NEW PRODUCT – S-Video Cable – 9 feet. This basic cable comes with two S-Video MiniDIN-4 connectors. It’s fairly straight forward, you’ll commonly need these to connect two S-Video devices together. Works great with the Uzebox kit when you want better quality than Composite. Cable is 9 ft long.
The Register is reporting that Boise University PhD candidate Joshua Kiepert has built a 32-way Beowulf cluster from Raspberry Pis.
““In order to keep the cluster size to a minimum while maintaining ease of access, the RPis were stacked in groups of eight using PCB-to-PCB standoffs with enough room in between them for a reasonable amount of air flow and component clearance,” he writes. “This configuration suited our needs for power distribution very well since it allowed for a power line to be passed vertically along each stack.”
“Using this orientation, four RPi stacks were assembled and mounted between two pieces of acrylic. This created a solid structure in which the cluster could be housed and maintain physical stability under the combined weight of 32 Ethernet cables.”
The latest version of the Adafruit webIDE now supports the BeagleBone and BeagleBone Black. We’ve been working out many of the issues with this installer the last few days, and it appears ready to be released into the wild. The installer is specifically designed to work with the default Angstrom Linux distribution that is pre-installed on the BeagleBone’s. You may want to update to the latest version of Angstrom prior to installing the webIDE as well.
You can find the instructions on how to install it in the Adafruit Learning System’s webIDE tutorial. We’ve also created a new installation video to help as well:
If you run into any issues with installing the webIDE on the BeagleBone, or with any issues running the webIDE, please open a ticket in the issues section of our GitHub repository.
NEW PRODUCT – USB Powered Speakers. Add some extra boom to your audio project with these powered loudspeakers. We sampled half a dozen different models to find ones with a good frequency response, so you’ll get quality audio output for music playback. Simply connect the standard 3.5mm stereo plug into your Raspberry Pi, Wave shield, etc. There’s even a volume control wheel on it so you can set it up just right.
For power, plug the USB connector into anything that can provide USB power. If you keep the volume about half-way (which is still really loud), the current draw is 200-400mA. At max volume, you can end up with up to 1 A peak draw. If a computer is not available, one of our 5V 1A wall adapters will work well and if you want to power from a battery pack, you can use a USB A to 2.1mm adapter if you don’t want to cut the cord.
100 Hz – 18 KHz frequency response
Power requirements: 5VDC 1A peak (at max volume output)
The chemical giant Dupont jumped into the apparel game when it launched Dacron, the first ever commercially available polyester fabric, known as Dacron in New York City on May 8, 1951. The first offering was men’s blended suits, made with 55% dacron and 45% worsted wool. Polyester was later was blended with a number of other fabric types, including cotton. Advertised as modern and easy, Dupont targeted its fabrics across markets, from couture to factory workwear. Today, almost 50% of the consumer fabric market is still made up of polyester.
1937
On May 6th, 76 years ago, the Luftschiff Zeppelin #129, also known as the Hindenburg, crashed while landing in Manchester Township, New Jersey. It was the largest aircraft by volume in the world at the time. Of the 97 people on board, 36 died as a result of the crash. The highly publicized and photographed crash turned the public off of airships (also known as zeplins) forever, marking the end of a (very short-lived) era.
1790
In 1790, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand with the new French National Assembly decided to create a simple, new system of measurement units. The first unit chosen was based on a pendulum with a half-period of a second. The following year, after a proposal by the French Academy of Sciences, the definition of a meter was revised to 1/10 000 000 of the distance between the north pole and the equator. It wasn’t until April 7, 1795, however, that this new decimal system, that was a precursor to the metric system were declared the legal and official means of measure within France. Hence the annoying conversion chart above. A less remembered fact is that there was a simultaneous proposal (later dropped) to change the week from seven to ten days, called “décades,” thus abolishing Sabbath and the Church’s stranglehold on people’s Sunday mornings.
1742
Jean Senebier, the botanist who first clearly demonstrated that plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen under the influence of direct light, was born May 6th, 1742. His 1800 publication, “Physiologie végétale,” was fundamental to the development in understanding photosynthesis.
NEW PRODUCT – Peltier Thermo-Electric Cooler Module+Heatsink Assembly – 12V 5A. This is for people who just want to get cold fast. The 12V Peltier module is mounted onto a 12V heatsink and fan assembly with thermal paste and an aluminum clamp. Simply connect to 12V 5A+ power supply and you will see frost appear on the aluminum plate within a minute. This assembly comes with the best Peltier we could get, so it can get even colder than the stand-alone module we stock, but we think the price is worth it. Just sitting on our desk it got down to -3.6°C, nice and frosty! Comes with the Peltier, heatsink, fan all assembled. You’ll need a power supply to power it, we suggest our 12V 5A wall adapter. We show a temperature meter in a photo but that’s not included, its just to show you how cold it gets.
NEW PRODUCT – Peltier Thermo-Electric Cooler Module – 5V 1A. Keep it cool with a Peltier module. These unique electronic components can generate a temperature differential when powered. That is to say, apply 5V to the red (positive) and black (negative) wires and one side will get cold while the other side gets hot. For best results, you’ll need to wick away that heat (otherwise the cold side will slowly get warmer). A fan and/or heatsink is ideal. This module is a 5V module, and is rated for 5W max (5V/1A) but when we plugged them in they seemed to draw more like 1.5A so we suggest our 5V/2A power adapter for use.
NEW PRODUCT – Peltier Thermo-Electric Cooler Module – 12V5A. Keep it cool with a Peltier module. These unique electronic components can generate a temperature differential when powered. That is to say, apply 12V to the red (positive) and black (negative) wires and one side will get cold while the other side gets hot. For best results, you’ll need to wick away that heat (otherwise the cold side will slowly get warmer). A fan and/or heatsink is ideal. This module is a 12V module, and is rated for 72W max (12V/6A) but when we plugged them in they never seemed to draw more than 5A so we suggest our 12V/5A power adapter for use.
Call For Entries: Announcing The Adafruit 6 second electronics film festival! Share your cool project in 6 seconds of video and win up to $600 at the Adafruit store, with six runners up winning $60 store credit each.In a 6 second video, we want you to share the best project you’ve made. Be sure not to use any copyrighted music, video, etc. This should be all your project, all by you. The Adafruit team will be looking on Twitter, G+/youtube and beyond for Vines, 6 second videos and more tagged with #adafruit6secs. The deadline is 6pm ET, 5/6/13. The Adafruit team of judges will pick their favorites and announce the winner on May, 12th at 6pm ET.
The easiest way to make a 6 second video for The Adafruit 6 second electronics film festival is to use Vine. If you don’t have an iOS device, no big deal – most everything can take 6 second videos and upload. With Vine and looping a 6 second video you can make cool videos that repeat what you’ve made that’s blinking, moving or making noise – get creative, and enter as often as you’d like. Make sure you do not use any copyrighted music, video, etc. This should be your cool project you are sharing, in 6 seconds.
STEP TWO: TAG THE VIDEO with #adafruit6secs
The most important thing is to tag the video with #adafruit6secs . We’ll be mostly using Twitter to find most of these, you can also send a link to your video via the contact form (do not email us video files!).
PRIZES: $600 GRAND PRIZE, SIX $60 PRIZES (ADAFRUIT STORE)
The team of Adafruit judges will pick our favorites. Grand prize is a $600 gift certificate in the Adafruit store and six runners-up will receive $60 in store credit each. THE DEADLINE IS 6:00 PM ON MONDAY 5/6/13!
Make sure to tag & upload by 6pm ET, Monday, May 6th, 2013, that’s the deadline.
WINNERS ANNOUNCED LIVE ON ASK AN ENGINEER: 5/12/13!
We will play the videos on ASK AN ENGINEER Saturday night 10pm ET on May 12th, 2013. The judges from Adafruit John De Cristofaro, Becky Stern, Matt Griffin, Molly Rae Thorkelson & Ladyada. Adafruit staff & partners may make entries but cannot win
Artist Jon Stam hacked a Viewfinder to make the image inside go from stereoscopic to digital:
The imaginary Museum consists of a digitally hacked View-Master and (RFID enabled) paper discs. Instead of stereoscopic sightseeing through diapositives with an original View-Master, these Imaginary Museum discs activate digital content from the web to be viewed though two high resolution micro screens inside the viewer. Each disc holds a collection of 7 meaningful digital things (still, moving, 2d, and 3d) curated by various artists and designers. To view a collection one must simply place a disc in the viewer and press lever down to change scene. An Imaginary Museum was developed for House for Contemporary Art Z33′s New Times New Heros presentation. It is produced on demand for exhibitions, events, and personal use.
PiUi makes it easy to implement a rich mobile UI directly in python code and access it from your Android or iPhone. It’s powered by ratchet.js so there are lots of UI components available to create beautiful interfaces.
All you need in addition to a Raspberry Pi is a wifi adaptor (like this one from Adafruit). Your Pi will create a wifi access point to connect your phone to, then simply navigate to http://piui/ in a browser to access your app’s UI. There’s even an Android app to make connecting easy and show useful status info plus an iPhone webapp you can save to your homescreen.
PiUi is open source – fork it on github – and is just getting started, so please use it, let me know what you think and help improve it.
Miniature WiFi (802.11b/g/n) Module: For Raspberry Pi and more – Make your Internet of Things device cable-free by adding WiFi. Take advantage of the Raspberry Pi and Beagle Bone’s USB port to add a low cost, but high-reliability wireless link. We tried half a dozen modules to find one that works well with the Pi and Bone without the need of recompiling any kernels: it’s supported by the Bone’s Angstrom installation that comes with each Bone as well as the Adafruit Occidentalis distribution. You’ll have wireless Internet in 10 minutes! Works great with 802.11b/g/n networks. (read more)
Forums member pighixxx is producing an illustrated series of Arduino Basic Connections – just about everything you every wanted to know about how interface your Arduino to a wide selection of input and output devices!
LED bulbs last decades, save electricity, don’t shatter, don’t burn you, save hundreds of dollars, and now offer plummeting prices and blossoming features. What’s not to like? You’d have to be a pretty dim bulb not to realize that LED light is the future…
LEDs last about 25 times as long as incandescents and three times as long as CFLs; we’re talking maybe 25,000 hours of light. Install one today, and you may not own your house, or even live, long enough to see it burn out. (Actually, LED bulbs generally don’t burn out at all; they just get dimmer.)
NEW PRODUCT – Adafruit Micro Lipo – USB LiIon/LiPoly charger. Oh so adorable, this is the tiniest little lipo charger, so handy you can keep it any project box! Its also easy to use. Simply plug in the gold plated contacts into any USB port and a 3.7V/4.2V lithium polymer or lithium ion rechargeable battery into the JST plug on the other end. There are two LEDs – one red and one green. While charging, the red LED is lit. When the battery is fully charged and ready for use, the green LED turns on. Seriously, it could not get more easy.
Charging is performed in three stages: first a preconditioning charge, then a constant-current fast charge and finally a constant-voltage trickle charge to keep the battery topped-up. The charge current is 100mA by default, so it will work with any size battery and USB port. If you want you can easily change it over to 500mA mode by soldering closed the jumper on the back, for when you’ll only be charging batteries with 500mAh size or larger.
Comes assembled and tested with a free bonus JST cable!
5V input via PCB-style USB connector
For charging single Lithium Ion/Lithium Polymer 3.7/4.2v batteries (not for older 3.6/4.1v cells)
100mA charge current, adjustable to 500mA by soldering a jumper closed
Printable catalog (PDF) or (EPUB)
FEED