More soon

Been busy with other projects and my OU work, so work has slowed (ok stopped) on the chessboard.  I will look at returning to this after Easter.

First nine connected to the pi

The first nine boards have now been tested and connected to the pi.  I have decided to build my own chessboard, so will start to build a small 3 x 3 board first to test the fit of the boards on the underside.  This will require yet more ebay :-).

First ten done!

First ten detector boards have been built ready for testing.  Not quite the same as the first plan, as I've made the board square.

Chess Set

After a no show for my first Ebay purchase, another was ordered and arrived the very next day!

This set is not as good quality as the first, but will do to create the prototype.

The chessboard folds in half so this should help with getting the board under my pilar drill to create the 64 holds needed for the LED's

New LCD

Yes the bargain £2.84 LCD has arrived, ready to connect to the MCP chip

LCD

Got a serial LCD unit from an old Firewall I had. Attached it via a level shifter to the pi's serial port. Didn't have much luck with getting it work. I will also need to create my own LCD routines. I think a LCD connected to another MCP chip may be the way to go. Wiringpi should make the coding easy. One on order from eBay for the sum of £2.00 post free!

Still waiting for the chessboard :-(. Looks like first class post from Birmingham takes more than a week!

Stripboard

The strip board has arrived, just waiting for the chessboard.  Once I have the chessboard I can look at cutting the strip boas into the correct size for mounting the LED and reed switch.

Cell Idea

Added an idea for each chessboard space (cell) to build matrix, see the hardware page.  I will need to build 64 cells for the complete board, so this idea may change!  Using stripboard will lower the production cost, but will be more labour intensive :-)

New Objects

Converted mcptest.py code to a new class, added Chess_Hardware.py to test new class.  Work started on code to test if a piece has moved on the board.

Chess_Hardware.py

#Hardware Test Program
import McpBoard
from time import sleep
theBoard = McpBoard.McpChessBoard()
#print theBoard.scanMCPBoard()
theBoard.ledAllOff()
#theBoard.ledMCPBoard('c1',True)
while True:
  theBoard.storeMCPBoard()
  print "stored"
  sleep(3)
  currentList = theBoard.scanMCPBoard()
  theBoard.compareMCPBoard(currentList)
  print "wait"
  sleep(3) 

It works!

Short video showing the mcptest.py in action, code added to software page

So far...

I'm currently updating this blog with the work I have done so far;

• Basic chess engine communication 
• 3x3 matrix for the LEDs and reed switches
• Software to control the matrix
• Converting breadboard to http://fritzing.org/

The beginnings

Things you need to know to build a chess computer

• What chess engine - Stockfish seems to be a good choice
• How to communicate with Stockfish - UCI protocol is the way to go
• What language to program in on the Pi - Has to be Python
• Setting up your development area - Try using a FUZE
• Adding more I/O pins to the Raspberry Pi - Microchip MCP23017
• Learn how to build a keyboard matrix
• Learn how to light 64 LEDs
• Building the hardware for the chess board
• Reed switch operation

I have purchased most items I need to start the development build using ebay.  You can buy reed switches, magnets and components such as resistors and LEDs at a very reasonable cost.

Sharing my idea

Welcome to my blog on building a Chess Computer.  I hope to add information on building a Raspberry Pi powered chess computer.

The inspiration for this project came from wanting to play more chess but on a larger board.  I currently own a chess computer from the 1900's but the board is a little small and it's functionality limited.
I looked around for other chess computers, most larger sets are not in my budget!  So a quick Google reviled that using a Raspberry Pi to play chess is possible, yes someone has already done it before!

I found the following website to be very helpful, so I would suggest start with a quick look at it and it's links page.