footprint ratio of 23%, while it occupies 8mm2 space on the printed circuit board. Comparatively, The DFN2020 package has a silicon-to-footprint ratio of 42%, which is nearly double that of the SOT23, while it occupies only 4mm2 space on the PCB. This leads to huge cost benefits to the manufacturing industry, while simultaneously increasing the electrical performance of the application.

The DFN package has a highly conductive copper alloy pad for the die, which is exposed to the outside of the package to be soldered. This larger area of contact between the DFN package and the printed circuit board results in a very low thermal impedance between the junction and the leads. This ensures not only a reliable contact, but also a higher thermal efficiency as compared to typical surface mount packages.

LED Indicator for the Raspberry Pi

Some projects are attempted not because they have any ulterior value, but simply because they are fun to do and involve learning for the uninitiated. The Raspberry Pi or RBPi is a low-cost, compact single board computer platform that came into being for the sole purpose of teaching youngsters how to program computers. However, its popularity has grown beyond its primary mandate. Making an indicator light come up for notifications is a simple fun project, which shows how to set up notifications and how to hook up an LED module to an RBPi.

To start with, for this project you will need a functional RBPi unit with Raspbian installed on it. In case you are new to RBPi, you can catch up with this tutorial on how to get started – it is essential that you have the basics covered before getting on. In addition to the RBPi unit, you will also need an LEDBorg module, available from PiBorg and a clear or frosted case for your RBPi. The clear/frosted case for the RBPi is not an essential item, but it conveniently hides the RBPi card and the LEDBorg module, while allowing the LED light to shine through – this offers protection as well as makes the project look neater.

Strictly speaking, even the LEDBorg is not an essential item to use. You could connect a series resistance to an LED and use the combination instead. Using the LEDBorg only makes it easier for the project as it provides a compact unit that is designed to fit directly on the GPIO pins of your RBPi. If your RBPi is turned on, power it down, open the case and orient the LEDBorg module correctly before plugging it in.

While orienting the LEDBorg module, make sure the logo on the board comes closest to the RCA connector on the RBPi board, while the edge of the LEDBorg is flush with the RBPi board edge. While the case is open, take care to cover the indicator LEDs on the RBPi with opaque tape so as not to confuse the LEDBorg LED with the RBPI power and network indicator LEDs. Once the LEDBorg is plugged in and the extra LEDs are covered, you can close the case and power up the RBPi to move onto the next phase of the project.

Depending on whether your RBPi is a revision 1 or a revision 2, and the kernel version in use, you will have to download the specific software package for the LEDBorg from the PiBorg website. Now open up a terminal on the RBPi to download and install the package. This will give you the GUI wrapper for driving the LEDBorg through your RBPi. To check if the module is functional, pick any color in the demo mode of the software and test it. The only thing that remains now is to use scripts to change our LED into an actual indicator based on notifications.

For example, you may want to turn on the LED if there is rain forecasted in the weather report. Follow this tutorial to link up your LED with the weather forecast. The same tutorial will also tell you how to light up the LED if you have received mail in your Gmail account.