The ComfilePi is an industrial touchscreen panel PC built around the Raspberry Pi Compute Module.

The Raspberry Pi is a revolutionary, compact single board computer made in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It typically runs the Linux operating system.

The Raspberry Pi, as typically sold by the Raspberry Pi Foundation as a credit-card sized PCB, is primarily a tool for students and hobbyists. Although it is a fantastic product, it may not be suitable for certain industrial applications.

However, the Raspberry Pi Foundation also produces Raspberry Pi 3 Compute Module so 3rd party manufacturers can build industrial devices around the Raspberry Pi technology. The ComfilePi is an industrial panel PC built around the Raspberry Pi Compute Module, but augmented with additional hardware and features for industrial automation.

(*) The ComfilePi's COM1 (/dev/serial1) port uses the Raspberry Pi's mini UART. The mini UART has a few limitations (e.g. no parity bit). For more information please see the official Raspberry Pi documentation.

Hardware Revisions

Warnings and Precautions

An SD card with a slightly modified Raspberry Pi OS Linux distribution is included with each purchase. You can always re-image your SD card by downloading our Raspberry Pi OS image and following the instructions there.

Other operating systems may work, or may partially work, but we only provide support for the operating system linked above. If you run into any problems, please be sure you are using our latest operating system image.

For hardware revisions v2.3 and higher, SD, SD HC, SD HC I, and SD HC II can all be used.

For hardware revisions v2.2 and lower, we recommend SD or SD HC cards.

See SanDisk's SD Card specification and compatibility for more information about the different SD card specifications.

The 40-pin header socket on the rear panel of the ComfilePi is almost the same pinout as the Raspberry Pi GPIO.

The GPIO pins are exposed through a transparent (3.3V ←→ 3.3V) level shifter for ESD protection. For electrical characteristics please see the level shifter's data sheet : TXS0108E. Please note this isolation circuit renders the Raspberry Pi Compute Module's internal pull-up/-down resistors ineffective. To have pull-up/-down behavior an external pull-up-down resistor must be added externally, or the pin must be explicitly driven high or low.

The underside of the ComfilePi exposes 12~24VDC power input, 1 RS-232 serial port, 1 RS-485 serial port, 3 USB 2.0 ports, an I2C port, 5V power output, and an RJ45 Ethernet port.

IMPORTANT: Please note that the I2C pins (SDA and SCL) are 3.3V; the 5V pin is supplied to ensure users have enough voltage and current to power their external devices and does not imply a 5V I2C port.

Recent models may have a 4th USB port dedicated to programming Compute Modules with an eMMC.

The right panel of the ComfilePi exposes a MicroSD Card Slot and a stereo audio output jack.

.Net Core brings a professional .Net runtime to Linux-based PCs like the ComfilePi. Although there are not yet any GUI frameworks like Winforms or XAML (out-of-the-box at least), .Net Core 3 comes with the new Blazor and Web Assembly technologies that can be used to build GUI applications for the ComfilePi's modern web browser.

Blazor allows both client and server to be programmed almost entirely in C#. The System.Devices.Gpio namespace provides just about everything one would need to do IO on the ComfilePi. Blazor also includes support for real-time web applications that can be viewed and interacted with from multiple local or remote clients as demonstrated in the video above.

Visit .Net Core Development on the ComfilePi for a detailed introduction.

• Running .Net WinForms Applications with Mono - .Net applications can run on Linux by utilizing the Mono framework. WinForms applications can be developed and debugged on a Windows host PC using Visual Studio, and simply copied to the ComfilePi and executed; no re-compiling required!
• Modbus with NModbus4 - A demonstration using the ComfilePi as a Modbus RTU master, with NModbus4, to control a PLC.
• Hiding the Mouse Cursor - There is typically no need for a mouse cursor in a touch application, but the ComfilePi and Mono give you one anyway. This explanation will show how to hide the mouse cursor.
• Programming the SerialPort - A few considerations to keep in mind when using programming the serial ports.
• Programming the GPIO - An demonstration illustrating how to program the ComfilePi's GPIO using the CP-IO22 add-on board.

The AdvancedHMI software allows you to create HMI's that are not possible with other off the shelf packages. The software is based on the .NET framework and uses the popular Visual Studio as it's designer. When developing with AdvancedHMI, you are creating a true executable that is quite fast for the Linux-based ComfilePi. Don't let Visual Studio mislead you into thinking it requires code writing experience because most HMIs are created without writing a single line of code.

Watch an Introductory Video

Download the AdvancedHMI Visual Studio solution which contains a Modbus RTU driver and test project specifically for the ComfilePi.

CODESYS is a development environment for programming controller applications according to the international industrial standard IEC 61131-3. CODESYS can be used on the ComfilePi by installing one or more of the CODESYS Raspberry Pi Control Modules.

Please note the following restrictions from the CODESYS system requirements:

• The combination of Raspberry Pi and a CODESYS Runtime is primarily intended for test and teaching purposes.
• The runtime system does not have real-time behavior. Its Jitter depends on many factors, especially on parallel executed Linux applications, and is ideally approximately 50 µs with maximum values of approximately 400 µs.

As a demonstration, please refer to the following sample project used to control the digital inputs and outputs of COMFILE Technology's CP-IO22, CP-IO19R, and CP-IO22-A4-2 IO boards.

Download Sample CODESYS Project

The default GPIO configuration for CODESYS's Raspberry Pi Control Modules do not expose all of the GPIO pins that the ComfilePi offers. To remedy that, it is necessary to modify the device description files typically found at C:\Users\{Username}\CODESYS Control for Raspberry PI\{CODESYS Version}\Devices. Use the following file and procedure as a starting point.

Download the GPIOsComputeModule.devdesc.xml file

1. Copy the GPIOsComputeModule.devdesc.xml file linked above to the C:\Users\{Username}\CODESYS Control for Raspberry PI\{CODESYS Version}\Devices folder.
2. Install the file into the Device Repository.
   
3. Update the GPIO device in the CODESYS project.
   

Microsoft added limited Linux support to Visual Studio 2015. Those features also available in Visual Studio 2017 and Visual Studio 2019.

The Visual Studio Linux Features do not inherently support cross-compiling on a Windows PC. Instead, Visual Studio will upload the the source files to the ComfilePi, and use the ComfilePi's toolchain to build the executable. The executable is then executed on the ComfilePi, and the Visual Studio Remote GDB Debugger attaches to it.

1. Install Visual Studio Linux Features - How to install the Linux Development Features in Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2017
2. Create a Linux Project - How to create a new Visual Studio Project for Linux Development

For more information about using Visual Studio for Linux software development, see thisVisual C++ For Linux Development blog post, and the Visual C++ Linux Documentation.

This procedure describes how to create JavaFX applications for the ComfilePi using the Oracle JDK and OpenJFX.

1. Install the Oracle JDK and OpenJFX - Install the Oracle JDK and OpenJFX framwork on the ComfilePi.
2. Install NetBeans - Install and Configure the NetBeans IDE on a development PC.
3. Test a JavaFX Example Project - Use the NetBeans IDE to open an example JavaFX project, configure the Java platform, deploy the project to the ComfilePi and debug it in NetBeans.
4. Fixing Multiple Touch Events in JavaFX - If you experience multiple touch events for a single touch while using a JavaFX application, please follow these instructions for a workaround.

For more information about software development with JavaFX see the Oracle JavaFX documentation.

See also the Raspberry Pi Java Programming forum.

• Calibrating the Touch Screen - Explains how to calibrate the ComfilePi's touch screen.
• Disabling the Touch Screen - Explains how to disable the touch screen in case the ComfilePi is being used for touchless applications like digital signage.
• Configure a Program to Auto-Start - Most embedded applications do not run in a desktop environment. This procedure will describe how to configure the ComfilePi to boot to a console instead of a desktop environment, and auto-start a program as a service.
• Controlling the Piezo Buzzer - The ComfilePi has a built-in Piezo buzzer. By default, it beeps when touched. This feature can be disabled and/or the piezo buzzer can be used for other purposes.
• Controlling the LCD Backlight - The LCD Backlight can be controlled via one of the ComfilePi's GPIO pins.
• 1-wire Communication - Troubleshooting issues with 1-Wire communication
• Panel Mounting Instructions
• Read-only File System with Overlay - Boot the ComfilePi with a read-only mounted file system. All file system modifications are written to RAM and discarded between boots.
• Enable the Internal Watchdog Timer - Enable the internal watchdog timer to reboot the ComfilePi in case the system stops responding.
• Set Initial GPIO State - Configure the initial input or output state of the GPIO pins. Customize as necessary for your application.

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