Qwiic Start Your Next Display Project
SparkFun's new Qwiic OLED is now available with a brand new version of our popular Beginner's Tool Kit.
Hello everyone and welcome back to another Friday Product Post here at SparkFun Electronics! This week we have two new products to showcase and it starts with the new version of our 128x32 Qwiic OLED Display. This blue on white display has been reworked entirely to function better as an embedded option for users who want to incorporate it into a finished project by moving the Qwiic connectors to the back of the board and moving the mounting holes to more favorable positions. Following that, our new version of the SparkFun Beginner Tool Kit has been revised to include a silicone soldering mat to protect your workbench and upgraded wire strippers! Let's jump in and take a closer look, shall we?
The SparkFun Qwiic OLED Display can display up to four lines of text and features 128x32 pixels in a small 0.91in. (diagonal) frame. As an OLED, this display does not have a backlight layer (unlike LCDs); therefore, it’s thinner, consumes less power, and has higher contrast.
This version of the Qwiic OLED display includes two vertical Qwiic connectors on the back of the board to mount the board easily and keep the wires inside the enclosure. Note that the two mounting holes have also been moved to one side of the board.
The SparkFun Beginner Tool Kit has everything you need to start tinkering with Sparkfun products and beyond! The kit specifically caters to those of you who are new to soldering. We’ve found our favorite, low-cost, easy-to-transport tools and created a kit we would give to our local hacker friends.
In this version of the kit, we’ve added a silicone soldering mat, a 2oz. liquid bottle, and some upgraded wire strippers.
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, Facebook or LinkedIn. Please be safe out there, be kind to one another! We'll be back with more new products next week so make sure to check back then. Happy hacking!
Chris,
Couple of minor documentation issues on the SparkFun Qwiic OLED Display (0.91 in., 128x32):
In the "Get Started" guide, there are several places where the pic for the 24606 is showing a gray "slash box" rather than the pic.
Also, the "board dimensions" drawing does not show the diameter of the mounting holes, nor did I notice mention of either that or the screw size for mounting the board. This would sure be useful to know in advance... (fortunately, I have a fairly wide range of small screws and standoffs on hand,, but a beginner might need to order some, and since Lowe's and Home Depot typically do NOT carry machine screws that small, and only a few Ace Hardware stores have them, it can be VERY frustrating at times to find them!)
Speakkng of beginners, had the SparkFun Beginner Tool Kit been available when I first got started in electronics as a kid back in the mid-1960s, it would have been very near the top of my "wish list" for Christmas or birthday gifts!
Hi!
Sorry about the broken links (gray "slash box") last week with the Qwiic "Narrow" OLED Display's section. The images were in a different location and I was not able to test it until the tutorial & GitHub repos were live (just a chicken and egg problem x_X). I got them up by the end of one of the days last week so they should be good now.
As far as the board dimensions, the mounting holes included in SparkFun designs typically use the 4-40 screws. We usually don't think about that when writting the documentation but I can look into it with the others on the team.
Thanks for the response! Yes, it looks like the images are now correct. (BTW, the egg came more than 100 million years before chickens existed. ;-) )
As for the mounting holes, I tend to get things from many different suppliers, and there seems to be a variety of mounting holes: 4-40, 2-56, M3, M2.5, M2, etc. Sometimes you can make something work, but if you're trying to make something "rugged" then you want the largest screw/standoff you can use, especially if you are in a situation where you HAVE to use nylon -- for instance an Adafruit 5345, that has holes sized for an M2 screw that will have its nut right smack up against the WiFi antenna, so it would be in the "near field" and if you used metal screws/nuts/standoffs it would affect the performance of the antenna. (Frustratingly, the holes at the other end are sized for M2.5 screws.) FWIW, Adafruit does carry kits for standoffs in M2.5 and M3 size in nylon, but I finally managed to track down an M2 nylon standoff kit at Newark. (I was disappointed in the service from Newark -- no where near as good as I've experienced with SF, Adafruit, DigiKey, Grainger, or McMaster-Carr.) I'll mention, too, that SEN-23352 uses an M2 screw, though the drawing for it indicates that the mounting hole is 2.2mm diameter (and yes, I realize that this part is not made by SF).
In summary, indicating the diameter of the mounting holes in the drawings can save the user a lot of frustration, and sometimes delaying a project by weeks trying to get a simple screw, nut, and/or standoff.