Friday Product Post: Ardubots, Roll Out!
Today we have a new flight controller, an Arduino Engineering Kit, a repair kit for your Shapeoko and three new wire strippers. Happy Friday, everyone!
This week we have the new Pixhawk 4 Flight Controller Kit, the Arduino Engineering Kit to help experiment with MATLAB, a kit to help repair your Shapeoko and three different types of wire strippers. We have a ton of diverse products this week that should help you in a multitude of ways!
As a reminder, our Liquidation Sale is currently in full force! We've slashed the prices on these items to their lowest ever. Take a look and see if you can find a bit of treasure; the sale runs until the end of today, August 31st! If you miss it after today, you'll have to wait until next year!
Don't make this hawkward...
The Pixhawk 4 is an advanced development kit for the PX4 autopilot, and is the latest update to the family of Pixhawk flight controllers. The flight controller has been designed and developed in collaboration with Holybro and Auterion, and optimized to run PX4. It comes preinstalled with the latest PX4 firmware and features advanced processor technology from STMicroelectronics, sensor technology from Bosch, InvenSense and a NuttX real-time operating system, delivering incredible performance, flexibility and reliability for controlling any autonomous vehicle.
Engineering just got cooler with the Arduino Engineering Kit! Bring the power of the Arduino MKR1000 to the classroom with MATLAB and Simulink. The Arduino Engineering Kit is the ideal solution for university students, providing a state-of-the-art, hands-on incorporation of Arduino technology in an educational setting. The kit is primarily for three types of users: students learning about engineering, professors teaching engineering and makers with an interest or background in engineering.
Keep your Shapeoko up and running with this maintenance kit. Broke a v-wheel? Need a new belt? Eccentrics worn out? Regardless of what you need it for, the Shapeoko Maintenance Kit will get you back up and running in no time! This kit includes everything you might need to repair your Shapeoko v3, Shapeoko XL or Shapeoko XXL.
Let's face it, wire strippers can be problematic to use if you aren't sure what you're doing, and could result in you accidentally wasting material. Lucky for you, there is this Self-Adjusting Wire Stripper that can take any almost any wire, place it in the head of the tool and compress the handles, and you will have a perfectly stripped wire every time. This Self-Adjusting Wire Stripper also doubles as a wire cutter, and triples as an insulated and non-insulated crimper as well!
Of course if you are looking for a wire stripper in a more common configuration, we also have these 22-30AWG and 20-30AWG versions instead. These are your run-of-the-mill wire strippers that most people prefer on their work bench or in their tool box.
Alright everyone, that's it for this week! As always, we can't wait to see what you make! Shoot us a tweet @sparkfun, or let us know on Instagram or Facebook. We’d love to see what projects you’ve made!
We'll be back next week with even more fantastic new products!
First, let me say that the Self-Adjusting Wire Strippers look interesting, and I'll likely include them in my next order, though at this point, that might not be for several months. (I'll try to remember to post a review after I have had a chance to try them out.)
I've been doing electronics for more than half a century, and one of the most basic needs is always stripping the insulation off the end of a wire so that you can solder it or push it into some sort of connector. Over the years, I've tried a LOT of different wire strippers, and today my "go to" list currently has three entries, which I'll describe.
First is what I consider the "Rolls-Royce" of strippers: the Ideal Industries Stripmaster®. I first used this tool 30 or 40 years ago, and as soon as I could work it into the budget, I got my own. I now own several, in assorted sizes. The big "down-side" to these is the cost: they are often in the $40 to $60. (If you don't know what you're looking at, this is one tool to NOT buy used! Those knives need to be in excellent shape, and a replacement set costs more than half the price of a new tool!) Each tool is good for only a few wire guages, which is why I have several. (I was surprised that Home Depot is listed as a source, Digi-Key doesn't carry them, but apparently Newark Elecronics/Element 14 has them.)
Next on my list is the good old pocket knife (or X-acto style knife). This takes a LOT of practice to do, but if you have some patience, you can likely round up plenty of scrap wire to practice on. I was fortunate in that my father was an Aircraft Mechanic, and he taught me how to do it, but it still took a lot of practice. The key is being gentle in applying the knife, and usually going around the wire several times to cut the insulation. It takes practice to be able to recognize the change in feel once you hit the copper. (When I was first starting in electronics, money was so tight that many of my projects got built using things like empty coffee cans as "cases".)
My third "go-to" stripper is the OK Industries Wire-Wrap tool, but it only works for one size, namely 30ga wire-wrap wire. I still have the one I bought in the 1970s (for less than $10 -- sure demonstrates inflation), and although I used it for many hundreds of connections when I wire-wrapped a whole 8080A based computer, it's still going strong (though I rarely do wire-wrap today). (As a sidelight, I've also tried powered wire-wrap tools, and have always gone back to the OK Industries one because the power ones weigh too much, once you get the knack for spinning it by rolling your fingers the manual one is easy, and the really hard part of the job is finding the right pin, and the manual tool is just easier to maneuver.)
I should mention that I do use other strippers for specialized cables, such as Ethernet or coax (especially so-called "hard-line").
Nice kit, and it's not so expensive as I see