Shopping TaoBao: Our first steps
Some time ago a forum member brought up Taobao as a cheap alternative to eBay. Since we like to shop on a budget, we decided to give it a go. Shopping on Taobao is not as easy as shopping on … Read more
Category Archives: new parts
Microchip getting ready to release long awaited PIC18FX550 replacements
Two new future product pages popped up on Microchip’s site, the PIC18F45K50 and PIC18F25K50. These are pin, and probably register, compatible replacements for PIC18F4550, and PIC18F2550, which are Microchip’s most powerful 5V USB devices. One thing we noticed is that … Read more
Parallax Emic 2 text-to-speech module
Parallax has released their Emic 2 Text-to-Speech Module. The Emic 2 is a multi-language voice synthesizer that converts a stream of digital text into natural sounding speech. The module requires a 5 volt DC power supply at 30 mA, and … Read more
AS3935 lightning sensor chip
Manuel Garbe and Drone both wrote in to draw our attention to this new “Lightning Detector” chip from Austriamicrosystems. According to the manufacturer’s press release, “[t]he AS3935 is a programmable Lightning Sensor IC that detects the presence and approach of … Read more
New 8bit PIC microcontrollers with some interesting peripherals
Microchip just released a new series of PIC16F 8bit mid-range microcontrollers, the PIC16F178X. They come in 28 and 40 pin package versions with 14 KB of flash, running at 8 MIPS. We find some of new peripherals very interesting. Programmable … Read more
Our big box of traveling parts is in the wild
We are constantly developing prototypes, so we end up with a large pile of unused components. When we moved to a new location we realized some components sat untouched since the previous move. A while ago we read about the … Read more
Texas Instruments anounces new F563x and F663x MSP430 microcontrollers.
Texas Instruments just announced the addition of F563X and F663X lines of microcontrollers to their MSP430 range. Here is the feature list of the new devices: More memory options with 256kB flash and 18kB RAM allow the addition of wireless … Read more
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