Andinopy is an open-source software suite developed by Clear Systems to facilitate communication between between Andino boards and the Raspberry Pi.

Depending on your hardware configuration, there are two or three options available for enabling communication between the software and device IO. You can either use Andinopy as a TCP server to receive status messages and send commands (also possible via other software like Node-Red) or import it as a library into your own python project.

The following page gives an overview over all available possibilities:

The easiest option for communication between the software and IO is to use Andinopy as a TCP socket. This enables you to easily use a large variety of already existing applications to control inputs and outputs.

Andino API scheme

In this case, Andinopy either connects to the board firmware (for Andino X1) or directly to the inputs and outputs of the board (for Andino IO and Andino Terminal). Andinopy can then be connected to via TCP on port 9999 using various software (e.g. Node-Red). The connected application will then receive messages from the Andinopy about inputs from the IO and can send commands to control outputs.

For a list of all available commands and message formats, please refer to Common Andino Protocol.

For all setup and usage instructions, please follow the guide at Andinopy: Setup and Usage. Specifically refer to the Setup and TCP server usage sections.

Andinopy can also be imported into your Python project and directly imported into your python code. This makes it very convenient to control the IO of the board from your own application and also allows you to create software that works on multiple Andino devices.

Andino API Python

As for the TCP socket, for all setup and usage instructions, please follow the guide at Andino API: Setup and usage. Specifically refer to the Setup and Usage as python library sections.

The option of communicating directly with the board firmware is only available on the Andino X1 and the discontinued Andino X2 (Since the Andino X2 does not support the Andino API, this is the only setup option for the device). Andinopy is not used in this scenario.

Despite slightly lower overhead since no TCP socket has to be running on the device, the use of this option is discouraged since it allows for less flexibility, might not allow for the usage of the full functionality of the device and does not work on all Andino boards.

If you choose to communicate directly with the board firmware anyway, the controller on the Andino X1 and X2 boards can be reached on device /dev/ttyAMA0 after finishing the Baseboard setup (X1, X2) of your board or running the install script.

The settings for the communication with the controller are as follows (example shows the configuration menu of Minicom, other software similar):

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| A - Serial Device : /dev/ttyAMA0                                      |
| B - Lockfile Location : /var/lock                                     |
| C - Callin Program :                                                  |
| D - Callout Program :                                                 |
| E - Bps/Par/Bits : 38400 8N1                                          |
| F - Hardware Flow Control : No                                        |
| G - Software Flow Control : No                                        |
|                                                                       |
| Change which setting?                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

A more detailed tutorial on how to do this can be found on our Youtube channel.