Famous Circuits Blog

Trossen Robotics Blog

New Products – 2/12/2015

Posted: 12 Feb 2015 05:15 PM PST

We’ve got some fantastic new products to light up the night and get you moving!

The NeoPixel Jewel is a lovely round PCB, home to 7 tiny WS2812 5050 (5mm x 5mm) smart RGB LEDs. Each LED has a driver chip built into it, making them individually addressable. Many units can be chained together and run by a single microcontroller by connecting the output of one Jewel into the input of another! Each NeoPixel has ~18mA constant current drive so the color will be very consistent even if the voltage varies, and runs on 5V.

Want to make a hexapod walker? Maybe you’re making a piece of art with tons of moving parts, or you need to drive a ton of LEDs with precise PWM output. Your microcontroller has a limited number of PWM outputs, and you find yourself running out! Not with the Adafruit 16-Channel 12-bit PWM/Servo Driver – I2C interface. With this pwm and servo driver breakout, you can control 16 free-running PWM outputs with just two pins! Need to run more than 16 PWM outputs? No problem. Chain together up to 62 of these beauties for up to an outstanding 992 PWM outputs.

The Analog Feedback Micro Servo may appear to be a normal micro servo, but it is so much more. What makes this little fella special? Beyond the metal gears which keep this servo solid for the long haul in hobby systems, this servo has feedback via a potentiometer wiper on a separate wire that can be read with an analog input, such as those on an Arduino, to get the servo’s position. This gives you the ability to “record” the servo’s motion, or improve stability.

The SparkFun Transceiver Breakout – RS-485 is a breakout board for the SP3485 RS-485 transceiver IC, which will convert a UART serial stream to RS-485. The SP3485 is a half-duplex transceiver, so it can only communicate one way at a time, but it can reach transmission speeds of up to 10Mbps. This board requires a very low amount of power and can operate from a single +3.3VDC supply.

This breakout board includes the SP3485 RS-485 transceiver, filter capacitor, and other components shown on the schematic. The RS-485 output has been broken out to three different connections: (1) an RJ-45 connector, (2) a 3-pin 3.55mm screw terminal, and (3) a 3-pin 0.1″ pitch header; none of these output connectors come populated.

This pack of 5 5mm Plastic Bevel LED Holders will keep your LEDs in place. Made of the ever ubiquitous black plastic, with a subtle bevel that gracefully leans into the curve of your LED, people will take notice of your great taste in flush mounting hardware.

Keep your receive pin connected, we have more to share!

IEEE Spectrum

Net Neutrality's Technical Troubles
SpaceX Drone Platform Landing Scrubbed
DARPA and OSRF Developing Next-Gen Prosthetic Limbs in Simulation and Reality
A New Material For Wearable Spintronic Devices
This Invincible Flying Robot Just Won a $1 Million Drone Competition
U.S. Defense Department Chief Engineer: We Want Your Help With 2030's Tech

Net Neutrality's Technical Troubles

Posted: 12 Feb 2015 08:03 AM PST

The debate has centered on policy, law, and finance, as if the network itself were a given. It is not

SpaceX Drone Platform Landing Scrubbed

Posted: 12 Feb 2015 07:03 AM PST

The climate satellite launch would have given SpaceX a second chance to land a rocket on a drone ship

DARPA and OSRF Developing Next-Gen Prosthetic Limbs in Simulation and Reality

Posted: 12 Feb 2015 07:00 AM PST

DARPA wants amputees to have prosthetics that act, and feel, just like real arms

A New Material For Wearable Spintronic Devices

Posted: 11 Feb 2015 01:00 PM PST

Researchers have made a bendable, stretchable multiferroic film

This Invincible Flying Robot Just Won a $1 Million Drone Competition

Posted: 11 Feb 2015 10:30 AM PST

Flyability's cleverly designed drone wins Drones for Good competition

U.S. Defense Department Chief Engineer: We Want Your Help With 2030's Tech

Posted: 11 Feb 2015 10:04 AM PST

Have an idea for some crazy new technology that won't be ready until 2025 or later? The DoD's Stephen Welbey wants to hear from you

IEEE Spectrum

California’s No Drone Zones
New Manufacturing Method Promises Scalable Graphene Electronics Production
Molybdenum Disulfide Shows Promise For High-Temperature Electronics

California’s No Drone Zones

Posted: 11 Feb 2015 07:00 AM PST

Proposed law would ban "trespassing" by low-flying drones

New Manufacturing Method Promises Scalable Graphene Electronics Production

Posted: 10 Feb 2015 12:00 PM PST

Novel method enables commercially viable production of electronic devices from graphene

Molybdenum Disulfide Shows Promise For High-Temperature Electronics

Posted: 10 Feb 2015 09:00 AM PST

Thin-film transistors made of the 2-D electronic material work at over 220 °C

IEEE Spectrum

How to Build a Better Entangled-photon Detector Array
Totally Autonomous Cars May Not Evolve From Semi-Autonomous Ones
Spot Is Boston Dynamics' Nimble New Quadruped Robot
Something’s Fishy: New Device Sniffs Out Seafood Fraud
Which IBM Layoff Numbers Add Up?

How to Build a Better Entangled-photon Detector Array

Posted: 10 Feb 2015 08:00 AM PST

Mounting hundreds of single-photon detectors on a single chip may yield key to quantum computing

Totally Autonomous Cars May Not Evolve From Semi-Autonomous Ones

Posted: 10 Feb 2015 07:00 AM PST

Reason: nobody wants to pay for systems that you still have to supervise

Spot Is Boston Dynamics' Nimble New Quadruped Robot

Posted: 10 Feb 2015 04:30 AM PST

Boston Dynamics introduces a new quadruped that's quieter and more agile than LS3

Something’s Fishy: New Device Sniffs Out Seafood Fraud

Posted: 09 Feb 2015 11:48 AM PST

Handheld instrument does real-time nucleic acid testing to check if you're getting the fish you paid for

Which IBM Layoff Numbers Add Up?

Posted: 09 Feb 2015 10:13 AM PST

Cringely predicted 26 percent of the workforce; IBM said "a few thousand." But how do you do the math?

IEEE Spectrum

Fetch Robotics: Unbounded Core Team Developing New Robots for Logistics

Posted: 09 Feb 2015 04:30 AM PST

A new robotics startup is building a mobile manipulator to tackle logistics and fulfillment

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Panasonic Enters The Robot Vacuum Market With Rulo MC-RS1

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Panasonic Enters The Robot Vacuum Market With Rulo MC-RS1

Panasonic takes a hold on the robot vacuum market by developing a new robot vacuum cleaner named Rulo MC-RS1. This new robot vacuum is set to hit stores in Japan end of March and soon after in other countries.

The Rulo MC-RS1 is the first triangular robot vacuum to hit the market. Most robot vacuums being round such as the popular Roomba robot vacuums. Others having a square shape or a square front to get into corners such as the Neato Robotics robot vacuums. This triangular shape and two side brushes will help the robot clean deep into corners while preventing the robot from getting stuck in hard to reach areas.

Panasonic Rulo MC-RS1

The bottom of the robot shows a large main rotating brush and two long side brushes that will lead debris to the center of the robot. This will help a lot of debris be picked up in one pass.

Panasonic Rulo Bottom

This new robot is said to house a dust sensor that is designed for a better cleaning job than it’s rivals by detecting particles that are very fine and virtually invisible to the naked eye. It is also equipped with ultrasonic and infrared sensors at the front of the robot to help it clean around obstacles. It also seems to have intelligent programming much like the Roomba SMART technology.