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SparkFun will be closed on Tuesday, November 5th to support our team in being able to go out and vote! Orders placed after 2 pm MT Monday, November 4th will ship on Wednesday, November 6th. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
Taking a break from watching Old Spice commercials on YouTube? Well, while you're here, check out these new products!
First off, we should mention that we will now be consistently offering both our PTH and SMD soldering classes every month. Everyone needs to know how to solder (so we think) and this is a great way to learn. Since there's no time better to learn than the present, we will be offering the PTH and SMD classes the 2nd and 3rd Tuesday of every month, respectively. Check out the classes category for all of our upcoming classes.
We will also be expanding our course selection to include a broader range of things we feel are necessary to know. Check back for the latest and greatest course schedule.
The first thing most people learn when they start with electronics is how to make an LED blink. But even the most well-seasoned veterans use LEDs. Here is a pack of 26 LEDs that includes super brights, standard, and even a couple of RGBs. It's just a great stash to have around because chances are, you will need one of these LEDs at some point in your electronics future!
We now carry white LEDs in various quantities. We have singles, 25 packs and 100 packs. Colorful LEDs are great, but you can't go wrong with a nice, bright white one!
So now you have about a billion LEDs and no way to drive them - that's where this next product comes in. The Mux Shield allows you to multiplex your Arduino inputs or outputs to get 48 analog or digital inputs (or digital outputs). Check out the above video to see what our videographer/photographer Rojas did with this shield - maybe it'll give you some ideas! Personally, I'm still waiting for a fireman's pole or a slide, but this will do for the time being.
Once you master the LED blinking, maybe the next step is to spell out four letter words. Sure, you could use an LCD, but why not try it out with an alphanumeric display? You're in luck because we now have some really cool 1" tall single digit displays in red, green, and blue.
At this point it might be like beating a dead horse, but LEDs are useful. This is the last batch of LEDs we'll post for at least a week, I promise! In addition to the alphanumeric displays above, we also have some 10 segment bar graph LEDs which are great for, well, you get the idea. We have them in red, yellow, blue, and green.
We have a new version of the SparkFun Inventor's Kit. The new version includes a flex sensor, soft pot, and a newer trimpot. This kit really is an awesome way to get started at making something cool!
If you need an SMD XBEE socket, we now have them. We use these on our shields and they make it much easier to do double-sided boards or avoid through-hole soldering.
Ever since the discontinuation of our last MEMS microphone, people have been asking for another. We finally found a good source for one and will now be carrying it once again. It's small, but don't fret, we are working on a breakout board for it right now.
That's all for today! Hopefully we will see some of you in our classes sometime in the near future! Cheers!
Interested in learning more about LEDs?
See our LED page for everything you need to know to start using these components in your project.
The Science Museum here in St. Paul has a musical stairway with sensors on the steps. They've put an LED / detector on one side of the step and a prismatic type reflector on the other side. Putting your foot down on the step breaks the light beam and plays the note. It's nice and durable with no moving parts. It's really nice that all the wiring is on one side of all the steps, and the other side is just reflectors.
I vote for placing some force/pressure sensors on the steps for the remaining 24 MUX pins.
Wouldn't ribbon cable have been a lot easier to use than 24 separate wires?
Yes, if we would have had ribbon cable... What's easiest is what you have on hand.
I love how there's some 20 rolls of yellow hookup wire in the background of the video.
The picture is shopped. They look fine in person and I'm going to get a better picture that represents them more accurately. They look just like our 7-segments, or any normal 7-segment or alphanumeric in person.
Oh, OK, thanks. Can't wait to get a couple!
@Sparkfun,
would you recommend any kind of filter plastic to use over the alphanumeric displays? It looks as if they're a bit tough to see during the day, and one usually finds red o blue filter plastic in front of them in commercial applications.
Thanks!