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I recently got a Raspberry Pi 3 B. It was just after I bought it that I learned about Arduino and the DIY community to it. Elegoo produces sets for Arduino and state on there website

Includes UNO R3 controller board and USB cable, 100% compatible with Arduino UNO R3, Arduino kit.

Link to the Kit I am interested in.

They what so ever make no statement about the compatibility with Raspberry devices. While looking around on Amazon I found a lot of extremely similar looking sets that read "Starter Kit for Raspberry Pi 3".Link to Amazon

My questions is: Does this set from Elegoo also work with a Raspberry?

goldilocks
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Tobias Wilfert
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    Just to be clear, what specific things are you looking for in this kit? Different people have different ideas on what a "complete" kit might be, so clarifying would help us to help you. :-) Thanks! – MrChips Dec 02 '17 at 20:54
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    Sorry, but shopping requests are explicitly shopping recommendations are explicitly off-topic. – goldilocks Dec 05 '17 at 16:22
  • @goldilocks I don't ask for a recommendation, I ask if that what I am searching for even exist. – Tobias Wilfert Dec 05 '17 at 17:29
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    Read at least the last part of this meta answer (the part under "The reason I find it so objectionable is that it is totally unnecessary..."), and the rest of the answer and the whole Q&A if you want a more general explanation for why things that are about shopping are off-topic. It's partially because we want to keep the door firmly closed against becoming a site for gratuitous free advertising, and partially because we want to keep the door closed against being regarded as a search engine... – goldilocks Dec 05 '17 at 19:06
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    ...There's nothing wrong with your line of inquiry, but IMO you did not even bother to search "raspberry pi 3 kit". Some of those are just bundles with a power supply and SD card, but many of them are also the kind of kit you are talking about; it could not take more than a few minutes to discern this, at which point you might well have a more specific question that is not "I would like to have things in the kit like: a motor..." etc. -- that is blatantly shopping, and it does not require other people's time. Search engine. Automated. – goldilocks Dec 05 '17 at 19:06
  • Since there are arduino and pi kits that don't include a pi or an arduino (something you would have noticed if you did a bit of search engine based homework first), a reasonable question might be what are the things that I should look out for and need to know when shopping. That's fine. Even, "Can I use this product (or kit)?" But asking for specific recommendations, no (also "What do you think of this kit?" -- no). – goldilocks Dec 05 '17 at 19:11

3 Answers3

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There are a few significant differences between a Pi and an Arduino hardware interface wise:

  1. The Arduino uses 5V logic whereas the Pi uses 3.3V logic. Some sensors can be used either way, powered by 5V (the Pi can provide 5V power) and either 3.3 or 5V logic (sometimes they can be powered either way as well). Some, however, they are either one way or the other, and logically enough ones sold for use with an Arduino will often be 5V only.

    This does not mean you cannot use them, but you will need to use a level shifter as described in this answer.

  2. Arduinos have a number of analog inputs, whereas the Pi has none. Many sensors use an analog output, i.e., variable voltage. This means a single pin can report a continuously varying value, and the Arduino can read this with 10 bit precision (i.e., 0 - 1023). The GPIOs on the Pi are all digital, meaning their value is binary, either on/high or off/low (i.e., a value with 1 bit precision, 0 or 1).

    You can however attach an ADC (analog-to-digital converter) chip (e.g., in breadboard friendly DIP form) to a Pi via one of the serial buses (SPI or I2C; I do not think there are any converters that use UART). I believe they may also be available with a parallel pin output, where for each pin you get 1 bit of resolution; this would occupy a lot of GPIOs though.

Finally, you can connect an Arduino to a Pi via a serial bus (generally UART or I2C) and use it to interface with 5V and/or analog devices. Arduino nano clones -- Arduino is actually an open hardware platform, meaning anyone can make and distribute them -- are probably cheaper and easier to acquire online than ADC chips, and provide more functionality and flexibility (unless you need greater than 10-bit analog precision). The major drawback would be that even the nano is quite a bit bulkier than a DIP ADC.

looking around on Amazon I found a lot of extremely similar looking sets that read Starter Kit for Raspberry Pi 3

That kit looks to have a number of analog sensors, but it also includes an ADC, an ADC 0832, which has 8-bit resolution, 2 inputs, and (if it matches that TI spec), a microwire protocol interface. I have never used the latter but it looks to be SPI compatible, so should work with a Pi (presumably the people selling the kit would not include it otherwise).

Community
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goldilocks
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As of right now (Dec 2017), SunFounder makes a Raspberry Pi sensor kit that you can find on many popular sites for about $50. It has about 20 sensors and the necessary cabling and adapters to use them on breadboards. You will still need to get the Pi, the SD card and the power-supply. But you can find other "starter" kits out there that have those items in them.

Hope this helps!

MrChips
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What you are looking for are called PiHats. These are expansion boards that plug into the Raspberry Pi's GPIOs and have neat little things on them, like GPS, blinking LEDs, real-time clocks and whatnot.

Here is a supplier of them.

tlhIngan
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