Electronic Kits Review(s)

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Mike Pfeiffer: Electronic Kits Review

Adafruit Industries
I first found Adafruit Industries after I met Limor Fried at Analog Heaven New England a few years back (really she showed off a homemade production synth to a bunch of synth nerds in a high school music room). I think she had just finished the first run of her XoX BoX kits, a Roland TB-303 clone (which doesn’t do it justice, because it’s so much more than the 303). So, thinking that a DIY synth box was awesome, I checked out her website, which has grown considerably in the past few years. The first thing I got was a simple mini Persistence of Vision (POV) LED kit. Here’s the newer version of what I got years ago, the MiniPOV 3 kit.

The documentation is the best I’ve seen. Back then, for a noob like me, the instructions covered everything from part placement, to how to cut leads off resistors, to how to place ICs, to what soldering iron to get. The website had fantastic close-up pictures and the text explained exactly what to do. Since that first kit, I’ve made a bunch of Adafruit’s stuff and they continue to help explain all aspects of their products, which are educational and awesome in their own right. They have a great selection of really hip and culture-subverting kits designed in house. There’s a great selection of arduino shields and fun things like the TV-B-Gone.

If you’re just beginning to get into electronics, go to Adafruit first. I outfitted my intro electronics class with Ladyada’s Electronics Toolkits.


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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

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CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — New Products 11/06/24 Feat Adafruit Pixel Shifter – For Addressable LEDs

Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: MicroPython v1.24.0 is here, a Halloween Wrap-up and Much More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Halloween, WiLo, and more!

Maker Business – Adafruit Daily — First Solar’s $1.1 billion development of vertically integrated factory in the U.S.

Electronics – Adafruit Daily — Oscilloscope Jumble

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1 Comment

  1. Hi cdillat from a twitter Tiger 😉

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