November 18, 2016 – Industrial automation manufacturer and Internet of Things platform developer Opto 22 has announced the release of the Digital I/O Carrier Board for the Raspberry Pi single-board computer, enabling the Pi to sense or switch up to 16 individually selectable electrical loads ranging from 2.5 to 280 VAC/VDC, with solid-state power and reliability. This carrier board adds the ability to connect, monitor, control, and automate billions of existing devices that were previously beyond the Pi’s built-in 3.3 VDC GPIO sensing and control capabilities.
Using this carrier board, millions of Raspberry Pi developers across the world can build solutions for real-world industrial automation, remote monitoring, and discrete control applications using their Raspberry Pi and I/O modules from a company with over 40 years of industrial automation and manufacturing expertise.
Raspberry Pi developers attach their Pi to the carrier board, connect the included interface cable to their Pi's 40-pin GPIO connector, and snap the board onto a compatible 4, 8, or 16 I/O module mounting rack. They can use the rack's power supply to power the Pi, and then use their favorite Pi-supported programming language to read and write to up to 16 individually selectable digital input and/or output points. (Mounting rack, power supply, and I/O modules are sold separately.)
Using this carrier board, Raspberry Pi developers can use their Pi to switch industrial-level electrical loads far beyond the Pi's built-in 3.3 VDC GPIO pins, and control the electrical loads required for real-world devices like industrial motors, pumps, and sensors. The Digital I/O Carrier Board provides a GPIO interface between a Raspberry Pi and digital I/O modules on select Opto 22 mounting racks.
