Getting Started With A PiFace Interface Card

Part 1 - Introduction

The PiFace Digital I/O card connects to your Pi's 26-way IDC header and sits over the Pi to provide a compact interface to digital input and output ports. PiFace provides:

Hover your mouse over the picture of the PiFace to see a description of each main component.

The easiest way to install the PiFace software and associated system settings is to use PiFace's own disk image. This means you do not have to install the various packages and only have to make minimal system configuration changes yourself.

Raspberry Pi board

There are several jumpers on the PiFace boards and these have the following purposes:

Exclamation mark

While the two relays are rated at 10A 250V AC, documentation elsewhere states that the maximum voltage should be limited to 20V - presumably because of the proximity of the relay connections and control circuits. If you wish to switch mains voltages you will need separate mechanical or solid-state relays, though you could still use the PiFace's 5V supply to drive them.

Using C

I decided to use C to run my PiFace. The steps to have this working are shown in Part 2.