Hello again and welcome to the year 2011. It's me again with another new product post. We don't have a lot this week, but we do have some pretty exciting products that are going to be quite popular. Let's first have a look at my picks for this week.
Wasn't that fun? Let's jump right into the entire list and see what there is for this week.
The EggBot is an interesting contraption. Essentially, it's a very cool Easter egg decorator. It uses stepper motors and a servo motor to precisely draw patterns on your egg (or whatever else you want to fit into the machine). At the heart of the EggBot is the EiBotBoard controller which interprets the commands from computer software into motion control. This is a very cool kit and can be used for many different things.
The colorful bounty of awesomeness above is our new selection of EL wire. EL wire seems to be very popular these days, with it popping up in movies, popular culture, and art. We already had two drivers (the EL Escudo and the EL Sequencer), but never had the inverter or actual wire, but now we do. We have a new 3V inverter which allows you to run EL wire from a portable power source. And we also have 3m lengths of EL wire in the following colors: red, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, white, pink, blue-green, and fluorescent green. We also have a short video talking about EL wire. The wall wart inverter is coming soon, so check back in a week or so!
The Arduino is great for reading sensors and controlling very small devices. However, if you want to graduate beyond small motors and LEDs, you are going to need more power. Just like the MOSFET Power Control Kit we talked about last year, the Power Driver Shield Kit uses MOSFETS to control a higher current load. Using a computer power supply as an input, this shield allows you to PWM up to 6 outputs with as much current as the PCB traces will allow!
Our LilyPad white LEDs have been popular. Many of you have been asking for us to sell them in packs of five just like the other colors. Here you have it, the LilyPad White 5-pack. These are the same LEDs you've grown to love, but in 5-packs. We still have some of the singles left at a discounted price. But once they're gone, they will be gone for good and we will only carry these 5-packs.
The PodSocket is an adapter which breaks out all the pins on an iPod dock. So instead of being able to access the pins from the iPod (or iPhone) directly, you can access and hack the dock itself! These can come in useful for hacking all the cool Apple accessories. I can hear your warranty crying from here.
We've been carrying the Luxeon Rebel line of high-powered LEDs for a little bit now. We have a new LED to add to the lineup, the Rebel Cool White. These are the same as our other cool white Rebels but with a higher overall output. They can achieve 120 lumens at 350mA and somewhere around 200 lumens at 700mA. These are very bright!
We have a new rechargeable coin cell battery. We are still searching for an appropriate charger, but these can be charged with any of our lithium ion chargers. Coin cell batteries are nice for their small size for use in projects where you don't have much room. These are the standard CR2450 size.
There are still some devices out there that only have a serial port. To use them on computers (or laptops) that don't have a serial port, you will need a RS232 to USB converter. We have a new version which plugs directly into your computer.
Well, that's all for this week. I think we're getting off to a bright start for this year. We'll see you again next week with more products, puns, and videos.
Actually have a love hate relationship with EL wire. When the EL sequencer came out in 2009, searched for information about EL wire, which led to falling in love with a heroine who didn't want to talk to me. Very depressing.
I wanna know what that mechanical looking thing in the foreground is. Looks like it has twelve yellow feet.
RobertC - NICE! I'm so excited to see the Eggbot up at SparkFun. It's been a ton of fun being part of that project.
And I do believe it will plot on a soda can, as long as you can live with a narrow band (vertically on the can) of possible plottable surface.
By the way, Ei (as in "EiBotBoard") is the German word for Egg, and is pronounced like we say the letter "I". Nate actually suggested changing the name from EggBotBoard to something more generic because having EggBot in the name prevent people from realizing it's potential as a general purpose motion control board (as well as being good at controlling the Eggbot).
*Brian
thanks
I'm thinking of converting the eggbot into a laser engraver.
"BAM!"
...indeed.
by the way, just a few quick questions about the Catalog Custodian position. I've DL'd the page and made the corrections, I had to slice a chunk off of the HTML to make it look right (running outside of it's "home," as it were) Should I just include my Dl'd version of the webpage as a .zip with my app?
Also, I'm not local to Colorado but I'm looking to relocate, is this a position that you think is going to stick around? That is to say, provided the job is well performed, is it a fairly secure position? (I realize this is speculation)
...also, I would have applied sooner but I'm putting together a video of my liquor-pouring Arduino contraption that I thought you guys would get a kick out of, so keep an eye out for that, lol.
And finally, sorry for the long post.
Check your email.
Got it, thank you very much.
Are you funding Free Day server upgrades with product placement, or is coke just getting this one for free?
Speaking of product placements, were did you get your Del Taco shirt?
hehe, the first ever comment on one of my t-shirts.
I got that beauty at a local goodwill for $0.25. So far, no shirt I've worn in any video has been more than $2.
hehe, 'unnamed cola' got that one for free ;-) It was the only cylindrical thing I could find.
Did the EggBot actually draw on the soda can? I thought I head read that it could not draw on cylindrical objects but needed spherical objects instead.
To draw on a cylinder, the pen control would probably have to be switched from a pivot to a track, so that it operated more like a lathe. And since you mentioned it, that may be a pretty fun and useful variation.
Yep, it has modding potential for sure.
It didn't. I'm sure it could with a bit of adjustment. the head rotates radially, so you would need to make sure that the pen was able to bend up, to compensate (if that makes any sense).
And just so everyone knows, yes, I made a mistake in the video converting from 3m to feet. It should be 10, I know this, but just somehow forgot this when I made the videos. My bad.
Wow, EggBot sure has come a long way from its humble beginnings! And EL wire, and the MOSFET power control kit, and... Oh man, I better start cramming for free day!