That’s right! It’s CircuitPython on Raspberry Pi! Wire up your favorite sensors and use the same great CircuitPython code you’ve been using with microcontrollers right on your Raspberry Pi!
We’ve got tons of projects, libraries and example code for CircuitPython on microcontrollers, and thanks to the flexibility and power of Python it’s easy to get it working with micro-computers like Raspberry Pi or other ‘Linux with GPIO pins available’ single board computers.
We’ve written a special library called Adafruit Blinka to provide the layer that translates the CircuitPython hardware API to whatever library the Linux board provides.
We’ve added all the libraries to PyPi so installation is super simple via pip. We’ve also updated the CircuitPython guides! They now have sections for wiring up the sensor to and installing the libraries on your Raspberry Pi. The CircuitPython code works exactly the same way it works on microcontrollers, so the code examples will work on your Raspberry Pi too!
We have over 80 guides to update, so watch for updates to the Adafruit Learning System in small batches. Here’s the next five:
Stereo 20W Class D Audio Amplifier – MAX9744 – Pump up the volume with this 20W stereo amplifier! This slim little board has a class D amplifier onboard that can drive 2 channels of 4-8 ohm impedance speakers at 20W each. Power it with 5-12VDC using the onboard DC power jack and plug stereo line level into the 3.5mm stereo headphone jack and jam out with ease. Since it’s class D, its completely cool-running, no heat sinks are required and it’s extremely efficient – up to 93% efficiency makes it great for portable or battery powered rigs.
MCP9808 High Accuracy I2C Temperature Sensor Breakout Board – This I2C digital temperature sensor is one of the more accurate/precise we’ve ever seen, with a typical accuracy of ±0.25°C over the sensor’s -40°C to +125°C range and precision of +0.0625°C. They work great with any microcontroller using standard i2c.
VCNL4010 Proximity/Light sensor – This sensor is a nice way to add a small-distance proximity sensor to your microcontroller project. The VCNL4010 is designed for shorter distances, no more than 200mm (about 7.5″) and under our experimentation we found it worked best at distances of about 10-150mm. It would be good for say detecting when a hand moved nearby, or before a robot smacks into a wall. The sensor also has an ambient light sensor built in.
Adafruit VL53L0X Time of Flight Distance Sensor – ~30 to 1000mm – The VL53L0X is a Time of Flight distance sensor like no other you’ve used! The sensor contains a very tiny invisible laser source, and a matching sensor. The VL53L0X can detect the “time of flight”, or how long the light has taken to bounce back to the sensor. Since it uses a very narrow light source, it is good for determining distance of only the surface directly in front of it. Unlike sonars that bounce ultrasonic waves, the ‘cone’ of sensing is very narrow. Unlike IR distance sensors that try to measure the amount of light bounced, the VL53L0x is much more precise and doesn’t have linearity problems or ‘double imaging’ where you can’t tell if an object is very far or very close.
Adafruit VL6180X Time of Flight Distance Ranging Sensor (VL6180) – The VL6180X (sometimes called the VL6180) is a Time of Flight distance sensor like no other you’ve used! The sensor contains a very tiny laser source, and a matching sensor. The VL6180X can detect the “time of flight”, or how long the laser light has taken to bounce back to the sensor. Since it uses a very narrow light source, it is good for determining distance of only the surface directly in front of it.
Check out these updated guides today in the Adafruit Learning System.
