Snap action blocks are perfect when you have to quickly wire up a bunch of free-hanging components, and you don’t want to solder. They’re much easier to use than wire nuts, and of course, they are reusable and do not require any crimping!
And, if your project involves multiple block connectors, check out these Snap Action Connection Buckles to keep all your wiring neat and tidy. Simply snap each side onto the block connector, and you’re off!
The IS31FL3731 will let you get back to that classic LED matrix look, with a nice upgrade! This I2C LED driver chip has the ability to PWM each individual LED in a 16×9 grid so you can have beautiful LED lighting effects, without a lot of pin twiddling. Simply tell the chip which LED on the grid you want lit, and what brightness and it’s all taken care of for you.
The IS31FL3731 is a nice little chip – it can use 2.7-5.5V power and logic so its flexible for use with any microcontroller. You can set the address so up to 4 matrices can share an I2C bus. Inside is enough RAM for 8 seperate frames of display memory so you can set up multiple frames of an animation and flip them to be displayed with a single command.
If you’re looking to use the Qwiic / Stemma QT standard for your next project – but you’re using a sensor or device that requires 5V power or logic, this board is designed for you! It will let you use the 3V power and logic from your Raspberry Pi, or ARM Cortex microcontroller, and boost/shift it up to 5V for use with older or high-power devices that aren’t happy with only 3V.
You just found the perfect I2C sensor, available in a handy chainable Qwiic, or STEMMA QT package, and you want to wire up two or three or four of them to your microcontroller when you realize “Uh oh, this chip has a fixed I2C address, and from what I know about I2C, you cannot have two devices with the same address on the same SDA/SCL pins!” Are you out of luck? You would be, if you didn’t have this ultra-cool Adafruit PCA9546 4 Channel STEMMA QT / Qwiic I2C Multiplexer!
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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.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: New Python Releases, an ESP32+MicroPython IDE 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
