Pingo provides a uniform API to program devices like the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, pcDuino etc. just like the Python DBAPI provides an uniform API for database programming in Python.
The API is object-oriented but easy to use: a board is an instance of a Board subclass. Every board has a dictionary called pins which lists all GPIO pins on the board. Each pin is an instance of a Pin subclass with attributes that you can inspect to learn about its capabilities.
The name Pingo is a tribute to Garoa Hacker Clube, where the project started (the words pingo and garoa are related in Portuguese). To our English-speaking friends we like to say that it means "pin, go!" -- the main purpose of this package.
To use pingo, the first step is to instatiate a concrete Board. Each Pingo driver is a concrete board, for example, pingo.rpi.RaspberryPi and pingo.arduino.ArduinoFirmata are two such boards.
Pingo can automatically detect the board in most common cases. If it is running on a supported board, pingo.detect.MyBoard() returns an proper board instance. If Pingo is running on an unsupported machine (eg. a PC running GNU/Linux), it will try to find a remote Arduino using the Firmata protocol via USB and -- if succesfull -- will return a pingo.arduino.ArduinoFirmata instance.
Once you have a board instance, its possible to access its pins through the board.pins dict.
import pingo
from time import sleep
board = pingo.detect.MyBoard()
led_pin = board.pins[13]
led_pin.mode = pingo.OUT
while True:
led_pin.hi()
sleep(1)
led_pin.lo()
sleep(1)pingo.udoo.udoo pingo.arduino.yun are examples of drivers, and the respective Udoo and YunBridge are extends the pingo.board.Board interface class.
The following table lists the drivers currently planned or under development.
| Board | Type | Module/Package | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arduino Firmata | remote | arduino | level 1 | requires firmata protocol on any Arduino board |
| Arduino Yún | on-board | experim. | requires Bridge sketch on the Arduino Yún | |
| TI BeagleBone Black | on-board | bbb | experim. | |
| Cubietech Cubieboard | on-board | none | ||
| Fantasma | fake | ghost | level 1 | not a real board, just a software fake for testing |
| SolidRun HummingBoard | on-board | none | ||
| Intel Galileo | on-board | galileo | none | |
| TI MSP430 | remote | none | requires firmata protocol on any MSP430 board | |
| LinkSprite pcDuino | on-board | pcduino | level 1 | |
| element14 RaspberryPi | on-board | rpi | level 0 | requires RPi.GPIO on the Raspberry Pi |
| SECO UDOO | on-board | udoo | level 0 |
- on-board
- Pingo and user code run on the board itself, using the Python interpreter installed in it.
- remote
- Pingo and user code run on host computer connected to board, controlling the board remotely. Useful for boards that are unable to run Python, like the Arduino UNO.
- fake
- Pingo and user code run on host computer emulating a dummy board in software. Useful for testing base classes from
board.pyand for teaching and demonstration.
- level 0
- Digital I/O: get/set high/low status of digital pins (no PWM support).
- level 1
- Analog input: read values from analog pins.
- level 2
- PWM output: set variable value for digital pins with PWM capability.
- experiments
- Some Python experiments have been done with the board. See the
experiments/directory for code that may be helpful to start a new driver for a board. - none
- Nothing has been done. Great opportunity for you to contribute with experiments and/or start a new driver.