Starting off with LC & Raspberry Pi's

[Paul Hibbert]

I currently have a LC app running on a RPi connected to an Arduino Uno that controls my Mitsubishi Heat Pump with pre-programmed IR signals. It took a lot of learning to to make it work and during this time I found it was easier to build the IR controller on Arduino due to some restrictions with RPi I/O.

The LC side of the equation was the easy part thanks to Fraser’s work, and I do have more plans for better automation, but it worked pretty well through most of last winter. LC has allowed me to build a very versatile programer for the heat pump.

I’m very interested in Monte’s mergeBLE, so I’ll be checking it out when I get home, we are currently travelling round British Columbia, so unfortunately I don’t have access to all my notes and files right now, but I’ll try to answer some of your question from memory…

> Q. Can LC and the Pi’s I/O communicate ?  If so, is that native or through an extension ?

This is where I ran into problems and ended using the Arduino, however it is possible AFAIK.

> Q. Can you run stand-alone’s on the Pi ?

Yes, definitely. You can also run LC and build apps although it is much slower than a regular desktop. RPi2 should be better.

> Q. LC v6.5.1seems to be the latest version of LC that will run on the Pi, which is fine, but is there any likelihood of future releases being made ?

As far as I know there is, the LC team have all been pretty busy lately and much of the RPi work was done by Fraser, I understand he is still very keen to continue. Maybe when LC8 is stabilised.

> Q. Is there is a better/more appropriate list, than this one, for the subject of LC and Raspberry Pi’s ?

There is a section on the LC forums.

> Q. Can you suggest any more resources to look at ?

That’s where I need my notes!

Regards,

Paul