Spooky New Products

Just in time for Halloween, we have a bag of goodies for you. There are some real treats in here. Witch ones do you like? Let's see what we have this freak. Ok, I'll stop.

What started out as the controls for the Egg-Bot Project turned into a very useful little board. The EiBotBoard (EBB) was originally designed to drive the Egg-Bot, but it was quickly realized that it has many other uses. Not only can it drive two stepper motors, it can also drive up to 7 RC servo motors as well. It's a very powerful board that has eggsponential uses. I crack myself up.

Thermoelectric coolers (TECs) are really cool! Or are they hot? Well, I guess it depends on which side you're on. But in any event, we now have a 40x40mm thermoelectric cooler for sale. Basically, when you apply electricity to a TEC, it creates a temperature differential across the two sides. Or, simply speaking, one side gets hot, the other gets cold. And if you create your own temperature differential (heat one side and cool the other), they will generate electricity.

Water, the most essential component of life on the planet. Ironically, it doesn't play well with electronics. That's why we now have a watertight battery holder. It holds 3 AA batteries and has two pre-terminated leads coming from the main body. The end caps seal nice with o-rings to keep the destructive powers of water at bay. Check out the product page for more details.

What we have here is the new IMU Digital Combo Board. Sounds fancy doesn't it? It combines an ADXL345 and an ITG-3200 to give you a full 6 degrees of freedom with a very small footprint. The sensors communicate over I2C and we've even given you two mounting holes. Unfortunately, they're out of stock right now, but we are building more.

The Window Comparator is a simple and useful board which allows you to set a window for analog inputs and then outputs a digital signal to indicate that you are within the range or not. Instead of monitoring an analog input through software, you can now set upper and lower limit thresholds and output a digital signal for the condition.

Sometimes it's just easier to write something down on good old-fashioned paper. For all your project needs, we have the SparkFun notebook. It's 52 pages of project goodness. Each page has an 1/8" grid and a place at the bottom to name and date your project. The cover is tastefully embossed with a subtle SparkFun logo.

If you're having a hard time remembering the color coding on resistors, maybe a nice little chart would help out. This handy sticker can be slapped up wherever you need it. And as reemrevnivek points out, you can have it in any color, as long as it's red. Of course there are lots of handy apps for phone and websites for this, but sometimes it's just nice to have a hard copy near your workbench.

Here is a useful little part. If you've ever wanted the ability to select up to 16 conditions with a single input, a rotary switch might be the answer. With only 6 pins (2 of which are commons), you can select 16 states in a very small package. It's even breadboard compatible. We are currently sourcing a knob for it as well.

No, the PICAXE BOT120 isn't some new Sci-Fi horror movie, it's a clever robot kit. It doesn't require any soldering and is really easy to reconfigure and put together. It uses screws and special hardware to connect sensors to the main body. This way you can reconfigure it and not worry about desoldering components or damaged traces. It's great for beginners and has just about everything you would need.

The LS20126 GPS module is pretty neat. It integrates GPS with a magnetic sensor and a 3-axis accelerometer. However, it comes in a surface mount package that isn't that easy to use. Thankfully, we now have a simple breakout board which gives you access to all the pins on the module. We break everything out to 0.1" spaced holes for headers or wires.

We have added a couple sizes of fuses to our catalog. We now have a 500mA and 200mA, both rated at 250V. These are good for your multimeter or coupled with our fuse clips to protect your next power supply.

These are just like our normal headers, but longer. So you can use sockets on either side for connecting two female sockets together. Like our standard headers, they either break apart or can be cut to size.

Lastly, we are now carrying a simple N-channel MOSFET. This little guy can control 60V at 30A allowing you to control high-power devices with low-power microcontrollers. It's handy to have around and can be used in place of a mechanical relay in most cases.

Happy Halloween everyone!