Pi and Chips

I’ve been working on another electronics video, as part of that I need a large Raspberry Pi logo. I looked online and there were some stickers but most of them were smaller than I wanted. So I decided to 3D print one. I first tried importing a premade Pi as an SVG file into FreeCAD. But it errorred and would not generate a solid face on the shape.

So used InkScape to turn the outline of the into a PNG and then used the tool in the above link to turn that back into an SVG. That imported into FreeCAD without issue. I repeated this with the detail for the Pi and used that to subtract this from the outline. I exported this as an STL and imported into my printer software which reported it was a corrupt file. So I used the free tool that comes with Windows to repair it.

Once printed out, I painted it with some help from my daughter. You’ll be able to see the finished results in the video or on the blog.

I’ve also been using some little ESP-01 WiFi modules connected to a Raspberry Pi Pico. These have an 8 pin header which is great for PCBs but not so good for breadboards. So I made a little adapter using some stripboard and a socket.

After making a break in the tracks, I fitted the socket which was surface mounted by bending the pins and soldering it to the copper side.

This means I can do my prototyping easily on the breadboard and transfer the module to PCB once all the coding and wiring is worked out.

Keep an eye on the Element14 Presents Youtube in a few weeks for my next project.

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