Basically I am looking for the best sensor (most variables) that works over I2C with a Pi. It needs to be less than £25. Can anyone recommend a suitable sensor or small board with several sensors on preferably available from Pimoroni. Basically I am just looking for a small board that the users of my device (just me at the moment) can play around with easily.
Thanks,
Louis
Hi,
Enviro pHAT would fit your needs: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/enviro-phat
Alternatively there’s breakout garden range, though with the sensors that’s a bit more than £25: https://shop.pimoroni.com/?q=breakout
Hope that helps :)
Thanks, that sure suits my needs but due to wanting to fit a Pi Zero’s dimension is too big for my project :( .
In fact it is almost perfect with an ADC as well but the form factor is not suitable :(
The Enviro pHat is Pi zero shaped?
If your referring to the Breakout Garden, there is now a pHat sized version.
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/breakout-garden-phat
I want a as small as possible board (it is a portable project), loads of unused space on the Enviro Phat.
Edit - Sorry my past replies seem badly worded
Ok, I’m with you now. The only other thing I can think of at the moment thats packed with stuff is the Sense Hat. Its a Hat format though. Lots of sensors etc on it. 8x8 LED matrix and a joystick too. I have one setup as a portable weather clock.
EDIT: Often times, a lot of board space is used up just running your tracks to the various chips etc. A lot of these boards are only double sided instead of multi layer. It keeps the cost down.
With a little work, you could likely wire up several of the breakout garden sensors to this.
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/protozero
Solder them flush right to the board with male headers. Then use jumper wire to daisy chain them all together on the i2c bus.
here I have a BMP680, Si1145 and RTC module all wired up to i2c on a Proto Hat. I used jumper cables, but you could just solder the sensor right to the Proto Hat or Proto Zero.
That looks perfect! I can have as many sensors as I can fit and solder on the protozero and use the protozero to mount some of the other components in my project and I can use the RTC in my project (the same one as you pictured) as well!
Thanks,
Louis
The full build pictures for that project are here, https://1drv.ms/f/s!AjOYwiwlwDtpgsVkNRFKrcQ8HARM0Q
A second Proto Hat was added to add more stuff. I had lots of room so it was easier to just add on a second one instead of trying to cram all my headers onto just the one.
I added an LED Shim in place of 4 10mm LEDs. That build has seen several modifications over the years. And I can see one more upgrade on the horizon. Replacing the Pi A+ with a 3A+
EDIT: Looks like I forgot to update some of the pictures. The proto board with the 4 10mm LEDS was replaced by an LED Shim. Looks like I’ll have to get my camera out and take some new ones.
