Solarbotics is closed for Remembrance day, to honour the memory of all those who fought in order to preserve our freedoms. Take the minute, and honour your war dead.
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!
Solarbotics is closed for Remembrance day, to honour the memory of all those who fought in order to preserve our freedoms. Take the minute, and honour your war dead.
What we have today are not Fairly Expensive Tortillas or Fortunately Edible Theremins, but Field-Effect Transistors. If you know what it is, I will leave you to explore: 1RFZ44N N-Channel FET $2.50 The IRFZ44N is a very powerful useful N-Channel FET, with only 0.0175ohms resistance pushing 20 amperes at 5V! FQP27P06 P-Channel FET $0.95 A […]
We're thinking of coming out and hitting the pavement of Robolympics in March. Thinking of coming? Perhaps we'll see you there!
Welcome to the new Solarbotics Website! You'll notice some substantial upgrades. We're on our own server, which means very quick and speedy surfing. The website is also totally re-written from scratch. This is a double-edge sword, as this means we're still working on re-porting over older documents, like the BEP applications. Look! A search button! […]
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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.