This is what happens when I get behind by a week. There are a ton of new and exciting products to talk about. Many are big, many are small. They all (hopefully) have that 'oh yea, I needed one of those' effect.
Skinny is the first SparkFun hack into the Arduino realm. It's not perfect, but we think you'll like this new derivative. It's 3.3V, runs on LiPo batteries, low-cost, low-profile, and sexy red. Which is actually one of the reasons why it cannot be a certified Arduino board (Arduino boards have to be blue).
A many multi-band antenna. If you really need to be wired to the world, but wirelessly, this antenna will connect your GPS, WiFi, and cellular devices all using one antenna.
XBee-Explorer is a simple USB to serial converter for the popular Digi/Maxstream XBee modules. This little device connects the XBee module of your choice (it's compatible with all of the current version), to your computer over a serial COM port. Very easy!
Everyone loves RGB (red green blue) LEDs. Now you can get 1W RGB in a single package! That's not 1 watt total, that's 1W per channel (3W total). Poor Aaron who has to test new LED products is still seeing spots. These LEDs rock.
Speaking of LED lighting, we are experimenting with lamp replacement bulbs. Above is the gigantic 12W LED lamp. We carry four different versions, from 1W to 12W. CFLs are cheap, but the mercury in each compact fluorescent may come back to haunt us. These LED lamps are not cheap, but dang near indestructible, and use much less power than their halogen cousins. These lamps screw directly into the standard E27 socket found in North America.
If you need a bright enough light source to incapacitate someone, the TLE-300M could be for you. This is a solid-state bulb replacement for big, 4-6 cell Maglite. You know, the giant flashlights that can be used as a personal protection device. Now you can shine 600 Lumen into the eyes of you're assailant while your swinging.
Nordic-FOB is a small 2.4GHz radio controlled by a low-power AVR processor (ATtiny24). It comes with a Key-FOB enclosure and 20mm coin cell battery (good for over 3 years!). This product is basically a hackable key fob. Will you use it to unlock your car? Activate your in-home mood lights? Advance your power-point slides? It's really up to you. This Key-FOB can communicate with any remote device that has a Nordic radio.
The Nordic nRF24AP1 module is unique in that it uses the ANT protocol. The ANT protocol is a wireless protocol used in low power products such as heart rate straps and bicycle computers. With some extended hacking, we are hoping to get this module to listen to a heart rate strap. In the mean time, these modules make a great multi-node network device. The ANT protocol takes care of much of the stack and data delivery problems.
Diprotodon is an Australian marsupial. It's also the start of a horrible naming scheme dreamed up by Engineers that should be doing no such thing. Wombat, Koala, Bandicoot, and Kangaroo will follow soon. These names relate to a special prototyping board that SparkFun has developed. We found ourselves needing 5V, 3.3V, and TTL serial on nearly every project we where hacking on. Why not create a board that does just this? These prototyping boards fit into the SparkFun Enclosure and give you ample room for SMD and PTH components.
Wow we are behind. This breakout board for the electret mic was posted awhile ago. It has an on-board 100-to-1 amplifier. Use this breakout board to detect clapping, knocking, and other unique sound levels with just your microcontroller's ADC. Come on! You know you want to build a Clapper.
We now have an Altera FPGA breakout and a supporting parallel port programmer. When all you need is massive amounts of I/O pins, this simple breakout is what you need.
Have you ever tried to wire up to a device but couldn't find the right cable or connector? We feel your pain. The infrared sensor jumper connects directly to Sharp IR sensors. We even got the wire colors to match the pin functions!
Similarly, we now have a cable to connect to our stepper motor.
If you've ever wanted to play with Zune, this breakout board now takes you one step closer. The Zune Breakout board comes fully assembled. Now you can get access to the video, audio, and charging pins!
Thanks to customer feedback, we now offer the IMU 6DOF v4 boards as individual products. Now you can buy the IMU sensor board with triple axis gyro, accel, and magneto all by itself!
And finally, here is another very unique product. We needed the ability to attach our high-current wall warts to smaller and smaller charge jacks. This became difficult, so we created this small cable to convert from the large barrel jack, to a small JST connector. We hope you find it as handy as we do.
If you've ever played with logging, SD cards, microSD cards, FAT16, or Compact Flash, you probably need to access the card from your computer. This low-cost card reader does exactly that.
Skinny is the first SparkFun hack into the Arduino realm. It's not perfect, but we think you'll like this new derivative. It's 3.3V, runs on LiPo batteries, low-cost, low-profile, and sexy red. Which is actually one of the reasons why it cannot be a certified Arduino board (Arduino boards have to be blue).
A many multi-band antenna. If you really need to be wired to the world, but wirelessly, this antenna will connect your GPS, WiFi, and cellular devices all using one antenna.
XBee-Explorer is a simple USB to serial converter for the popular Digi/Maxstream XBee modules. This little device connects the XBee module of your choice (it's compatible with all of the current version), to your computer over a serial COM port. Very easy!
Everyone loves RGB (red green blue) LEDs. Now you can get 1W RGB in a single package! That's not 1 watt total, that's 1W per channel (3W total). Poor Aaron who has to test new LED products is still seeing spots. These LEDs rock.
Speaking of LED lighting, we are experimenting with lamp replacement bulbs. Above is the gigantic 12W LED lamp. We carry four different versions, from 1W to 12W. CFLs are cheap, but the mercury in each compact fluorescent may come back to haunt us. These LED lamps are not cheap, but dang near indestructible, and use much less power than their halogen cousins. These lamps screw directly into the standard E27 socket found in North America.
If you need a bright enough light source to incapacitate someone, the TLE-300M could be for you. This is a solid-state bulb replacement for big, 4-6 cell Maglite. You know, the giant flashlights that can be used as a personal protection device. Now you can shine 600 Lumen into the eyes of you're assailant while your swinging.
Nordic-FOB is a small 2.4GHz radio controlled by a low-power AVR processor (ATtiny24). It comes with a Key-FOB enclosure and 20mm coin cell battery (good for over 3 years!). This product is basically a hackable key fob. Will you use it to unlock your car? Activate your in-home mood lights? Advance your power-point slides? It's really up to you. This Key-FOB can communicate with any remote device that has a Nordic radio.
The Nordic nRF24AP1 module is unique in that it uses the ANT protocol. The ANT protocol is a wireless protocol used in low power products such as heart rate straps and bicycle computers. With some extended hacking, we are hoping to get this module to listen to a heart rate strap. In the mean time, these modules make a great multi-node network device. The ANT protocol takes care of much of the stack and data delivery problems.
Diprotodon is an Australian marsupial. It's also the start of a horrible naming scheme dreamed up by Engineers that should be doing no such thing. Wombat, Koala, Bandicoot, and Kangaroo will follow soon. These names relate to a special prototyping board that SparkFun has developed. We found ourselves needing 5V, 3.3V, and TTL serial on nearly every project we where hacking on. Why not create a board that does just this? These prototyping boards fit into the SparkFun Enclosure and give you ample room for SMD and PTH components.
Wow we are behind. This breakout board for the electret mic was posted awhile ago. It has an on-board 100-to-1 amplifier. Use this breakout board to detect clapping, knocking, and other unique sound levels with just your microcontroller's ADC. Come on! You know you want to build a Clapper.
We now have an Altera FPGA breakout and a supporting parallel port programmer. When all you need is massive amounts of I/O pins, this simple breakout is what you need.
Have you ever tried to wire up to a device but couldn't find the right cable or connector? We feel your pain. The infrared sensor jumper connects directly to Sharp IR sensors. We even got the wire colors to match the pin functions!
Similarly, we now have a cable to connect to our stepper motor.
If you've ever wanted to play with Zune, this breakout board now takes you one step closer. The Zune Breakout board comes fully assembled. Now you can get access to the video, audio, and charging pins!
Thanks to customer feedback, we now offer the IMU 6DOF v4 boards as individual products. Now you can buy the IMU sensor board with triple axis gyro, accel, and magneto all by itself!
And finally, here is another very unique product. We needed the ability to attach our high-current wall warts to smaller and smaller charge jacks. This became difficult, so we created this small cable to convert from the large barrel jack, to a small JST connector. We hope you find it as handy as we do.
If you've ever played with logging, SD cards, microSD cards, FAT16, or Compact Flash, you probably need to access the card from your computer. This low-cost card reader does exactly that.
