Adafruit Circuit Playground

Adafruit Circuit Playground, Available on the Apple App Store. App running on iPhone, iPad, and iPad mini.

"Very useful" by MakerMaker5 stars
Incredibly handy for anyone working in electronics. Perfect for engineers and non-engineers alike.

"Just what this hobbyist needs" by JoshuaUnwin5 stars
I love the clean look and focused tools in this app. It has earned a spot on my first home screen...

Circuit Playground simplifies electronics reference & calculation so you can have more fun hacking, making, & building your projects! This app is designed for both iPhone and iPad.

  • Decipher resistor & capacitor codes with ease
  • Calculate power, resistance, current, and voltage with the Ohm's Law & Power Calc modules
  • Quickly convert between decimal, hexadecimal, binary or even ASCII characters
  • Calculate values for multiple resistors or capacitors in series & parallel configurations
  • Store, search, and view PDF datasheets
  • Access exclusive sneak peaks, deals & discounts at Adafruit Industries

All that, plus updates with additional features & enhancements - MANY NEW CALCULATORS AND TOOLS being added! Not on iOS? An Android version is in the works :) For now, if you'd like to support a cool Android app and developer check out ElectroDroid. Please scroll down here and watch the HD video below about Circuit Playground and check out the screen shots!

Play video: Adafruit's Circuit Playground!

Screens of the app running on iPhone and iPad. iPhone screens show calculators for LED resistance, RC filter, non-inverting amplifier, and a resistance color code tool. iPad screenshots show tools for understanding capacitor codes and calculating with Ohm's law.

Available on the Apple App Store.

Circuit Playground's 1.6 update brings another heaping helping of electronics assistance to our highly nutritious iOS app. Be sure to grab it fresh from the App Store if you haven't already. Let's dig in to what's new on the menu in 1.6 -

• Resistor Divider Calculator
App screen with a resistor divider diagram. From left-to-right, input voltage Vin, resistor R1, voltage out Vout, resistor R2, and ground. Each value is represented by a text entry for voltage or resistance.
Enter any three of the four values: Vin, Vout, R1, & R2 - and your voltage divider is ready for the breadboard.

• Heat Sink Calculator
App screen with entries for ambient temperature junction temperature and power dissipation of a heat sink.
Make sure that heat sink can keep your component (relatively) cool while in use - provide the top four values, then enter Power or Junction Temp to calculate the remaining. Temperature can be given in Fahrenheit or Celsius.

• Wavelength to Color Converter
App screen of converter that allows entry of nanometer wavelength value and will show the corresponding color.
It's a little tough to visualize an LED's color when you only have its light wavelength go by. Input that nanometer value into the Wavelength to Color Converter for a preview of the color + relevant RGB/Hex values. Alternatively - use the color slider to find a color's wavelength.

• Trace Width Calculator
App screen of calculator trace width of PCB copper with current, thickness and ambient temperature and max temperature rise.
Ensure your PCB traces can handle your circuit's current - calculate the required trace width by providing 4 values for your project. Includes unit options for temperature & length values.

• Quarter Wave Calculator
App screen for calculator to determine half and quarter wavelength antenna based on megahertz frequency.
Find the antenna length you'll need to use for a given frequency, or the corresponding frequency for a given length. Length can be specified in feet/inches or metric value.

• New Pinouts for connectors, ICs, & boards
App screen with pinout diagram of RJ45, and Raspberry Pi GPIO
We've added a bunch of useful pinout diagrams to the app including - Raspberry Pi GPIO, MAX232, LM386, 74HC595, USB (A&B), RS232 (DB-9), VGA (DB-15), Ethernet (RJ-45), 16x2 LCD, 78xx, & 78Lxx

• Show & Tell more!
App screen of project submission with camera and photo of project.
Show & Tell now lets you share multiple pics & video with Adafruit. Choose up to 3 photos and/or 1 video clip to represent your project - tap a thumbnail image to review each piece of media or remove it from your submission. Of course you can also use your iPad/iPhone/iPod's camera to grab new pics or video - each one will automatically be saved to your device's photo library.

Also - Circuit Playground 1.6 also adds support for iOS 6 & requires iOS 4.3 or later. Changing calculator pages on iPad can now be done with a two-finger swipe across the main view. Circuit Playground 1.6 is available now on the App Store and is a free update for existing users. Bon appetit!

Circuit Playground - Made with love by Adafruit, Collin Cunningham, Limor Fried, Daigo Kawasaki, Mosfet and Phillip Torrone

A paper-based resistor color code calculating tool for 4 band resistors. Gold metal brads secure 4 paper wheels in a bluish gray folder. Each wheel can be turned to reveal a color and its associated resistor value. In this example: blue, white, gold, blue equates to 6.9 Ohms with tolerance of 0.25. Dark gray lines help line up the paper's values with a physical resistor. In the bottom-right corner, a QR code directs to the URL adafru.it/app.

We also have a paper tool :) We're excited to share this Resistor Helper you can download and make yourself. It's the newest tool in our Circuit Playground family-- when you can't get to your iPhone or iPad, use paper! One side helps you read 4-band types and the other side takes care of 5-band types. The Resistor Helper is on Thingiverse as a PDF (with Illustrator editability preserved). Designed by Adafruit with Matthew Borgatti. You can also grab the PDF on github. Use and enjoy! Tutorial also on Instructables and Make: Projects (blog here).



Play video: New Products 1/5/2013

Circuit Playground* (0:03)