The RetroPie SSH interface is disabled by default. Follow this quick tutorial to enable SSH in RetroPie and allow remote connections. SSH is a great way to add new ROMs to your retro gaming system and edit Gamelist XML files. Assuming you have a network enabled RetroPie system running enabling SSH should only take a few minutes.
Author: Matt
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The Raspberry Pi 3 B+ has been released and replaces the Raspberry Pi 3 as the main model in the Pi family. It boasts a number of improvements over the previous model including a faster CPU and gigabit Ethernet. Some might have been expecting a Raspberry Pi 4 but an update to the Pi 3 is still good news.
The Raspbian image is available in two sizes from the Official download page. If SD card storage space is an issue it can sometimes be useful to reduce the size of these images. This guide will show how you can remove approximately 1GB of packages that you may not need for your Raspberry Pi project.
Over the weekend of March 3rd-4th 2018 hundreds of Pi Party events were held across the World to celebrate the 6th Birthday of the Raspberry Pi. Many of these were hosted by regular Pi Jam organisers. I attended the Cotswold Jam held at the University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK. Due to adverse weather conditions there was a chance of cancellation but luckily the roads we clear by Sunday morning.
Changing the default I2C bus speed on the Raspberry Pi can help improve the performance of some projects. This is particularly important when using the I2C interface to control a display module. In the newer versions of Raspbian this change must be made using a Device Tree parameter. The bus speed is sometimes referred to as “baudrate” although the two aren’t actually the same thing.
RC522 RFID modules are a simple add-on you can connect to a Raspberry Pi to read MIFARE tags and cards. This is potentially a great feature to include in a security system or any application where you need to identify an object or person without them pressing buttons, operating switches or other sensors. The contactless tags can be carried on a key-ring and the cards fit nicely in a wallet. Both of them can be hidden inside other objects to give them a unique ID that can be read by the Pi. The obvious application is a security system where…
The Raspberry Pi has a 1-wire bus which can be enabled on GPIO4. It provides low-speed data, signaling, and power over a single conductor. This is commonly used on the Pi to connect low-cost sensors devices such as the DS18B20 temperature sensor.
A servo is motor that uses a set of gears to create rotary motion. Radio controlled vehicles and animation projects often use them to generate movement. They vary in size and capability but small servos are cheap and a great way to introduce movement into your Raspberry Pi projects.
Since its release in 2012 the Raspberry Pi has made a number of TV and Film Appearances. It has been used in TV shows and movies to track people, hot-wire vehicles, hack buildings and blowup mountains. Here is a summary of all the films and TV episodes that have featured our favourite single-board computer.
The “Pi Spy” Raspberry Pi Alexa Skill allows you to ask about the GPIO header pins, location of specific GPIO numbers and details of specific interfaces. It will also tell you when a particular Raspberry Pi model was released.
In a previous post I introduced my Raspberry Pi arcade table built with an IKEA table and a Raspberry Pi 3 running RetroPie. I’m sure people might be interested in how I made it so I’ll go into a little bit more detail here. How I approached this project was heavily influenced by my own abilities, what tools I had available and what parts I was able to obtain or buy. For these reasons other people’s arcade table projects will look different. Hopefully this article will at least act as some inspiration for others even if it is not copied…
If you are building a Raspberry Project with screen there may be times you need to rotate the screen. This fairly easy to do in Raspbian.
It’s Halloween 2017 and I decided to create a pumpkin with moving eyes. The result is a pumpkin with three ping pong ball eyes hooked up to some small servos and controlled with a Raspberry Pi and an I2C control board.
Sometimes you need to find out what is using the space on your SD card. Raspbian includes a useful tool called Ncdu which can provide a breakdown of the space used by folders from the command line.
Kano have recently released the Kano Motion Sensor Kit and they sent me one to take a look at. It comprises of a sensor which can be used to detect a moving object in it’s field of view. The latest Kano OS has been updated to provide a whole suite of challenges that youngsters can work through to use the sensor and demonstrate its capabilities. As with other Kano activities progress is recorded in your Kano World online profile.
ScummVM is a program which allows you to play some classic graphical point-and-click adventure and role-playing games. You need to own the games files but some of these games are completely free to download or available for a low cost (£4-£10) from official distributors. This allows you to play a selection of games on your Raspberry Pi.
The DHT11 is a low-cost temperature and humidity sensor. It isn’t the fastest sensor around but its cheap price makes it useful for experimenting or projects where you don’t require new readings multiple times a second. The device only requires three connections to the Pi. +3.3v, ground and one GPIO pin.
This post introduces my RetroPie IKEA Arcade table based on a Raspberry Pi 3. I’ve always wanted an arcade machine. I had admired Spanner Spencer’s PIK3A project and those that followed it but I didn’t think I had the time to create anything as interesting. Then fate decided to give me a helping hand. A number of years ago we owned an IKEA kids “Gulliver” table which we eventually gave to a friend when our son out-grew it. Her kids got older and no longer needed it so I got it back. It was just the right size to make…
Now I’ve got a few MotionEyeOS based cameras around the house I wanted an easier way to know when they were rebooted and also have a link on my phone to make it easier to access the camera feed. I’ve got the excellent Pushover app on my phone so I decided to get MotionEyeOS to send a Pushover notification whenever it restarted. The notification states what the IP address is and provides a handy link to click.
Energenie create a range of remote control power socket products. These include plugin socket adapters that are great for controlling lamps, pumps and any other mains powered devices. To add some intelligence they sell a hub but of more interest to me is the Pi-mote.
KKSB were kind enough to send me two of their Raspberry Pi cases to try out. They were designed in Sweden and consist of a full metal enclosure to protect your Raspberry Pi from knocks and scrapes. They might be designed for industrial environments but I think it makes a great case for any Pi user. The cases are compatible with the Pi 2 or Pi 3. The only real difference in these models is the location of the LEDs on the board but physically they both fit fine. The two finishes available are black and a rather nice brushed steel.
This summer I created a pool temperature monitoring and pump control system using a Pi Zero W. This article gives an overview of the system and how I put it together. It allows the temperature of the air and water to be displayed on a web page while automatically turning the pump on and off according to a preset schedule.