Mini Breakout Garden with SPI not working

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1

Cannot not get Breakout garden working. I also bought it with the 0.96 lcd spI and the TVOC/eCO2. Have both slotted in, have followed the procedure for the Breakout Garden, when I use sudo ./install.sh I get a message, Sorry I cannot find any breakouts.

The screen has some luminescence, apart from that there is nothing. I tried a raspberry pi 3 b and a 4 b with Raspbian Buster with desktop.

is there anything else i can try?

I

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did you make sure spi was turned on , scroll down to method 2 .https://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2014/08/enabling-the-spi-interface-on-the-raspberry-pi/

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Breakout Garden firmly pressed down and seated on the GPIO pins.

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Thanks for your input!

@Caperjack1953 I didnt have, but now I have and still no joy, when i run the script it still says I couldnt find any breakouts.
From Interfaces I now only have spi and 12c enabled and I have tried several reboots after following the link you kindly sent me.

@alphanumeric, they cannot go anyfurther in than what i have them. I have them facing the HDMI connector.

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I was referring to the Breakout Garden Hat or pHat, being firmly attached to the Piā€™s GPIO.
Something else to try is running the installer for each of the breakouts. Like you would if you were connecting them directly to the Pi, but leave them in the Hat.

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@alphanumeric Thanks for the help man, but alas, still not able to pick anything up. :(

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Try running i2cdetect -y 1 from terminal window and see if you get a 0x58 for the TVOC breakout.
It kind of sounds like the Breakout Garden Hat of pHat is defective?
EDIT: which Hat or phat do you have exactly?

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@alphanumeric. It is the Breakout Garden Mini (I2C + SPI). I ran the above command from the terminal window and the result was an empty grid , Hex across the top and 00 to 70 for the vertical.

I also tried a bit of waggling, but to no avail.

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Just a shot in the dark, try ā€œi2cdetect -Fā€ with no boards connected. The only active component on the board is an EEPROM. So the BG board may be defective. It sounds like the backlight is getting power, though.

From man page: -F Display the list of functionalities implemented by the adapter and exit.

EDIT: Sorry, you said you had the Mini Breakout. I donā€™t see any active components (no EEPROM) on that one.

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I think your going to have to go here
https://shop.pimoroni.com/pages/contact-us
and send them an e-mail with a link to this thread.

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Hi Paulio, i donā€™t know if you have found a solution in the meanwhile. Anyway, i think the problems is that install.sh script try to discover i2c sensors/devices, whilst you are working with SPI devices. So itā€™s normal the installer doesnā€™t see anything. In my case, the SPI 1.3 LCD, i just had to install the display drivers as described in https://github.com/pimoroni/st7789-python

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I had to do the same for the 0.96" LCD Breakout. I think the documentation should include these details.

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I tend to agree, documentation could be better in respect to setting up SPI devices on Breakout Garden. Me personally, I do it all manually, one breakout at a time. Iā€™m swapping devices in and out pretty regularly.
Iā€™m no expert, but as far as I know, there is no easy way to detect what is connected to SPI? i2c is pretty easy, scan for the addresses, and if you assume its a Pimoroni breakout you know which one it is by the address. Unless you have switched it to an alternate or something.

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Hi all,

This is my first time using Rapberry Pi 400 and recieved the breakout garden (PIM532) and SPI LCD (PIM436) for Christmas.

Iā€™ve got as far as working out where the Terminal is and extracting the zip folders but Iā€™m also having the problem where the error simply says, ā€˜Sorry, canā€™t find any breakouts!ā€™.

Can you help please? And if so, please keep it as simple as possible. Cheers, Paul

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The Breakout Garden software / utility will only detect i2c devices. You have to install and setup SPI breakouts manually. Itā€™s a byproduct of how the two buses work. i2c devices have addresses that can be looked for / detected. And then install the software based on the address found. SPI doesnā€™t work that way, there is no easy way to detect what is plugged into it.

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16

I did the following

Enable SPI in Raspberry Pi Configuration.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-rpi.gpio python-spidev python-pip python-imaging python-numpy
sudo apt-get install python3-rpi.gpio python3-spidev python3-pip python3-imaging python3-numpy

sudo pip install st7735
sudo pip3 install st7735

On my breakout garden min i2c SPI I use the following

# Initialise the LCD
disp = ST7735.ST7735(
    port=0,
    cs=1,
    dc=9,
    backlight=19,
    rotation=90,
    spi_speed_hz=10000000
)

Iā€™m not sure if the Pi400 breakout garden has the same pinout though?

1 Like
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Thank you very much for getting back to me.

I followed the install instructions but note that I also get a message:

ā€˜E: Package ā€˜python3-imagingā€™ has no installation candidateā€™& ā€˜E: Package ā€˜python-imagingā€™ has no installation candidateā€™

Forgive my very basic knowledge but where do I put the ā€˜# initialise the LCDā€™ code section?

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I do believe I also got that error, LCD worked anyway so I just ignored it.
You will see that code section in the examples for the LCD display breakout. Try the examples as is and if they work donā€™t worry about it. Only edit them if you have too.
I also ran some of the Enviro and Enviro+ examples on my breakout garden and had to edit that section to get the display to work. The Enviro uses the same 0.96 LCD, but it uses different GPIO pins for chip select and the back light.

1 Like
19

I apologise for my elementary knowledge but, where do I use the examples to get them to dislay?

Do you recommend any resources to read so I donā€™t ask you so many questions??

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The examples are python files. You can run them from an IDE like thoony, or from the command line
sudo python3 /path to the file/filename.py

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