Welcome to another Friday New Product Post. We have some lights, a couple new tools, and the feedback-inspired revision of the Cerberus cable.
ReplaceMeOpen
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Sometimes when we design a product, we don't realize that people will be using it differently than we had planned. Such was the case with the original Cerberus cable. We designed it for use with Arduinos, FTDIs, etc. We didn't think people would want to use it with their digital camera, phone, or other USB devices. Silly us. It works fine with the stuff we thought it should be used with, but not so much with other stuff. So we went back to the drawing board and came up with the new Cerberus. This one includes a USB hub and works with everything we could throw at it. The best part is that you can use multiple devices simultaneously.
Everyone seems to like RGB LED strips. But we never really had a full selection of the different types. This week we sat down and figured out what types, styles and sizes would be best to carry, and we've got them all in stock. These new strips are all 60 LED per meter, and come in nice little reels. The non-addressable types have bare wires and the addressable strips have connectors. We have them in 1M and 5M lengths, addressable and non-addressable, and bare strips (no coating, just the flexible strip with LEDs on it) and a weather-sealed version. Hopefully you can find something you need for your next project. We have our older strips on sale, so check those out if you're looking for a deal.
And lastly we have two new version of the DSO Quad pocket scope. The new versions now have aluminum enclosures and come in black and silver. They feel a lot weightier and more substantial than the previous one. If you're looking for a scope that can fit in your pocket, check it out. We also have the previous version on sale.
Well, that's it for this week. Thanks for reading, watching, and just generally being you. See you again next week.
I would have loved to have seen a demo of the led lights. Also you don't really mention that it would be very hard to run the 5 meter addressable lights with an uno. Can a mega even do it? The explanations the "fruit" people give on using the lights would be very useful in this case.
I think you all are over exaggerating the "Strip Tease" title. Next thing you know Spark Fun won't be able to sell the blinky xmas tree kits for fear of upsetting someone.
Sam
I didn't think about it. I could maybe demo them next week. Did you check the tutorial on the product page? We detail how to drive the strips.
Check tomorrow's product post for a demo.
I don't understand why it would be very hard to run a 5 meter addressable strip (5 * 60 = 300 LEDs) with an Uno. What are your concerns? Is it power consumption? In worst case (all on) you would need 18A so the 500mA that an Uno can provide is not enough, but any 5V/20A external power supply will fix this. Is it RAM? You need 900 bytes - no problem for an Uno.
Was it really necessary to sexualize a boring new product post? When will people realize this kind of sexist innuendo is unwelcoming and unfriendly to women in the maker community.
It's not even a clever joke, there was no "tease" at all. If you had thought for 5 seconds you could have used "Strip Mall" or "Strip Mine" and that actually would have made some sense.
How are you so flustered, your name is "relaxing"? Although I do see your point after noticing it.
Actually, there was a tease. All of SparkFun's new product videos can be considered teasers.
I agree Strip Tease is an inappropriate title for the video and the post. I am very sorry for the misogynistic title. I'll talk to all the people that are responsible for content generation and make sure they know that we don't have tolerance for such things.
Wow... that certainly escalated a little huh.. completely unnecessary in my opinion. I thought the title was fun and very mild. We can see "strip teases" in numerous cartoons (those made for kids!), and it´s a known term used in many jokes. The character doesn´t need to REALLY get naked in order for it to be a strip. It´s usually just for the joke. Also, i´m pretty sure any 6 year old would be able to make the connection between "strip tease" and "led strip" and have a giggle.
Plus i don´t really think kids under 13 would be reading this level of electronics content, but if they are, you might as well start decorating your webpage with little bunnies , mickey mouse, little trees, etc.. how´s that? Is that safe enough? C´mon people.. lighten up!
For a company that markets heavily to kids interested in engineering its a little bothersome in the recent uptick of crude content/language (Enginursday: The Spark Arts, Strip Tease).
The "Spark Arts" is a Harry Potter reference.
I was referring to the NSFW links in that post.
Well, we did provide warnings on both of the potentially offensive links, but I see your point. We'll try to be more sensitive in the future.
Good point. They're probably just trying to educate kids on how in the tech industry, women are sexual objects whose purpose is to entertain men.
Right. Because men can't do strip teases. So tired of this faux outrage.
Yikes. That was certainly not our goal. I see your point and I'm going to change it. It was a bad idea for a number of reasons, but not sure I would say it goes that far.
Here a Xmas Tree using Addressable LEDs, 2 Arduinos, Audio Spectrum Analyzer board, MP3 player board. 1st Arduino controlling the MP3 Player using TV remote to select music. 2nd Arduino running the Spectrum board and driving LEDs. 7-30 LED strands & about 12 for star at top. Also use TV remote to select different patterns on the tree or just sync to music from MP3 board. As you can see the update rate is very fast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiY1dDi_HBU
Is there any difference in functionality for the new version DSO Quad pocket scope compared to the previous version?
nope.
Is it just me or did it seem like Robert got super quiet near the end. Not like the music (which is awesome) was drowning him out, just the crossfade turned him down a lot or something...