If these tips don’t fix the problems you’re experiencing, your next port of call should be the user forums at the Raspberry Pi Foundation (www.raspberrypi.org/forums). The user community there is extremely knowledgeable and very helpful, particularly for beginners. Your problem may already have been solved in the discussions there. If not, post your problem, describing exactly the trouble you’re having. More often than not, you’ll get an answer within a few hours. Making it easy to experiment with your Raspberry Pi is what the user community is all about!
Chapter 2
Setting Up Your Tools and Workbench
In This Chapter
▶ Setting up a project-building workspace
▶ Choosing the right tools for the job
▶ Selecting your accessories
▶ Using breadboards and soldering
▶ Finding out about Raspberry Pi LEGO projects
The first thing you need to do to get started with Raspberry Pi projects is to get your workspace ready. You need a dedicated work area and the right tools so that you can build the projects quickly and easily. In this chapter, we explain how to create a good workspace with the right set of tools for the projects in this book.
The project chapters assume that you have the basic workspace and tools ready to go. After you dive into a project, it can be a drag to interrupt your work to get some basic tool that you’ve overlooked. But if you have most (or all) of the basics of your workspace covered, you won’t have to stop what you’re doing to go get a hand tool or run to the hardware store.
Getting Ready to Build Your Projects
You can start working on Raspberry Pi projects almost anywhere, but it’s best to have a dedicated spot in which to build them. Completing the projects will take some time, so you want to choose a place where you can work comfortably and see what you’re doing. Generally, setting up and taking down unfinished projects is a hassle – it takes more time and can introduce errors if your connections come loose. You can avoid this problem by setting aside a dedicated workspace.
Setting up your workspace
You need a dedicated area where you can build and test your projects – especially the advanced ones in this book, which can take a few hours or more. You have to connect all the components together, provide power, keep the cables and connection wires organized, and do some light fabrication. So, find a spot in your house, apartment, shed, garage, studio, or wherever, where you and your work will be undisturbed and where you can make a bit of a mess. The workspace in Figure 2-1 has all these things covered.
Figure 2-1: A good working environment and some basic tools.
✔ A solid workbench or desk
✔ A comfortable chair
✔ Dry air and good ventilation (especially for evacuating soldering fumes)
✔ Plenty of power outlets, ideally at desk height
✔ Enough room for the screen, keyboard, and mouse, and some extra workbench space for assembly and fabrication
✔ A nearby network connection or Wi-Fi router
✔ Shelving and storage for projects you’re working on
✔ Small boxes and drawers for organizing parts and tools
The environment needs to be comfortable to work in for a long stretch. If it’s too cold or too hot, too noisy, or filled with distractions, it’ll take you longer to complete the work. Make yourself a sort of hideaway where you can stay focused.
Your Raspberry Pi is a fine computer in its own right, but an extra computer is sometimes useful during the project-building process, so it’s good to have room for a desktop or laptop computer on the workbench. Plus, you’ll want to be able to hunt for references online, look up datasheets, and post questions to forums, so a reliable Internet connection is vital.
Keeping an eye on safety
A few of the projects in this book deal with low-voltage electronics. Safety is always a factor when working with electrical circuits. None of these projects works with wall power, but you should always treat electronic projects as if they could have potentially dangerous voltages. If children may roam around your work area, take special precautions to keep them away. Little kids love pulling on cords and cables and could easily drag everything off your desk with one quick tug. A hot soldering iron left unattended could cause severe burns, besides being a fire hazard.
It’s probably best to keep food and drink separate from your workbench. Empty pizza boxes or soda cans may hide critical parts, and you can waste time hunting for things. Accidentally spilled drinks don’t do good things for live circuits.
Assembling Your Tools
You need some basic tools to build several of the projects in this book. The tools basically fall into two categories: electronics tools and physical building and fabrication tools. You can get most or all of these components from electronics retailers such as Radio Shack (in the United States) or Maplin (in the UK). Specialty electronics suppliers on the Internet also stock them and are often cheaper, so hunt around at places like Farnell (www.farnell.com), Newark (www.newark.com), Rapid Electronics (www.rapidonline.com), and RS (www.rs-components.com). Sometimes you can find good deals on Amazon (www.amazon.com) and eBay (www.ebay.com), too.
Electronics tools
Here are the basic electronics tools you’ll want on your shopping list:
✔ A multimeter: A multimeter is an essential tool for most electronic projects. You use it to perform basic tests to make sure that you have good connections in your electrical circuits. With a multimeter, you can measure the characteristics of an electrical circuit and troubleshoot why something may not be working. A multimeter is also handy for testing and measuring individual electronic components. You should have one on hand for testing and troubleshooting your projects. (See the following section, “Selecting a multimeter,” for more information.)
✔ A breadboard and jumper wires: Some of the projects in this book involve wiring up electrical components, LEDs, sensors, or actuators to your Raspberry Pi. This can be as simple as one or two wires, but some of the projects have many connections. A breadboard is a simple tool to help you easily make all these electrical connections. You need jumper wires to make connections when you’re using a breadboard. Wires come in solid core and stranded versions (which contain many fine wires). You need solid core jumper wires for working with breadboards.
✔ A soldering iron: A breadboard is ideal for temporary connections and prototyping, but for some connections you’ll want something more permanent. This is where a soldering iron comes in. You use a soldering