New products to power you through the week.

A generous helping of new product goodness!

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Before we get to the new product post, we want to make an announcement that at 5:30 PM MST the SparkFun website will be down for some necessary server upgrades. We are expecting this downtime to last for about an hour and a half and during that time the website will be inaccessible. We'll get the site back up as fast as possible!

Now on to new products!

Although it may look like a double rainbow, it's not. We're disproportionately excited about something that is so simple: we are now carrying pre-terminated wire harnesses with the mating connector attached! If you've ever tried to create your own cable you'll understand how much time (and sanity) these cables save. There is no need to try to figure out which connector mates with the other - they both come together! One end is stripped bare wire and the other end is professionally terminated with either JST or a Molex connector. We have them in 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 wire Molex as well as 3, 4, and 5 wire JST. The 2-wire JST cable will be available in a few weeks. Each cable comes with a professionally built harness with the mating connector attached.

Traditional thermometers are so 2009. It's like watching black and white TV. With the MLX90614 Evaluation Board, you can measure temperature remotely. There are many cases where you want to measure temperature without contact and this is how you go about it.

Who doesn't like harnessing free power? The LTC3588 Piezoelectric Energy Harvester from Linear Technologies allows you to do exactly this! Don't expect to run your new Tesla Roadster from it, but it could have some neat applications.

We just got our shipment of ArduIMU+ V2 (Flat) boards from DIY Drones. We think it's one heck of a name and it's a great product to boot! It sports an IMU, an Arduino compatible processor, and a GPS port. Now you can really get working on that autonomous vehicle you've been thinking about.

We're selling more pots! We have a 10K linear, 10K log, and a 4.7K linear. They are useful for just about anything. Confused about how pots work or how to use them? Check out the Wikipedia entry for potentiometers - it's pretty useful.

Think you can solder? Think you have patience? The LED Cube Kit might be the product for you. This is the new revision which has an ATmega328 complete with the Arduino serial bootloader so you can use it under the Arduino development environment. It comes pre-loaded  with sample code and can be used in the Arduino development environment. We will warn you though, it's a challenging build! But check out the video of what it looks like when you finally get it all wired up!

If you need a simple low-cost USB AVR programmer, the pocket programmer is the bee's knees. It's cheap and works well with ATmega168 and ATmega328 (which is primarily what we use on our boards). This is a new version which uses an SMD 5x2 header and has minor layout changes. Yeah, not much has changed, but it's just so darn handy, everyone should have one in their tool kit.

We hate throwing away products which still might have a good use. These button pads are certainly no exception. A customer noticed that some had small manufacturing defects on the pads. We have since removed all the offenders from stock and are selling them at a discount. The defects are minor enough for them to be useful still, but enough to discount them a bit. We have a limited stock on hand, so if you can design around the defects, this might be a good product for you. We have some in both red and white.

That's all for this week! Thanks for reading and we hope to see some great projects with the new parts.


Comments 11 comments

  • ElegantElectrons / about 14 years ago / 2

    "Traditional thermometers are so 2009."
    ... and pots aren't? :-P
    I guess I can't say anything. I saw the MLX90614 and got the must-buy-it-now twitch. You guys really need to start stocking things I don't want to buy for awhile. My DIY budget needs to catch up.

  • ScottMohekey / about 14 years ago / 1

    Just thought I would put my hand up as the customer that reported the faulty button pads. Big props to SparkFun for sending me out a replacement, not only straight away, but using the faster shipping method (which for me, living in New Zealand, makes a huge difference).

    • (thank you!) This is why feedback is really good for everyone involved. We really do like to hear from folks, even when it's so we can find and fix one of our screw ups.

  • eewestcoaster / about 14 years ago / 1

    Budgets are so 2009...

  • eewestcoaster / about 14 years ago / 1

    Nothing wrong with disproportional excitement - I love the pre-wired cables with matching mating connector!

  • TLAlexander / about 14 years ago / 1

    Is there any improvement to the driver situation for the pocket programmer? It is really tricky to get working on my windows 7 x64 computer, and that's the most common configuration shipping these days!
    You guys really ought to make it more clear that it doesn't work as well as you guys say. There is an enormous thread in the original product's comments about all the trouble people have had with it:
    http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9231
    Its cute and all and I can imagine it being great if it works, but since Win7 x64 is the most common new PC on sale today (and I got mine a year ago), you guys ought to mention something about it!
    I actually had to abandon mine and use the AVR Dragon because i couldn't get this thing working reliably!
    -Taylor

  • Natman3400 / about 14 years ago / 1

    Personally i prefer the crystal radio i made out of a penny.

  • Mordecai / about 14 years ago / 1

    But black and white televison is so amazing! :O
    It is what allows me to play pong! hahaha

    • Oh, so true. I personally prefer radio, I'm not sure if this 'TV' thing is gonna catch on...

      • khearn / about 14 years ago / 1

        I've never liked playing pong on the radio. Sure, it's more challenging that way, but I still prefer playing it on the TV.

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