This is an Arduino porting of the excellent work by Markus Frejek. The final aim is to create an economic component tester using Arduino and a few passive components;
NEW PRODUCT – SD/MicroSD Memory Card (8 GB SDHC) – Add mega-storage in a jiffy using this 8 GB class 4 micro-SD card. It comes with a SD adapter so you can use it with any of our shields or adapters, and a USB mini reader that will let you get data on/off. Preformatted to FAT so it works out of the box with our projects. Tested and works great with our Wave shield, Data logger shield and GPS shield, and micro-SD adapter as well as any other device in the Adafruit shop that uses (micro)-SD cards!
Please note! This is an SDHC card, and may not work with very old projects or products that only support SD cards. All of the Adafruit projects and products use SD/HC-compatible code. Make sure you can use this card before purchasing for non-Adafruit products. The brand itself may vary but we use only quality name-brand from reputable suppliers.
“ADA 9000″ faceplate created using Adafruit 100mm Massive Arcade Button with LED and an afternoon with a laser cutter, spray paint and a few bits and bobs. Not as detailed or authentic as the HAL replica that ThinkGeek used to sell…but about $480 cheaper!
Fist bump to Amadeus Prokopiak of the Replica Prop Forum for his amazing HAL 9000 blueprint.
NEW PRODUCT – Speaker – 3″ Diameter – 4 Ohm 3 Watt – Listen up! This 3″ diameter speaker cone is the perfect addition to any audio project where you need an 4 ohm impedance and 3W or less of power. We particularly like this cone as it has 4 handy mounting tabs 60mm apart.
NEW PRODUCT – Speaker – 3″ Diameter – 8 Ohm 1 Watt – This 3″ diameter speaker cone is the perfect addition to any audio project where you need an 8 ohm impedance and 1W or less of power. This has four mounting tabs 60mm apart as well.
Innovative parts sourcing via 3D model search! From 3D Part Source:
We are harnessing the power of next generation 3D search to revolutionize the way you source parts. We provide a tool that makes this critical process rapid, accurate and cheap. (It’s faster, better, cheaper!)
Our philosophy is, if “a picture paints a thousand words”, then “a 3D model contains a thousand specs”!
As a supplier, 3Dpartsource.com makes your catalog fully accessible, giving you the greatest chance possible of making sales worldwide. It gives you unparalleled global access and exposure. Your database can be interrogated comprehensively. No opportunity to match a buyer’s demands or a call for parts need be missed ever again.
As a buyer, 3Dpartsource.com puts the world of parts at your fingertips. It connects your designing with your part sourcing in a smooth end-to-end process. Barriers to sourcing drop. You find the part you are looking for with a simple click. Put an end to the tedious and endless task of wading through specs and printed catalogs to find approximations for the part you are seeking. Save time, money, and frustration.
Once you try the power of 3Dpartsource.com, you will never look at sourcing the same way again!
The MakerBot Customizer app is at heart a hosted version of the open source OpenSCAD app, with GUI tools to allow users to adjust parametric factors within OpenSCAD designs to produce their own custom objects.
Well, for her March 1st entry, Liz put up a Call to Action challenging those who have been exploring OpenSCAD to pool together to collectively build an Adafruit electronic parts library on Thingiverse to help the huge influx of DIY electronics hobbyists joining the 3D community to have the tools they need to make awesome mounts, bezels, cases, and interactive parts using a 3D printer.
You know about the MCAD library and about the Write library, but what about a library for all your favorite electronic components? The Adafruit library doesn’t exist. At least not yet, but it should. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just go to Thingiverse and open the Customizer App and get an stl for an electronic component? You could then download the stl and use it for a boolean difference or just to help you design your object that incorporates the component or components.
What might the interface look like? (see image above)
You don’t have to design all the parts. You don’t have to design two parts. Just design one part using OpenSCAD and upload it to . Tag it with Adafruit.
Don’t forget to use a digital caliper to get precise dimensions.
While the demand for ever-smaller electronic devices has spurred the miniaturization of a variety of technologies, one area has lagged behind in this downsizing revolution: energy-storage units, such as batteries and capacitors.
Now, Richard Kaner, a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA and a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Maher El-Kady, a graduate student in Kaner’s laboratory, may have changed the game.
The UCLA researchers have developed a groundbreaking technique that uses a DVD burner to fabricate micro-scale graphene-based supercapacitors — devices that can charge and discharge a hundred to a thousand times faster than standard batteries. These micro-supercapacitors, made from a one-atom–thick layer of graphitic carbon, can be easily manufactured and readily integrated into small devices such as next-generation pacemakers.
The new cost-effective fabrication method, described in a study published this week in the journal Nature Communications, holds promise for the mass production of these supercapacitors, which have the potential to transform electronics and other fields.
“The integration of energy-storage units with electronic circuits is challenging and often limits the miniaturization of the entire system,” said Kaner, who is also a professor of materials science and engineering at UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. “This is because the necessary energy-storage components scale down poorly in size and are not well suited to the planar geometries of most integrated fabrication processes.”
“Traditional methods for the fabrication of micro-supercapacitors involve labor-intensive lithographic techniques that have proven difficult for building cost-effective devices, thus limiting their commercial application,” El-Kady said. “Instead, we used a consumer-grade LightScribe DVD burner to produce graphene micro-supercapacitors over large areas at a fraction of the cost of traditional devices. Using this technique, we have been able to produce more than 100 micro-supercapacitors on a single disc in less than 30 minutes, using inexpensive materials.”
The process of miniaturization often relies on flattening technology, making devices thinner and more like a geometric plane that has only two dimensions. In developing their new micro-supercapacitor, Kaner and El-Kady used a two-dimensional sheet of carbon, known as graphene, which only has the thickness of a single atom in the third dimension.
Makers of addressable LED projects have an unhealthy obsession with speed. Which code is fastest? Which hardware? If I tweak this just so, I can shave 2 milliseconds per frame! You can stop obsessing, because Paul Stoffergen’s latest simply buries all others.
Designed expressly for PJRC’s Teensy 3.0 board and compatible with WS2811 LEDs (including our own NeoPixel strips and Flora Smart Pixels), this project is a “poster child” for the next-gen hardware: rather than simply porting an existing Arduino implementation to a board with MOAR MHZ, this new open-source code leverages innate abilities of the Teensy 3’s ARM processor. Using DMA, there’s nearly zero CPU usage when blasting data to 8 LED strips in parallel, freeing the system to synthesize the next frame of animation or stream data over USB or DMX. And if you do somehow reach a performance ceiling, multiple boards can be synchronized. Zoom!
Paul’s tutorial also has some great advice for large LED projects in general, including power, cleaning up signals and some introductory technical details to the ARM CPU features in use.
Check out this great “doomsday” clock project shared on the Adafruit Forums – with as many sources for accurate time and place as you could hope for! As the sources to keep this clock accurate go down, the person reading the clock knows that it is time to hit the bunkers and prepare for the end of the world. Check out the list further down for all of the awesome Adafruit gear used for this project, and read just below for notes from the Doomsday Atomic Alpha Clock Five project page:
I wanted a clock that would display precision time and date in “all” worst case scenarios.
If this clock does not show the precise time then its time to gather up food, water, ammunition,
and the family and head for the underground bunker!
This could happen – imagine this scenario ….
The World Wide Web (Internet) goes down.
All the US Military global positioning satellites (GPS) stops working.
The 60Khz WWVB pulse radio towers (Atomic clock) at Fort Collins, Colorado cease operation.
The electrical power grid cease to function.
All cellphone towers are in-operational.
All POS telephone land lines stop functioning.
All TV and cable systems are in-operational.
It’s the end of civilization … Doomsday! Do you have the precision time and date?
I may be dead and long gone but my Doomsday Atomic Alpha Clock Five would be still functional, working and indicating the precision time!
In this project, we used a GPS, a WiFi Electric IMP (network time), a custom built WWVB Atomic radio receiver, two precision TXCO real time clocks (+- 2 PPM SPI DS3234 and I2C DS3232) and two micro controllers – (Teensy 3 ARM stamp & Arduino 328P clone). We then use the three precision clock sources (UNIX seconds) to drive or sync to the Evil Mad Scientist huge, very bright, “Alpha Clock Five” 2.5″ clock display.
In our “DoomsDay Atomic Alpha Clock Five Project” we used a Ultimate GPS, a WiFi Electric IMP (network time), a WWVB Atomic radio receiver, two precision TXCO real time clocks (+- 2 PPM SPI DS3234 and I2C DS3232) and two microcontrollers – (Teensy 3 ARM stamp & Arduino 328P clone). We then use the three precision clock sources (UNIX seconds) to drive or sync to the Evil Mad Scientist huge, very bright, “Alpha Clock Five” 2.5″ clock display.
This week on Community Corner, we used the “search” function within the G+ Community to see all of the recent tutorials our community members have been creating and sharing about the ULN2803.
ULN2803: 8 Channel Darlington Driver (Solenoid/Unipolar Stepper) – ULN2803A: Bring in some muscle to your output pins with 8 mighty Darlingtons! This DIP chip contains 8 drivers that can sink 500mA from a 50V supply and has kickback diodes included inside for driving coils. This will let your little microcontroller or microcomputer power solenoids, DC motors (in one direction) and unipolar stepper motors. Please note, this is an ‘open collector’ driver – it can only be used to connect the load to ground and there will be a 1 Volt (or more) ‘drop’ across the internal transistors. The inputs can be driven by 3.3V or 5V logic. Fits nicely in any breadboard or perfboard. (read more)
It is not everyday that you run into people designing their own power supplies — check out this great project from the Adafruit Forums by community member “Physics_Dude”:
Alright, I recently had the need to build a rectified AC/DC power supply. Yes, I mean rectified, not regulated. It won’t be used to power sensitive projects.
I used Adafruit’s current and volt meters to read out said values.
Panel Current Meter – 0 to 9.99A: Put a current meter anywhere with this very handy display. This panel meter requires a DC voltage to run, and then has two thick gauge wires to measure current draw. A shunt is already on board so its very easy to hook up! (read more)
Panel Volt Meter – 4.5V to 30VDC: Put a voltage meter anywhere with this very handy display. This panel meter simply connects to whatever DC supply you are trying to track, easy to wire up! (read me)
NEW PRODUCT! Breadboard-friendly MIDI Jack (5-pin DIN) – To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the invention of MIDI we’re carrying these handy 5-pin MIDI jacks. They’re what you see on the back of nearly every synthesizer and drum machine. These are nice sturdy jacks, and breadboard-friendly, with all the pins on 0.1″ spacing for easy wiring.
Adafruit 16-Channel 12-bit PWM/Servo Driver – I2C interface – PCA9685: You want to make a cool robot, maybe a hexapod walker, or maybe just a piece of art with a lot of moving parts. Or maybe you want to drive a lot of LEDs with precise PWM output. Then you realize that your microcontroller has a limited number of PWM outputs! What now? You could give up OR you could just get this handy PWM and Servo driver breakout. When we saw this chip, we quickly realized what an excellent add-on this would be. Using only two pins, control 16 free-running PWM outputs! You can even chain up 62 breakouts to control up to 992 PWM outputs (which we would really like to see since it would be glorious) (read more)
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