New Product Roundup – April 20th

Happy Easter everyone! Just a quick reminder: we are closed today for the Easter Holiday but will be open on Monday with normal business hours. With that out of the way – we have 7 new products and a new product of the week to share!

New Products
To start off, we have a new telephone style keypad – these are perfect for projects that require some form of numerical input. We also added a 16 pin dip that is actually just a nice enclosed pack of 8 560 Ohm resistors. Next up, a simple bracket for holding HC-SR04 Ultrasonic sensors. These are clear acrylic and allow the sensor to be easily mounted. Speaking of holding things in place, we have also added a 40 piece set of M2 screws and nuts. Next, we have the SparkFun Pocket AVR Programmer – these are perfect for programming ATMEGA328’s and ATTINY85’s (and many others!). Finally, we have two new cables: A spare AVR programming cable with 6 and 10 pin programming ports and a 3’ USB A to mini-B (also used with the Pocket AVR Programmer).

Product Of The Week
Product of the week is our Infrared Spotlight. These bright infrared LEDs are an excellent addition to wildlife, security, or other night vision projects. 15% Off until Friday at Midnight!

Telephone Style Matrix Keypad – Basic

This simple matrix keypad has 12 buttons arranged in a 3 x 4 pattern. The number pad is similar to that of a telephone and is made of strong with sturdy plastic buttons. Since the keypad uses a matrix arrangement, only 7 digital inputs are require to add this to your project.

USB to Mini-B Cable – 3′

This USB Mini-B Cable is a USB 2.0 type A to Mini-B 5-pin cable. This mini USB connector is typically found on USB Hubs, Cameras, MP3 players, etc. This is also the same connector found on the SparkFun Redboard, SparkFun AVR Pocket Programmer, and Adafruit FTDI Friend.

Ultrasonic Sensor Bracket

Ultrasonic sensors are a great addition to any robot, but how do you mount them? That is where this simple piece of laser cut acrylic comes in! These are designed to fit the HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Distance Sensor and allow it to be mounted anywhere you like!

M2 Screw Set – 40 pcs

This 40 piece mini hardware pack includes 20 x M2s crews and 20 x M2 nuts. These are quite small and ideal for the tiny mounting holes found on many breakout boards. The screws measure 10mm long and have a Phillips head. The nuts are 4mm in diameter and 1.6mm thick.

Resistor Array – 560 Ohm x8

When you need a bunch of the same resistor in a circuit resistor arrays are a great option! This integrated circuit is actually 8 individual resistors rated at 560 Ohm and 1/4 Watt in one tidy package.

AVR Programming Cable

This is a handy AVR programming cable that incorporates both the 10-pin and 6-pin ISP programming interfaces. Cable is about 270mm long and mates with pins on 2.54mm / 0.100″ breadboard pitch centers.

Pocket AVR Programmer

This programmer works really well for ATmega168 and ATmega328 and should work with all the AVR micros supported by AVRDUDE. The microcontroller-to-be-programmed can be any AVR with 64K or less of flash. The ATmega328 on an Arduino Uno or RedBoard works perfectly, but the ATmega2560 of an Arduino Mega does not.

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Product Of The Week – 15% Off


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New Tutorial!


Raspberry Pi Irrigation Control – Part 2
In part two of this four part tutorial we will boot up the Raspberry Pi, do some initial configuration of the Raspbian operating system, install Python libraries for a few of the sensors, and write some basic Python code to trigger each solenoid and read and display the data from each of the sensors. Interested? Head on over to the tutorial!

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