Hardware: Hive Interface Board 1.0

Version 1.0 of the Hive Interface Board will begin testing. As suggested by the 1.0 designation, this is considered to be "done" and should be the final release of this design.

Changes

• Added Real Time Clock (RTC) support so DS3231 will plug into the I2C header H2 without modification.
• Changed 1-Wire connection to Pi's default 1-Wire GPIO by swapping GPIO pin for LED from pin 7 (default 1-wire) to pin 11.
• Added Chip Enable signal to SPI bus signals on H7.
• Increased hole size for blue 12 VDC power connector from .038" to .042".

Features

• Plug and Play - all the sensors plug in.
• 12 VDC power supply with battery voltage monitoring
• Supports
  • HX711 24 bit ADC and 4 load cells in parallel.
  • two DHT22 temperature/humidity sensors.
  • unlimited DS18B20 1-Wire temperature sensors (or other 1-Wire devices).
  • TSL2591 Lux sensor
  • Rain Gauge

Plug and Play. Telco RJ14 (6P4C) connectors are used for all sensors. These are gold plated, reliable, self wiping, inexpensive, readily available, crimp on with an inexpensive crimping tool, lock in place (latch) and as anyone who has tripped over a phone cord can attest, very strong.

Two different power supplies are optional. These are 12 to 5 volt step down highly efficient switching regulators.

The interface board and software works with the A+. B+, Pi2 and Pi3 models. The board will work with the original A or B if a 26 pin header extension is used although the lack of mounting holes in the original Pi is a problem.

This board was designed on the Pi using the gEDA programs gschem and pcb. The programs, schematic and layout files are included on the latest image.