Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow
A new Air Velocity Sensor breakout has Rob climbing through the vents, the RTK Express has a new kit, and SparkX brings MicroMod to the Feather format.
Hello everyone and welcome back to another Friday Product post! We have a lot of new (and some experimental) products to showcase, starting with the new FS3000 Air Velocity Sensor Breakout. This board is a highly accurate sensor that can detect and measure air velocities up to around 16 miles per hour (~25 KPH). Following that, we take a look at our new kit for the RTK Express – now you have pretty much everything you need to get surveying right away. We wrap up the day with a few new SparkX products, including a MicroMod Thing Plus and a new button. Now, let's jump in and take a closer look!
I got the need. The need for air speed!
Need to keep track of the airflow in your data center or around your servers? How about making sure your HVAC and air control systems are functioning at full capacity? Or what about figuring out how fast your RC airplane is going? Well, the new SparkFun FS3000 Air Velocity Sensor Breakout can help you with all that and more! It's super easy, super quick (Qwiic!) to hookup, and super fun to play with.
The SparkFun RTK Express Kit has everything you need to get centimeter-level global positioning measurements using GNSS RTK. We've created a handy carrying case to protect the most expensive bits, allowing you to quickly attach the L1/L2 antenna and RTK Express housing to the pole or tripod of your choice. The kit includes all the antenna parts, cables and chargers you need to jump right into the field.
If you already own an RTK Express or RTK Surveyor, the RTK Kit Carrying Case helps protect your valuable high-precision GNSS receiver from the harsh elements of the field. Custom slots are molded into the case for the RTK receiver, TOP106 multi-band antenna, a 915MHz radio and antenna, as well as a large open slot for power supplies, cables and adapters.
The MicroMod Thing Plus from SparkX brings the ability to use the MicroMod ecosystem with the popular Feather footprint. This board breaks out the MicroMod Processor Board's pins on the M.2 connector to 0.1" spaced PTH pads on the edge of the board. This Carrier Board is great if you're interested in testing out different MicroMod Processor Boards for your application.
Do you need power? This breakout for the 915M30S module from EBYTE is a 1W (30 dB) LoRa transceiver. LoRa is great for long range (miles), low power (in sleep), and low data rates (~500 bps). This breakout board is designed to connect to any platform that has SPI and six available GPIO. We include a robust edge mount RP-SMA connector to connect large LoRa (915 MHz) antennas. In addition, the on-board U.FL connector can be used if you need to get outside a metal enclosure.
This IR proximity contactless button makes for a good replacement for typical push buttons in situations where touching the button isn't required or desirable (especially in this day and age). This button includes a built in microcontroller to handle interference or noise, a red/blue status LED gives the user visual feedback that a "touch" has been registered, and two potentiometers on the back of the device allow you to adjust the read range from 3-15 cm and adjust the "open time" from 0.5 to 20 seconds.
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! Please be safe out there, be kind to one another, and we'll see you next week with even more new products!
