Dexter Industries BrickPi/BrickPi+

This page describes the drivers that are specific to Dexter Industries BrickPi and BrickPi+ These controllers are LEGO MINDSTORMS compatible addon boards for Raspberry Pi.

Note

BrickPi is identified by hardware v1.7.3 and BrickPi+ is identified as v2.8.

Input Ports

The BrickPi and BrickPi+ have 4 input ports that can be used with LEGO MINDSTORMS compatible sensors. It works with most sensors, but there are some exceptions. It only supports the LEGO brand EV3/UART Sensors and EV3/Analog Sensors. Also, there are currently some limitations on the supported NXT/I2C Sensors (See the I2C Sensor Driver). Any type of NXT/Analog Sensors will work.

Note

Unlike the EV3, BrickPi cannot automatically detect sensors! You must manually specify the type of sensor that is attached to the port using the mode and set_device attributes.

General Info

Module brickpi
Driver name brickpi-in-port
Connection types NXT/Analog, NXT/I2C, EV3/Analog, EV3/UART
Connection prefix ``S`` [1]
Number of modes 6

Modes

Name Description
none No sensor
nxt-analog [2] NXT/Analog sensor
nxt-color LEGO NXT Color sensor
nxt-i2c [3] NXT/I2C sensor
ev3-analog [4] EV3/Analog sensor
ev3-uart [5] EV3/UART sensor

Notes

[1]The full port name includes the parent device node. So, the address attribute will return something like serial0-0:S1.
[2]The nxt-analog driver will be loaded when this mode is set. You must manually specify the correct driver for your sensor using set_device if you want to use another driver. Any driver with a connection type of NXT/Analog is allowed.
[3]No sensors are loaded by default. You must address manually specify the sensor that is connected and its by using the set_device attribute. This is equivalent to manually loading I2C devices. The sensor port address will be the BrickPi port address with “:i2c” and the decimal I2C address appended. The I2C Sensor Driver section has information regarding the use of sensors connected to a brickpi-in-port.
[4]Only the LEGO EV3 Touch sensor is supported.The driver will load by default.
[5]Only the LEGO EV3 Ultrasonic, Color, Gyro, and Infrared sensors are supported. They cannot be automatically detected, so you must specify the sensor manually using the set_device attribute. No sensors are loaded by default.

Input Port 5

Note

Only the original BrickPi has an Input Port 5. BrickPi+ does not.

Input Port 5 on the BrickPi is physically wired to the I2C pins on the Raspberry Pi and I2C is supported by the i2c_bcm2708 kernel module (there is no ev3dev-specific driver for this port).

Only NXT/I2C Sensors and Other/I2C Sensors work on port 5.

Tip

Sensor types are listed in the Supported Sensors table.

Configuration

For Input Port 5 to work with most LEGO compatible sensors, you have to make sure that correct baudrate for the sensor is set and load the driver manually. NXT/I2C Sensors should work with the slow 9600 baudrate used originally by LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT.

You can temporarily change the baudrate on a running system. This change will be reset after a reboot:

sudo modprobe -r i2c_bcm2708 # remove module
sudo modprobe i2c_bcm2708 baudrate=9600 # load module specifying baudrate

Note

Some devices behave erratically if baudrate is changed while they are plugged in. If needed unplug your sensor, change the baudrate and plug the sensor again.

Or, you can permanently change the baudrate by editing /boot/flash/config.txt with the following line (requires reboot to take effect):

dtparam=i2c_baudrate=9600

Usage

To use a sensor, you have to tell the I2C adapter the driver and I2C address to use. When you write this to /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-1/new_device, a new sensor device will appear in /sys/class/lego-sensor/ which can be used as you would any other sensor.

Tip

You can find the driver name and default I2C address in the sensor information pages.

Example: Loading Microinfinity CruizCore XG1300L driver manually:

sudo sh -c 'echo "mi-xg1300l 0x01" > /sys/bus/i2c/devices/i2c-1/new_device'

I2C Sensor Driver

There is currently not a standard I2C adapter driver for BrickPi/BrickPi+ (i.e. You will not find /dev/i2c-X for the BrickPi input ports. Instead, this driver is used for working with NXT/I2C Sensors.

To load this driver, set the BrickPi input port to nxt-i2c mode and then write the driver name and I2C address of the sensor to the set_device attribute. You can find the driver name and default I2C address on the sensor’s information page.

Example:

echo "nxt-i2c" > /sys/class/lego-port/port0/mode
echo "ht-angle 0x01" > /sys/class/lego-port/port0/set_device

Once the driver has been loaded, there will be a new sensor device node added in the The lego-sensor Subsytem.

Unfortunately, some sensors require special operations that are not currently supported in this driver, so attempting to use one of those sensors will fail (check dmesg). If you have a BrickPi, you can use Input Port 5 instead.

Output Ports

BrickPi(+) has four output ports labeled M1, M2, M3 and M4. These ports are very similar to EV3 output ports with a motor controller and quadrature encoder feedback. However, they cannot automatically detected when a motor is attached or removed. By default, the NXT motor driver is already loaded for these ports, so you don’t have to set the mode unless you want to use a different type of driver.

General Info

Module brickpi
Driver name brickpi-out-port
Connection types tacho-motor, dc-motor, led
Connection prefix M [6]
Number of modes 3

Modes

Name Description
tacho-motor NXT/EV3 Large Motor
dc-motor RCX/Power Functions motor
led RCX/Power Functions LED

Notes

[6]The full port name includes the parent device node. So, the address attribute will return something like serial0-0:M1.

Battery

Note

The BrickPi+ battery driver is only available on BrickPi+ (HW v2.8), not the earlier BrickPi models.

  • This driver is used to get information about the BrickPi+ battery.
  • It uses the power_supply subsytem.
  • It registers a sysfs device node at /sys/class/power_supply/brickpi-battery/.

Tip

This driver is enabled by the line dtparam=brickpi_battery=okay in /boot/flash/config.txt.

Sysfs Attributes
scope Always returns System.
voltage_now Returns the battery voltage in microvolts.