As you may have guessed, Solarbotics will be closed Monday, September 06 for Labour Day. Enjoy the weather if you're not living in Alberta! We'll continue regular office hours on Tuesday at 0900 MST.
We're working on some new Arduino projects. It's fun working on open-source hardware. Both these projects are out for manufacture now, so hopefully it will only be a few weeks until they are ready.
We love Phidgets. They have all kinds of useful sensors, to which most subscribe to a handy pinout "Ground / Vcc / Signal", which also describes most servo interfaces. It's turning into the general standard for most dedicated interfaces. So, to make use of these with an Arduino, we've put together our own GVS Shield.
We could have made it with a simple 3-row x 18 block of male pins, but that wouldn't fit the locking buckle-type connectors found on many Phidget and other accessory items. We're using nicely space, proper shielded pin plugs. Here are some design highlights:
Yes, the name was a challenge. They didn't think I'd have the guts to follow through with the name, but it's just so suitable.
This project is inspired by Kimio Kosaka's One Chip Arduino project, where he jams all the parts for an Arduino on top of the IC, and just plugs the IC into the breadboard directly.
This is an Arduino PCB designed reverse to most others. Instead of mounting the IC to the board, we're mounting the board to the IC (let me clarify...).
Put all the stuff on the top. Install looong leads through the rows on the outside edge. Jamb your ATMega328 in from the underside so the chip leads are pointing down, in the same direction os the long leads. Tack solder the chip leads to the long leads. Or not, if you think friction fit works.
Depending how you soldered the ATmega to the pins, you can either make it fit a 0.3" space header (where it straddles the breadboard centerline perfectly) or 0.4" wide (where it straddles the breadboard centerline, but uses up 1 extra empty hole next to the centerline).
Besides needing an FTDI cable, or SparkFun-like USB adapter/programmer, this will be a very inexpensive and compact way to do Arduino development. Stay tuned!
As you may have guessed, Solarbotics will be closed Monday, September 06 for Labour Day. Enjoy the weather if you're not living in Alberta! We'll continue regular office hours on Tuesday at 0900 MST.
We are excited to announce that it is now official - we are going to the MakerFaire Bay Area! Solarbotics will be in the Maker Shed May 17 & 18, 2014 with some brand new product. Come check it out if you are around.
Today August 21, 2017, we were treated to about 80% solar eclipse. In spite of the smoke, the weather cooperated so we couldn't miss this event. Pinhole projector boxes were made out of cereal and shipping boxes: Fancy ones were mounted onto a tripod, and a phone camera recording a time lapse video was taped […]
Fun fact: As I type this out, I'm doing so not while sitting at my desk, but sitting on it. I highly recommend you try it. Probably not very ergonomic, but hey. When the boss temporarily commandeers your chair, you gotta make do with what you got. So this week we have a few small […]
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Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.