Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Prepare for lift off
In this example, we will make use of PowerSwitch Tail 2 (sold by Adafruit Industries:
http://www.adafruit.com/product/268 ) to turn on/off the lights.
The Powerswitch tail is rated to control appliances rated to operate at 110V and it can switch
resisive loads up to 15A. The PowerSwitch Tail 2 can switch on/of appliances when it is
acivated by a 3-12V DC signal.
One main advantage of using the PowerSwitch Tail 2 is that it is opto-isolated (opto-isolaion
ensures that Raspberry Pi is protected from any transient voltages while turning on/off the
lights) and provides a safe alternaive to interfacing electrical appliances to Raspberry Pi. The
image below shows a PowerSwitch Tail 2 avail able from http://www.ada fruit.com .
Power tail switch II - Photo courtesy: adafruit.com
Software prerequisites
We will need the repository tool Git. This can be installed as follows:
sudo apt-get git-core
 
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