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IoT

Setting up a Raspberry Pi Zero W

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fyi: Here is my guide that I created while I set up a Raspberry Pi Zero W. My previous Raspberry PI 2 Setup Guide here and I wanted to try the single core Raspberry Pi Zero W. Eventually, want to run my Raspberry Pi from batteries (my older guide here).

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I plugged in a  2Amp 5v micro USB powder pack, micro HDMI cable, micro USB keyboard and expected to see a light but nothing.  This guide says the Raspberry Pi has no power LED. Unfortunately, I thought the power pack was faulty and I plugged it in a few times and corrupted the installed SD-card.

Failed Setup

After reading this guide I remembered I forgot to switch the monitor to the HDMI input (oops).

Yep, I realized I corrupted the OS on the SD Card.

Old Noobs Operating System

I checked the SD-Card (that I purchased from eBay) I noticed the SD-Card had an older NOOBS 2.0.0 installation in an in an invalid subfolder (that’s why it would not boot).

I plugged the Micro SD card into an SD-Card adapter and plugged it into my Mac (time to install a newer OS).

 

Downloading the latest Raspian Operating System

I visited https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/ and download raspbian

I downloaded a 1.66GB Zip File.

The file took 30 mins to download.

I expanded the zip file to a 4.66 img file.

Formatting the SD-Card

I formatted my SD Card with the SD Card Associations SD formatting tool from https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/ here.

Setting up the SD-Card

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has a great guide on how to install the Raspberry Pi Raspian image onto an SD-Card here.

I downloaded the free 64MB Etcher program for Mac OS here https://etcher.io/ in order to copy (flash) Raspian onto the SD-Card.

I opened Etcher and selected the Raspian Jesse image file and clicked flash.

The flash will take between 5-10 minutes.

SD Card Contents

The Raspian image is now ready for reinsertion back into the Raspberry Pi to setup

1st Raspberry Pi (Raspian) boot.

The raspberry pi does, in fact, have a  power/activity led with the latest operating system 🙂

The desktop loaded quite swiftly too. My Bay special keyboard detected just fine. You can manually connect to your wifi by entering the following command in the terminal (thanks to this guide).

Pi

 

Generic Config

I am not using the desktop much so I am happy setting 16MB for the video card.

Get the Mac Address and set a static IP Address (to allow remote SSH management)

After a reboot, I was logged into a shell and was able to bring up the devices network details (including mac address).

Test the network connection

I was successful;y able to ping a remote server via wifi.

Pi Zero Network Update

Static IP Address

Todo: I set up my local ADSL router to give the Raspberry Pi a Static (known) IP every time it boots.

Update the Pi Software (after the network is up)

Now that I knew the network is working I was able to update the Pi software.

Pi Zero

I re-ran the update just in case. Now my Pi is all up to date.

Installed Misc Software

More on setting up a NGINX web server here.

Set the Pi Mouse (regular sized USB devices)

I had small micro USB to larger USB adapters (from eBay)  but could only use a keyboard or mouse at any one time. I Also had a micro USB to multiple micro USB and Ethernet adapter (from eBay) (SN: YS-LAN38) but it failed to work with NOOBS 2.0.0 (maybe it will work with Raspian latest)

I wanted to test regular devices in the case of an emergency.

Pi Zer UBS Adapter

And the mouse works (and the X desktop worked with 16MB assigned)

Help

40 Useful Raspberry Pi Commands.

Todo

Add information on adding and using a 5MP Raspberry Pi camera and setting this up as a https://fearby.com/article/raspberry-pi-2b-security-webcam/secuerity webcam.

 

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v1.2 DRAFT: Added more images

NodeMCU Introduction – Open source IoT platform based on the ESP8266 Wi-Fi SoC

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Below is a quick review of the NodeMCU v1.0 Dev Kit board micro controller that can be picked up for under $10. NodeMCU is an  open source IoT platform based on the ESP8266 Wi-Fi SoC.

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Specs:

nodemcu003

I ordered 1x Node MCU v1.0 with Free delivery from eBay seller 19star-au for $10.94.

nodemcu001

I have played with Arduinos and having Wifi in a small micro controller by default is appealing.

 

How to program your NodeMCU

  1. Goto www.arduino.cc and download the Arduino IDE (1.8.x or higher).
  2. Open the Arduino IDE and find the Preferences Menu
  3. Paste the following in the “Additional Boards Manager” textbbox: http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json
  4. Goto Tools, Boards*, Boards manager and search for “esp8266” and install it.nodemcu002
  5. Close your Arduino IDE and reopen it.
  6. Now choose your board type in the Arduino IDE (Tools, Board, Node MCU, 1.0 ESP-12E..)

You will not be able to select a sample script (e.g Blink) by navigating to File, Examples, ESP8266, Blink.

The Blink code will look like this:

void setup() {
  pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);     // Initialize the LED_BUILTIN pin as an output
}

// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW);   // Turn the LED on (Note that LOW is the voltage level
                                    // but actually the LED is on; this is because 
                                    // it is active low on the ESP-01)
  delay(1000);                      // Wait for a second
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH);  // Turn the LED off by making the voltage HIGH
  delay(2000);                      // Wait for two seconds (to demonstrate the active low LED)
}

You can now plug the ESP8266 in and try compile and upload the new sketch to the device.

Mac Troubleshooting: If the Arduino IDE says you do not have a serial port you may need to download the USB-Serial driver from silabs.

If all goes well you will have a blinking light on your ESP8266.

nodemcu004

Now lets try the web server sketch

#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <WiFiClient.h>
#include <ESP8266WebServer.h>
#include <ESP8266mDNS.h>

const char* ssid = "yourwifinetwork";
const char* password = "yourwifipassword";

ESP8266WebServer server(80);

const int led = 13;

void handleRoot() {
  digitalWrite(led, 1);
  server.send(200, "text/plain", "hello from esp8266!");
  digitalWrite(led, 0);
}

void handleNotFound(){
  digitalWrite(led, 1);
  String message = "File Not Found\n\n";
  message += "URI: ";
  message += server.uri();
  message += "\nMethod: ";
  message += (server.method() == HTTP_GET)?"GET":"POST";
  message += "\nArguments: ";
  message += server.args();
  message += "\n";
  for (uint8_t i=0; i<server.args(); i++){
    message += " " + server.argName(i) + ": " + server.arg(i) + "\n";
  }
  server.send(404, "text/plain", message);
  digitalWrite(led, 0);
}

void setup(void){
  pinMode(led, OUTPUT);
  digitalWrite(led, 0);
  Serial.begin(115200);
  WiFi.begin(ssid, password);
  Serial.println("");

  // Wait for connection
  while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
    delay(500);
    Serial.print(".");
  }
  Serial.println("");
  Serial.print("Connected to ");
  Serial.println(ssid);
  Serial.print("IP address: ");
  Serial.println(WiFi.localIP());

  if (MDNS.begin("esp8266")) {
    Serial.println("MDNS responder started");
  }

  server.on("/", handleRoot);

  server.on("/inline", [](){
    server.send(200, "text/plain", "this works as well");
  });

  server.onNotFound(handleNotFound);

  server.begin();
  Serial.println("HTTP server started");
}

void loop(void){
  server.handleClient();
}

A quick check of my routers DHCP list and I found the ESP8266 listening for web requests at 192.168.1.110.

nodemcu005

More to come….

 

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