Engineering & Technology

Emveor_1584590 shared this project on Printables!

This is a small and portable abacus for your children! Designed for easy printing and a sturdy build, the Posts are printed separatedly and assembled to prevent them from breaking at the layer lines. Print 10 chips for each post and a cap to prevent the chips from falling out while being transported.

BUILD TIPS: Just press the post into the base by the narrow side of the post. You will usuallyt need 10 chips for each post. The tolerances on the post are meant to make it hard to remove, but i would suggest printing a single post first to make sure the fit is just right. Increase Flow by 5% if the posts is too loose, or falls off easily, and decrease flow by 5% if the post doesnt fit in.

Download files: https://www.printables.com/model/989685-mini-abacus

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

TeknikFrik shares:

Holes are 40mm deep, 12 mm diameter.

download the files on: https://www.printables.com/model/990779-sharpie-holder-round-version-19-holes

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord

Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit

Shop for parts to build your own DIY projects http://adafru.it/3dprinting

3D Printing Projects Playlist:

3D Hangout Show Playlist:

Layer by Layer CAD Tutorials Playlist:

Timelapse Tuesday Playlist:

Connect with Noe and Pedro on Social Media:

Noe’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/ecken

Pedro’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/videopixil

Adafruit is proud to once again run our Distributor Spotlight series, highlighting the invaluable role our distributor network plays in bringing our products to a global market. From retail brick-and-mortar stores to customers on every continent, our distributors ensure that Adafruit is able to reach diverse sectors and communities.

Today we are highlighting Evelta — they had this to say about working with Adafruit:

We are thrilled to be part of the Adafruit distributor network. Adafruit’s wide range of innovative products has allowed us to provide high-quality solutions to our Indian customers, helping them thrive in the DIY electronics, maker, and engineering communities. The collaboration with Adafruit has been instrumental in expanding our offerings and meeting the growing demand for electronics in India. We appreciate the partnership and look forward to continued success together.

Check out their shop here.

The Python for Microcontrollers Newsletter is the place for the latest news involving Python on hardware (microcontrollers AND single board computers like Raspberry Pi).

This ad-free, spam-free weekly email is filled with CircuitPython, MicroPython, and Python information (and more) that you may have missed, all in one place!

You get a summary of all the software, events, projects, and the latest hardware worldwide once a week, no ads! You can cancel anytime.

Try our spam-free newsletter today! 

It arrives about 11 am Monday (US Eastern time) with all the week’s happenings.

And please tell your friends, colleagues, students, etc.

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Everyone has that “good charger” in the house, which seems to get your phone from 4% to 100% in record time. But it’s a bit of a mystery, isn’t it? Why does one charger work great while another doesn’t seem to budge at all? It has to do with whether that charger supports USB Type C Power Delivery (PD) and, of course, the supply’s output current ability and the length and quality of the cable used. All things that an electrical engineer could work out with a multimeter and some notepaper – but who has time for that!

This Black Woven USB C to USB C Cable with 100W Watt Display makes determining the charger setup easy: look on the end of the USB C plug to read the amount of power going into your phone or laptop. ~3W is a standard 5V / 500mA draw, but with proper USB Type C PD power supplies, you can get up to 20V 5A for a blazing 100 Watts!

Using it is simple: if you have multiple outlets or chargers available, pick the one with the highest Wattage number!

Or use it as a simple power monitor for your single-board Linux computer or other high-current-raw USB device. Or as a quick test for your power delivery power supply to make sure it’s supplying the current requested.

It is 2 meters long, so you’ll have plenty of cable to work with.

@renderman_1327867 shared this project on Printables!

A simple enclosure for the PI Zero 2W with lots of ventilation plus a 3010 fan for cooling.

To assemble the device, begin by inserting the brass inserts into the designated holes in the base. Once done, place the Pi Zero board securely into the base. Break the single-layer bridge within the screw holes on the top cover, then insert the brass inserts into the holes on the top, which will hold the 3010 fan in place. Secure the fan to the top using M3 screws. Afterward, position the top cover over the button and fasten it by screwing in the screws. Finally, connect the fan to the 5V and ground pins on the Pi, using the special holes on the GPIO pins.

Download files: https://www.printables.com/model/990854-raspberry-pi-zero-2w-enclosure-with-3010-fan

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

SerhiiKorzh_2097527 shares:

Key Features
Convenience: The marker-style design offers a familiar and comfortable grip.
Effortless Usage: Just rotate the marker to quickly and easily extend or retract the chalk as needed, ensuring your hands always remain clean.
Hygienic Handling: Enjoy a clean and comfortable drawing experience without the mess of traditional chalk.
Enhanced Durability: Protect your chalk from breakage and extend the life of even broken pieces.
Scalability: Just scale the model uniformly to make it fit for different chalk piece diameters.
Ideal for: Teachers, students, artists, and anyone who loves the tactile experience of chalk drawing.

download the files on: https://www.printables.com/model/990909-chalk-mate-adjustable-chalk-marker

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord

Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit

Shop for parts to build your own DIY projects http://adafru.it/3dprinting

3D Printing Projects Playlist:

3D Hangout Show Playlist:

Layer by Layer CAD Tutorials Playlist:

Timelapse Tuesday Playlist:

Connect with Noe and Pedro on Social Media:

Noe’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/ecken

Pedro’s Twitter / Instagram: http://instagram.com/videopixil

This breakout board will solve all your multi-rail power-monitoring problems. Instead of struggling with up to 6 multimeters, you can just use the handy INA3221 chip on this breakout to both measure both the high side voltage and DC current draw of up to three power supplies over I2C with ±1% precision.

Most current-measuring devices such as our current panel meter are only good for low side measuring. That means that unless you want to get a battery involved, you have to stick the measurement resistor between the target ground and true ground. This can cause problems with circuits since electronics tend to not like it when the ground references change and move with varying current draw. This chip is much smarter – it can handle high or low side current measuring, up to +26VDC, even though it is powered with 3 or 5V. It will also report back that high side voltage, which is great for tracking battery life or solar panels.

A precision amplifier measures the voltage across the built-in 0.05 ohm, 1% sense resistors. Since the amplifier maximum input difference is ±163.8mV this means it can measure up to ±3.2 Amps. With the internal 13 bit ADC, the resolution at ±3.2A range is 0.4mA. Advanced hackers can remove the 0.05 ohm current sense resistor and replace it with their own to change the range (say a 0.01 ohm to measure up 16.4 Amps with a resolution of 2mA)

Usage is simple. Power the sensor itself with 3 to 5VDC and connect the two I2C pins up to your microcontroller – the logic level will be the same as the Vin power level. Then connect your target power supplies to VIN1/2/3+ and the loads to ground to VIN1/2/3-. If you want, set up over-current alerts on the warning or critical IRQ pins. We have libraries in both Arduino and CircuitPython/Python so you can use it with boards as simple as Arduino-compatible ATmegas all the way up to the latest Raspberry Pi’s.

You don’t even need to solder the I2C and power lines: we pre-attach 3.5mm terminal blocks and added SparkFun qwiic compatible STEMMA QT connectors for the I2C bus. Just wire up to your favorite micro using a STEMMA QT adapter cable. The Stemma QT connectors also mean the INA3221 can be used with our various associated accessories. QT Cable is not included, but we have a variety in the shop. If you need access to all of the pins, we include 0.1″ pin header (so you can easily attach this sensor to a breadboard).

In stock and shipping now!

This week’s EYE ON NPI is the ideal component for your next power supply design, it’s Nexperia’s NID5100 Ideal Diodes, a simple design improvement to Schottky diodes or simple P-FET polarity protection.

This small and low-cost component from Nexperia is their first ‘ideal diode’, and can be used in many low voltage power supply setups to reduce power loss and get you more product life from your battery

Diodes, who doesn’t love them? You put some P-doped Silicon next to N-doped Silicon and before you know it, you have accidentally semiconductored! Make them big enough and you can even solve global warming. We use diodes all the time, and they’re particularly useful for power supplies since they make sure current only goes one way.

We often use them in front of a DC jack, between the power input and the circuitry: this keep the voltage polarity positive with respect to ground, since most modern microelectronic components want between 3-24VDC.

Or, as an OR: either battery or USB power are hot-swapped so that whichever gives the highest voltage will run the downstream electronics – see our Trinket M0 schematic for a simple example.

When we first started electronics we’d use the classic 1N4001 – this low cost diode can handle high currents and about 1A continuous, with about 1-2V forward drop. When we did +12V power to an LM7805 this was fine, we have 5V to burn.

Sometimes if we were feeling fancy we’d use a Schottky diode like the 1N5817 which has about 0.7V drop, these are often used for boost or buck converters where you don’t want to lose efficiency in your free-wheeling diode switch.

But when using a 3.7V nominal voltage lipoly battery into a 3.3V regulator, we have to dial it down – even 0.7V is too high – so we’d often reach for a lower-drop Schottky like the Nexperia PMEG2010. We still use this part a lot, but we could do better with an Ideal Diode like the NID5100!

Ideal diodes are as close as possible to the platonic ideal of a diode as possible: Forward conduction only, with zero reverse conduction, and minimal voltage drop.

Sometimes folks try to mimic this with a reversed P-FET and yes this will give minimal forward voltage drop for polarity protection, but it has ‘infinite’ reverse leakage instead of close-to-zero.

The NID5100 is more complex, with additional circuitry for driving the P-FET. It can be used either as a polarity protection for a DC or battery input where there’s risk of the voltage being inverted, or as an OR-ing voltage select.

Compared to a Schottky, it can handle 1.5A continuous – most basic Schottky’s are 1A – and with a forward voltage drop of only 50mV at 0.1A. The package size and price is also very comparable to a SOT323 diode, in an easy-to-place TSSOP6 and under 10 cents in reel quantity. We also like the extra pins like an Enable, so it can also act as an on/off switch, and a Status pin that lets you know when the diode is conducting: this can be used to detect which power supply is active in an OR setup.

Does the Nexperia NID5100 sound like the ideal solution to reduce heat and power loss in your next product? Yes! And it’s in stock right now at DigiKey for immediate shipment. Order today and you’ll receive your components faster than a diode switching time, for integration into your BOM by tomorrow afternoon.

See the Eye on NPI episode below and the manufacturer video below that.



This week @adafruit we’re showcasing our Zelda Tri Rod project. Prototyping a motorized flying bat project for Halloween using a servo, RP2040 PropMaker Feather and a distance sensor. Shop talk segment features a new firmware from community member Squid.jpg for the Adafruit LED Glasses. The time lapse Tuesday video this week is an articulating pumpkin cat by 3D_FlexSeeds.

Halloween 2024 Video
https://youtu.be/ZuP-zYJ-co4

Tri Rod Learn Guide –
https://learn.adafruit.com/zelda-tri-rod

YouTube Video –
https://youtu.be/f_W9Ctk64Gk

Feather RP2040 PropMaker
https://www.adafruit.com/product/5768

NeoPixel Strip – Double-sided emitter
https://www.adafruit.com/product/5985

3D Parts on GitHub
https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_CAD_Parts

LED Glasses Firmware from Squid.jpg
https://adafruit-playground.com/u/squid_jpg/pages/sparkle-specs-firmware-for-adafruit-led-glasses-driver

3D Printed Frames for LED Glasses
https://learn.adafruit.com/3d-printed-frame-for-led-glasses-is31fl3741

Frankenstein Head Model
https://www.printables.com/model/344428-frank-frankenstein

Timelapse Tuesday

Pumpkin Cat By 3D_FlexSeeds
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6769725
https://youtu.be/msopKeGDTnQ

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Feather or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

October 16, 2024 Edition

Adafruit broadcasts the weekly ASK an ENGINEER video show and this is the segment (from the vault) on items or concept products that may/might/could be introduced into the Adafruit store in the future (or not)! It’s not out yet, so please don’t ask questions or ask when it’ll be available.

You may keep an eye on the Adafruit new products list to see what has been put in the store or that may be coming soon.

Check out the latest video below:

Here are some of our favorite 3D printed projects that you can build for Halloween in 2024.

Tombstone PropMaker RP2040
https://learn.adafruit.com/tombstone-prop-maker-rp2040

Noodle Lamp
https://learn.adafruit.com/led-noodle-lamp

Jack-o-lantern RP2040
https://learn.adafruit.com/propmaker-jack-o-lantern

Faz-Wrench
https://learn.adafruit.com/faz-wrench

Memory Gun
https://learn.adafruit.com/gravity-falls-memory-gun

Tron Disc
https://learn.adafruit.com/trondisc

Ultrahand
https://learn.adafruit.com/ultrahand

Tri Rod
https://learn.adafruit.com/zelda-tri-rod

Lightsaber RP2040
https://learn.adafruit.com/lightsaber-rp2040

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Feather or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

Episode 295 (October 16, 2024)

This is the Adafruit weekly Python on Microcontrollers newsletter video highlights!

The news comes from the Python community, Discord, Adafruit communities and more. It’s part of the weekly newsletter we do with has 11,413 readers! Subscribe to receive free every week (with zero spam).

Ladyada and PT provide this week’s video on Python on hardware news and more below.

Before the internet, folks often made circuits from magazines, kits, or books. Radio Shack sold a wide variety of kits and books (and sold the parts to make the projects in the books).

Whether it was using transistors, integrated circuits, or optoelectronics, there were books. Many of them written by Forrest M. Mims III. From Wikipedia:

Mims has no formal academic training in science, but still went on to have a successful career as a science author, researcher, lecturer and syndicated columnist. His series of hand-lettered and illustrated electronics books sold over 7.5 million copies and he is widely regarded as one of the world’s most prolific citizen scientists. Mims does scientific studies in many fields using instruments he designs and makes and his scientific papers have been published in many peer-reviewed journals, often with professional scientists as co-authors.

Did you learn electronics from Radio Shack or other publications? Which ones? Let us know on social media hashtag #ShackToberFest

On the heels of #SepTandy, Adafruit is celebrating #ShackToberFest, a celebration of all things Radio Shack and Tandy. 

mbreseghello shares:

This is a 90s R/C car, if I’m not mistaken. It was my childhood toy and spent the last years collecting dust. I picked it up to see if it was working, but had a broken stick on my controller. This is a replacement for the specific part. Hope it comes to be useful for anyone out there.

Download the files on: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6362255

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

Shop for parts to build your own DIY projects http://adafru.it/3dprinting

3D Printing Projects Playlist:

3D Hangout Show Playlist:

Layer by Layer CAD Tutorials Playlist:

On the heels of #SepTandy, Adafruit is celebrating #ShackToberFest, a celebration of all things Radio Shack and Tandy. Tag your social media posts #ShackToberFest!

Every week we’ll 3D print designs from the community and showcase slicer settings, use cases and of course, Time-lapses! This Week:

Pumpkin Cat
By 3D_FlexSeeds
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6769725
CR10S SmartPro
Green Purple PLA
05hr 36mins
X:241 Y:183 Z:16mm
.2mm layer / .4mm Nozzle
6% Infill / 1mm Retraction
200C / 60C
14g
60mm/s

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Feather or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

BV3D shares some awsome finds for your Halloween festivities. He goes through 10 awesome prints and gives a few pointers for each one.

Bat Cat & Cat (EzzySziggy) https://makerworld.com/en/models/658323
Frankenstein Book Nook (Treddigineer) https://makerworld.com/en/models/663233
Pumpkin Storage Head – BRICK (Emanuele) https://makerworld.com/en/models/637318
Halloween Tealight Ghost 2 (Idea Whomp) https://makerworld.com/en/models/671069
Parametric chain candle stand (Molodos) https://makerworld.com/en/models/662861
Gargoyle Door Knocker (MandicReally) https://thangs.com/designer/MandicRea…
Cat Knife Door Corner (MikeHurst81) https://makerworld.com/en/models/658340
Candy Bat Corn (EddieB3D_) https://makerworld.com/en/models/659557
Candy Corn Colored Cover for Kleenex Cubes (BV3D) https://makerworld.com/en/models/687526
…inspired by Candy Corn Tissue Box Cover by Rad Dad Print Lab, https://makerworld.com/en/models/642379
Frankenchunk’s Monster Kit (The Kit Kiln) https://makerworld.com/en/models/674523
Fake Nail (Mat3g) https://makerworld.com/en/models/657406

It’s Saving time! Subscribers to the Newsletter get 15% off The Halloween Gift Guide with the Code HALLOWEEN15

Working on a project for Halloween this year? Share it with us in the comments below, the Adafruit forums, Facebook, Discord, Instagram or Twitter [aka X]– (tag your posts #ElectronicHalloween). You can also send us a blog tip!

In the spirit of Electronic Halloween, today we’re throwing it back to one of my favorite costume guides in the Adafruit Learn System – Stick Person Costume with Neon LED Strips by Erin St Blaine.

Build a neon stick-person costume from LED neon strips. These strips glow really brightly when connected to power, without the need for additional controllers or code of any kind. Just solder them together, plug in your battery pack, and glow!

They come in a lot of different colors, so you can glow in style. Make one for everyone in your family for an unforgettable group costume this Halloween.

See more details here!

It’s Saving time! Subscribers to the Newsletter get 15% off The Halloween Gift Guide with the Code HALLOWEEN15

Working on a project for Halloween this year? Share it with us in the comments below, the Adafruit forums, Facebook, Discord, Instagram or Twitter [aka X]– (tag your posts #ElectronicHalloween). You can also send us a blog tip!

Arnov Sharma shared this retropie based build and immediately had us smitten with the old Pokémon music:

Since the Pi Zero has a USB Micro OTG connector, we created a custom breakout PCB that expands that port to two USB ports, allowing users to connect one or more game controllers. The entire project was 3D printed and constructed entirely from scratch.

Read more

Find more Pokémon builds in the Adafruit Learning System:

• Raspberry Pi Pokemon Finder
• Pokemon Potion USB Battery Pack
• Pokémon Macro Ball for Nintendo Switch
• Pokemon iPhone Case

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem is celebrating the Afro Latin Roots of Jazz in collaboration with the International Salsa Museum through this Saturday, October 19th.

The International Salsa Museum (ISM) is driven by an unwavering passion to preserve the vibrant and rich history of salsa music and honoring and celebrating the cultural heritage of salsa, ensuring its legacy thrives for future generations. The National Jazz Museum in Harlem (NJMH) is dedicated to preserving, promoting and presenting jazz. This provides a perfect framework for our first-ever collaboration to celebrate the space where salsa and jazz history, music and culture unite.

Check it out before it’s too late!