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new to all this but great fun. I have a raspberry pi3 and i did have a fan connected to it. I just added a power supply battery. i also added a IR remote and power button which sits onto of the gpio pins. So now I have no Pins that i can plug my fan into. what does everyone else do?

thanks

This is the uri of it as away from desk https://www.robotshop.com/media/catalog/product/cache/image/240x240/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/r/ir-remote-power-module-raspberry-pi_1.jpg

  • I'm a bit puzzled: with just a few simple peripherals you should still have plenty of GPIO left. Are any pins covered by connectors, but not in use? Can you post a photo of your setup? – Dirk Nov 19 '18 at 20:42
  • Hi updated question –  Nov 19 '18 at 21:06
  • many gpio pins are probably unused by that hat, you will have to look at a schematic to see which are actually used, and then can wire the fan to a pin that is not actually in use. – Chad G Nov 19 '18 at 21:20
  • Thanks. Not sure how to implement that.. but thanks –  Nov 19 '18 at 21:23
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    A bit of soldering or add a shim (example: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/pico-hat-hacker, but there are others) – Dirk Nov 19 '18 at 21:57

1 Answers1

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The hat you are using is not taking all GPIO ports, see bottom of the board: IR and remote button
Use of any of remaining GPIOs. Soldering would be required.

Do not forget that if you want to drive a fan which needs more than 15mA (most of fans will take more) of current and more than 3.3V of voltage supply you would need some sort of transistor switch or relay (again, driven by transistor). Check this link for current limitations.
See this link to see how to drive motor with RPi and transistor.

---EDIT---

If soldering brings too much hassle, you can try breadboard and Raspberry Pi GPIO to breadboard interface. Picture from below show seedstudio's kit. RPi GPIO to breadboard
Amazon sells similar item under name of 'Raspberry Pi GPIO Breakout Board Bundle', or something like 'T Type GPIO Breakout board for Raspberry Pi' It gives you basic set with jumper leads to connect whatever you need.
When you proof your set is working, you can try to mount it on protoboard (soldering required!).

smajli
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  • God! I wish I was an electrician and knew what I was doing.. did try and look on uTube how to properly solder without damaging the board. Not sure how to progress really. more of a software engineer rather than hardware. Was hoping for plug an play components to get going... :( –  Nov 20 '18 at 16:56
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    @AndrewSimpson Soldering is NOT much more difficult than using a hot glue gun. That "hat" is made for novices to solder, although I would first practice on something else (there are beginner solder kits that are cheaper, serve for practice, and are simple in scope to help prove you built it right). Took me an hour of practice and watching videos before I felt OK at it. – Scott Prive Oct 31 '20 at 16:58
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    @ScottPrive thank u. this is an old post but i can now reflect and agree with u :) –  Oct 31 '20 at 17:46
  • @AndrewSimpson Yep. I was actually searching for a different but problem, stumbled into this. The encouragement is for anyone who needs it. :-) – Scott Prive Nov 01 '20 at 18:08