May I ask, does SparkFun offer a qwiic IR emitter and receiver separately? A student asked if we could control the XRP robot using an IR remote.
Hi there!
I don’t think we have one that’s Qwiic-enabled, but we do have this standalone IR Receiver Diode that could be used to detect signals coming from an IR remote control. I think the easiest way to connect it would be through one of the servo headers to make the GND, VCC, and GPIO connections required. As for software, I found this MicroPython library that looks like it can decode the signal.
Hope this helps! I can’t provide much help beyond that, but we’d love to hear if you get this working!
Dryw, as always thank you for guidance.
May I ask, is there a general qwiic board that allows you to connect an electronic breadboard? I could connect the standalone IR receiver diode and IR emitter to the breadboard and use the qwiic board’s power (positive and negative) and input / output. SparkFun Qwiic Adapter - DEV-14495 - SparkFun Electronics
Happy to help!
If you’d like to make breadboard connections, that could certainly work, though I wouldn’t do that from the Qwiic connector. The IMU on the control board is directly to the Qwiic bus, and the XRP library always has the IMU active by default, so connecting non-I2C devices to it could mess up communication on the bus or even damage something.
I’d recommend using one of the other expansion connectors at the top, namely the ones labeled Line, Range, or Extra. Note that the GPIO pins that go to the Extra connector are used for battery voltage measurement and the user button (see the schematic here), so you’d lose those features if you connect something to that. Best solution is to remove either the range sensor or line following sensor if you’re able.
One other suggestion: instead of using the Qwiic Adapter, you could use one of these Qwiic Breadboard Jumpers. Less soldering 
The other potential is motor 3 & 4. Those each have 2 gpio pins. Is there a breadboard jumper that connects to the 6 pin connector? I think a great project would be to 3D print a shelf that would hold a small breadboard. Then bring the power and 4 gpio pins to the board via the motor 3 & 4 connectors.
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