DESK OF LADYADA – The Great Search: Simplifying TFT Products @adafruit @digikey #deskofladyada
Hiya folks, we’re back for a quick check-in at the Desk of Ladyada.
This last week we’ve been doing some work on simplifying our TFT products: historically we’ve used low-cost and market-available TFT and OLED displays that required hand soldering (technically they are designed for hot-bar soldering but we don’t own a hot-bar machine). With our new TFT supplier and the volumes we tend to go through, we can revise the PCBs to use plug-in type connectors, which make the PCB a tad more expensive but require a lot less hand labor.
Thach also finished the RP2040 bit-bang USB host with MSD support so we’ve been able to redo all our testers to use a Pico board rather than Teensy 3.6 – just in time since we’ve run out of our stash of Teensies!
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 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
