NEW PRODUCT – MAX7219CNG LED Matrix/Digit Display Driver. When you need some help driving a lot of LEDs, the MAX7219 is the best friend you could hope for. Many of us know that if you want to control a lot of LEDs, you’ll want to use multiplexing, a technique that lets you control 64 LEDs (say) with only 16 pins (8×8). The annoying thing about ‘plexing is that you need to use 8 power transistors (or a power register/latch, that can supply over 100mA per pin) AND you have to constantly refresh the display to keep the image stable. If you need to get something together quickly, or don’t want to bother with writing all that code, and especially if you want clean wiring, this chip is the one-stop-solution!
The MAX7219 does all the control and refresh work for you in driving either an 8×8 matrix display or 8 x 7-segment displays (usually these also have a dot so its really an 8-segment display) – 64 LEDs total. All you have to do is send it serial commands via the 4-pin SPI interface and it will auto-magically take care of the rest. Wiring is simplified as well, you only need to set the current level for all LEDs with a single resistor instead of 8 and you can also dim the entire display digitally. It’s a thru-hole chip so you can use it in any breadboard, perfboard or other project, although if you’re soldering it in, we suggest using a socket.
NEW PRODUCT – TPIC6B595 High Power Shift Register. Add a bunch of high-power outputs to a microcontroller system with chainable shift registers. These chips take a serial input (SPI) of 1 byte (8 bits) and then output those digital bits onto 8 pins. You can chain them together so putting three in a row with the serial output of one plugged into the serial input of another to make 3 x 8 = 24 digital outputs. You can chain pretty much as many as you want. This makes it easy to control a lot of outputs like LEDs from only 3 digital microcontroller pins.
This item contains one TPIC6B595 chip! These chips work similarly to the more well known 7HC595s but they are high power drains, able to sink 150mA per pin. They cannot source current so they should be connected to LED cathodes. This makes them ideal for use with LED matrices where you end up sinking 8 or more LEDs at once.
These chips are DIP package so you can easily plug them into any breadboard or perfboard with 0.1″ spacing. They are not the same pinout as ’595s so check the datasheet!
NEW PRODUCT – 8 x AA battery holder. When you need a portable 12V power pack, this big holder will do the job! The holder will store 8 AA batteries end to end, to give approximately 12VDC output with up to 2 amp peak current draw. We like this configuration in particular because it holds the batteries securely, even if being bumped/moved around.
This would make a good power source for EL panels, 12V stepper motors (for a robot), or analog LED strip such as this 30 RGB LED, 60 LED RGB or warm white). You may want to pick up a DC power plug adapter to connect onto the wires for easy plugging.
Batteries are not included, can be used with any AA-sized Alkaline or Rechargeable batteries.
NEW PRODUCT – VERY Large Solderless Breadboard. For really big projects, give yourself some room to work in, with a massive 2250-point breadboard – equivalent in size to three full sized breadboards side by side.
The breadboards are mounted onto a metal plate, and comes with 4 colored posts you can use with a bench-top supply. Four bumpers are included, to keep the board from slipping around your desk.
Like nearly all large breadboards, the ‘power rails’ are split in the middle! That means that if you want to plug in a voltage at the top of the board, it wont appear at the bottom. Since this often trips people up, we strongly suggest drawing lines onto the breadboard the moment you get it!
Everyone likes new tools right? Well, my eye caught some neat pogo probes posted on the Adafruit Industries Blog a few months back, and was intrigued. I wanted a pair, but I shied away from the short handles. Then, a few days ago, it happened. I was cleaning out one of my toolboxes, and voila! I found a pair of old probes with bent tips, perfect for making into pogo probes. I also had some pogo pins from Adafruit laying around, waiting to be used for something besides having breadboard wars with ‘micro spears’. Anyway, here is how I made them with a few pictures. You will need an old pair of meter probes, pogo pins, a small hand drill, a Dremel with a cut off wheel (a steel hacksaw will also work), a vice, heat shrink, and a few ounces of patience for this project.
Pogo Pins (10 pack). Pogo pins are little spring-loaded contacts, very handy for making jigs, or making momentary (but electrically solid) contacts. We use them by the dozen for making programming and testing jigs but they’re handy also if say you want to JTAG program a board that you cant solder headers to – just shove these thin contacts into the programming cable and press it onto the contacts.
These particular pins are (in our opinion) ideal because they are skinny enough to fit into proto board or perf board – they have a 1.0mm/0.04″ diameter body (the gold part) but the spring contact head is 1.5mm (0.06″) wide. The uncompressed length is 16.5mm/0.65″, compressed is 14mm/0.55″. Check out our tutorial on how we make pogo-pin jigs!”.
If you’re working in a collaborative environment or if your projects are shared between different teams or companies, having a well defined coding standard can be useful to make sure that your code is easily understandable and maintainable between developers and down the road.
Aside from cosmetic issues like clear and consistent naming conventions (helpful as that is when debugging), a good set of coding standards also includes a lot of hard-won wisdom on what you should or shouldn’t do for reliability reasons as well.
BY POPULAR REQUEST! NEW PRODUCT – Extra-long break-away 0.1 18-pin strip male header (5 pieces). Breakaway header is like the duct tape of electronics, and this header is one better with extra long pins on both sides. This makes it great for connecting things together that have two sockets – especially solderless breadboards. We also use these with our female-female socket jumpers to create female-male and male-male jumpers! Each pack contains 5 x 18-pin long headers, 0.1″ pitch, that can be stacked next to each other on a 0.1″ grid and broken apart easily with pliers or diagonal cutters. They’re even gold plated so they wont oxidize!
While books of phone schematics are common place in Shenzhen (and probably throughout China),an interesting website came up in my search results for something completely unrelated. Ever wonder how mobiles phones are designed to pack so much functionality into increasingly smaller packages? Have a look at cellphonediagram.com and you should find a lot of interesting material to learn from.
This is the same sensor used in the breakout board we just put in the store. It can determine barometric pressure with high precision, good for determining altitude and weather patterns! If you want to integrate this into a future project, you’ll want to pick up some raw sensors. They’re fairly easy to solder and our Arduino library has all the math worked out for you. You can even use the Adafruit eagle library which has this sensor as a ready-to-go package!
NEW PRODUCT – Pogo Pins (10 pack). Pogo pins are little spring-loaded contacts, very handy for making jigs, or making momentary (but electrically solid) contacts. We use them by the dozen for making programming and testing jigs but they’re handy also if say you want to JTAG program a board that you cant solder headers to – just shove these thin contacts into the programming cable and press it onto the contacts.
These particular pins are (in our opinion) ideal because they are skinny enough to fit into proto board or perf board – they have a 1.0mm/0.04″ diameter body (the gold part) but the spring contact head is 1.5mm (0.06″) wide. The uncompressed length is 16.5mm/0.65″, compressed is 14mm/0.55″. Check out our tutorial on how we make pogo-pin jigs!”.
NEW PRODUCT – Break-away 0.1 36-pin strip male header (10 pieces). Breakaway header is like the duct tape of electronics. Its great for connecting things together, soldering to perf-boards, fits into any breakout or breadboard, etc. We go through these guys real fast, and thought that given how handy they are, we’d offer them in a pack of ten!
Each pack contains 10 36-pin long headers, 0.1″ pitch, that can be stacked next to each other on a 0.1″ grid and broken apart easily with pliers or diagonal cutters. They’re even gold plated so they wont oxidize!
UPDATED PRODUCT – USB LiIon/LiPoly charger – v1.2. This is a Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer battery charger based on the MCP73833. It uses a USB mini-B for connection to any computer or ‘USB wall adapter’. 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 fast-charge current is 500mA by default, but is easily adjustable from 100mA up to 1000mA by soldering a through-hole resistor on-board.
This board is great for DIY projects because it has 3 indicator LEDs – one for power, one for charging status and a third that indicates when charging is complete. Keep the battery connected to the charger and pass power through the additional JST connector using the included cable!
Comes assembled and tested with a free bonus JST cable!
5V input via mini-B USB connector
For charging single Lithium Ion/Lithium Polymer 3.7/4.2v batteries (not for older 3.6/4.1v cells)
500mA charge current, adjustable from 100mA to 1000mA by soldering in a resistor
Separate JST connectors for battery and load system so batteries don’t have to be removed for charging
Chip supports a 10K NTC thermistor which we have stuffed as a plain 10K. For people who require temperature monitors (using high charge rates), remove the 10K and solder in the thermistor in its place
0.1″ (2.54mm) breakouts for the battery, DC, and status LEDs
If you’re interested in making the plunge from Arduino (etc.) to directly working with an MCU, you’ll inevitably have to learn some basic C. There are a number of books that can teach you the basics, but if you’re looking for a refresher on one specific topic or keyword, “The C Book” is a great (and surprisingly thorough) online resource. Have another suggestion for people interested in getting start in C? Feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments!
NEW PRODUCT – 28-pin ZIF socket. A ZIF (Zero Insertion Force Socket) allows you to insert and remove chips easily from an existing circuits. These are often used for chip programmers or when you need to test a chip without damaging it. Move the lever up and chips drop right in. Move the lever down to ‘latch’ the chip in place.
This socket is designed for DIP chips of up to 28 pins and 0.3″ wide. What’s nice about it is it can snap into an existing circuit board or socket that is designed for the chip so you may not have to redesign the board! For example, we snapped it into an Arduino socket, which would allow you to change chips out (if you wanted to put a shield on top, you’ll need to fit a set of stacking headers on).
NEW PRODUCT – 40-pin ZIF socket. A ZIF (Zero Insertion Force Socket) allows you to insert and remove chips easily from an existing circuits. These are often used for chip programmers or when you need to test a chip without damaging it. Move the lever up and chips drop right in. Move the lever down to ‘latch’ the chip in place.
This socket is designed for DIP chips of up to 40 pins and up to 0.6″ wide. So really, its good for any size chip you’ll find. What’s nice about it is it can snap into an existing circuit board or socket that is designed for a 40-pin 0.6″ chip so you may not have to redesign the board! This socket is gold plated so it will last a long time.
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