Pictures of project components
I'll be posting images of some of the components to give you an idea of the sizes of them.
This image shows the difference between the 400 pin versus 830 pin breadboards. As you can see, the 400 pin board will work for our purposes, but you will appreciate the extra space of the 830 pin version. The controller we will be using (Wemos D1 Mini) is half the size of a normal board, but the normal sized board would take up most of the available space on a 400 pin board.
Besides the two types of breadboards shown, the picture also shows two male-to-male jumpers, a generic ESP-8266 board (not required from project), red push button switch, BME-280 temperature, humidity, and barometric sensor (lower left on 400 pin board), a quarter (not included), and the motor shield for the Wemos D1 Mini controller.
D1 Mini shields are designed to plug into the controller and are the same size of the controller, so you will have an idea of the size. Additional pictures will be posted later this week.
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Here are the pictures of the RGB LED, Passive Infrared, Speaker/Buzzer, and prototype boards that plug into the D1 Mini board. They are the same size as the processor board (see picture above) and will come with the headers, which must be soldered to the board if you wish to plug the boards into the D1 Mini or breadboard.
Soldering these headers is not difficult, but if you feel that you are unable to do the soldering yourself, we will find a way to get that done for you.
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There is one more accessory board that I recommend that you have on hand, a 3 volt to 5 volt level converter board.
Many sensors operate well at either 3 volts or 5 volts and interface nicely with the 3 volt ESP-8266 used in the D1 Mini board that will be used. However, some devices only work with 5 volt logic levels. Connecting these devices to a 3 volt microcontroller board could either damage the board or the board will not be able to drive the device properly.
To address this, level converters are used. There are many types of level converters (voltage dividers, Field Effect Transistors, and dedicated integrated circuits). The board that will be provided uses FETs and is a nice overall solution. You will not need any level conversion for the devices in the take-home kit, but I will be providing one board for each take-home kit in case you require level conversion in other projects.
This board offers level conversion for four digital input/output lines, usually adequate for most uses.
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Yea! The rest of the parts for the take-home kits have arrived about 15 days early!
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More good news!
There were a few other items that I didn't mention previously because I wasn't sure if I could secure sufficient quantities in time. There is an indication that they may arrive in time for the meeting.
The costs are in the same range as the other shields ($1.50-$3.00) and I will bring them to the meeting in case any of you are interested. As soon as I get a shipment confirmation, I'll post the item details and I hope to have demos at the meeting.