Get amazing visual feedback from your Raspberry Pi! The PiGlow is a cool small add - on board. It comes with 18 individually controllable LEDs in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and white (three of each color). You can use it for various purposes like creating mood lighting, showing system load, getting notified of events such as tweet mentions or incoming emails, and giving feedback on script/daemon status. It fits nicely inside a Pibow. When VESA mounted, it casts a great glow on the wall. This board uses the SN3218 chip to drive the LEDs. Communication happens via I2C over the GPIO header with a bus address of 0x54. Each LED can have a PWM value from 0 to 255. It's fully assembled, so no soldering needed. There's Python code to control the lighting, and Pimoroni's page has tons of example code for Python, Scratch, WiringPi, etc.
Using the PiGlow is easy. First, connect it to your Raspberry Pi via the GPIO header. You can start with the provided Python code to control the LEDs. For different lighting effects, adjust the PWM values of each LED from 0 to 255. If you want to use it for system load indication or event notifications, you'll need to write some simple scripts. When mounting it with VESA, make sure it's firmly attached to avoid any falls. As for maintenance, keep it in a clean and dry place. Don't expose it to extreme temperatures or humidity. If there are any issues with the LEDs not lighting up, check the connections and the Python code for errors.
