Support GPIO Extender by adding pigpio

[Kisty]

I'd love to be able to run a full python IDE while creating my projects. With the GPIO extender tool, I can do just that! However, I don't think this library uses pigpio which is what the extender uses. Can you point me in the right direction as to how to add support?

[Gadgetoid]

Try the refactor branch that's currently pending.

See: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pimoroni/scroll-phat-hd/refactor/examples/hello-pigpiod.py

You should:

git clone https://github.com/pimoroni/scroll-phat-hd -b refactor
cd scroll-phat-hd/library
sudo python setup.py install
cd ../examples
PIGPIO_ADDR=your.pi.ip.addr python hello-pigpiod.py

[Gadgetoid]

You can make all the examples work by shimming the smbus library.

Create a file smbus.py in the examples folder and stick the following into it:

import pigpio


class SMBus():
    def __init__(self, device):
        self.pi = pigpio.pi()
        self.i2c_handle = self.pi.i2c_open(device, 0x74)

    def write_byte_data(self, address, register, value):
        self.pi.i2c_write_byte_data(self.i2c_handle, register, value)

    def read_byte_data(self, address, register):
        return self.pi.i2c_read_byte_data(self.i2c_handle, register)

    def write_i2c_block_data(self, address, register, values):
        self.pi.i2c_write_i2c_block_data(self.i2c_handle, register, values)

This will replace the default smbus that the library attempts to import when no i2c module is specified, and reroute all i2c traffic via pigpio.