The SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic is an Arduino-compatible board that combines features of different Arduinos with the Qwiic Connect System.
Features
ATmega328 microcontroller with Optiboot Bootloader
R3 Shield Compatible
CH340C Serial-USB Converter
3.3 V to 5 V Voltage Level Jumper
A4 / A5 Jumpers
AP2112 Voltage Regulator
ISP Header
Input voltage: 7 V - 15 V
1 Qwiic Connector
16 MHz Clock Speed
32 k Flash Memory
All SMD Construction
Improved Reset Button
Plug a reader into the headers, use a Qwiic cable, scan your 125kHz ID tag, and the unique 32-bit ID will be shown on the screen. The unit comes with a read LED and buzzer, but don't worry, there is a jumper you can cut to disable the buzzer if you want. Utilizing SparkFun's handy Qwiic system, no soldering is required to connect it to the rest of your system. However, we still have broken out 0.1"-spaced pins if you prefer to use a breadboard.
Utilizing the onboard ATtiny84A, the Qwiic RFID takes the six byte ID tag of your 125kHz RFID card, attaches a timestamp to it, and puts it onto a stack that holds up to 20 unique RFID scans at a time. This information is easy to get at with some simple I²C commands.
The Arduino Pro Mini is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega328P.
It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, an on-board resonator, a reset button, and holes for mounting pin headers. A six pin header can be connected to an FTDI cable or SparkFun breakout board to provide USB power and communication to the board.
The Arduino Pro Mini is intended for semi-permanent installation in objects or exhibitions. The board comes without pre-mounted headers, allowing the use of various types of connectors or direct soldering of wires. The pin layout is compatible with the Arduino Mini.
The Arduino Pro Mini was designed and is manufactured by SparkFun Electronics.
Specifications
Microcontroller
ATmega328P
Board Power Supply
5-12 V
Circuit Operating Voltage
5 V
Digital I/O Pins
14
PWM Pins
6
UART
1
SPI
1
I²C
1
Analog Input Pins
6
External Interrupts
2
DC Current per I/O Pin
40 mA
Flash Memory
32 KB of which 2 KB used by bootloader
SRAM
2 KB
EEPROM
1 KB
Clock Speed
16 MHz
Dimensions
18 x 33.3 mm (0.7 x 1.3")
Downloads
Eagle files
Schematics
The X500 V2 ARF Kit is an affordable, lightweight, and robust carbon fiber professional drone kit that is easy to assemble (less than 15 minutes). It comes with the X500 V2 Frame Kit and motors, ESCs, power distribution boards and propellers preinstalled. It is perfectly compatible with various flight controllers such as the Holybro Pixhawk series, Durandal, Pix32 V5, etc. There are numerous improvements compared the previous model.
Specifications
Wheelbase: 500 mm
Motor mount pattern: 16x16 mm
Frame body: 144x144 mm, 2 mm thick
Landing gear height: 215 mm
Space between top and bottom plates: 28 mm
Weight: 610 g
Flight time: ~18 minutes hover with no additional payload. Tested with 5000 mAh battery.
Payload: 1500 g (without battery, 70% throttle)
Battery recommendation: 4S 3000-5000 mAh 20C+ with XT60 Lipo battery (not Included)
Included
X500 V2 Frame Kit
With Preinstalled Items:
4x Motors: Holybro 2216 KV920 Motor (4 pcs) with XT30 Plug
4x ESCs (BLHeli S ESC 20A)
6x 1045 Propellers
Power Distribution Board – XT60 plug for battery & XT30 plug for ESCs & peripherals
Note: Depth camera mount is sold separately.
Learn how to use the ESP32 Microcontroller and MicroPython programming in your future projects!
The project book, written by well-known Elektor author Dogan Ibrahim, holds many software- and hardware-based projects especially developed for the MakePython ESP32 Development Kit. The kit comes with several LEDs, sensors, and actuators. The kit will help you acquire the basic knowledge to create IoT projects.
The book’s fully evaluated projects feature all the supplied components. Each project includes a block diagram, a circuit diagram, a full program listing, and a complete program description.
Included in the kit
1x MakePython ESP32 development board with LCD
1x Ultrasonic ranging module
1x Temperature and humidity sensor
1x Buzzer module
1x DS18B20 module
1x Infrared module
1x Potentiometer
1x WS2812 module
1x Sound sensor
1x Vibration sensor
1x Photosensitive resistance module
1x Pulse sensor
1x Servo motor
1x USB cable
2x Button
2x Breadboard
45x Jumper wire
10x Resistor 330R
10x LED (Red)
10x LED (Green)
1x Project book (206 pages)
46 Projects in the Book
LED Projects
Blinking LED
Flashing SOS
Blinking LED – using a timer
Alternately flashing LEDs
Button control
Changing the LED flashing rate using pushbutton interrupts
Chasing-LEDs
Binary-counting LEDs
Christmas lights (random-flashing 8 LEDs)
Electronic dice
Lucky day of the week
Pulsewidth Modulation (PWM) Projects
Generate a 1000-Hz PWM waveform with 50% duty cycle
LED brightness control
Measuring the frequency and duty cycle of a PWM waveform
Melody maker
Simple electronic organ
Servo motor control
Servo motor DS18B20 thermometer
Analog To Digital Converter (ADC) Projects
Voltmeter
Plotting the analog input voltage
ESP32 internal temperature sensor
Ohmmeter
Photosensitive resistance module
Digital To Analog Converter (DAC) Projects
Generating fixed voltages
Generating a sawtooth-wave signal
Generating a triangular-wave signal
Arbitrary periodic waveform
Generating a sinewave signal
Generating accurate sinewave signal using timer interrupts
Using The OLED Display
Seconds counter
Event counter
DS18B20 OLED based digital thermometer
ON-OFF temperature controller
Measuring the temperature and humidity
Ultrasonic distance measurement
Height of a person (stadiometer)
Heart rate (pulse) measurement
Other Sensors Supplied with the Kit
Theft alarm
Sound-activated light
Infrared obstacle avoidance with buzzer
WS2812 RGB LED ring
Timestamping temperature and humidity readings
Network Programming
Wi-Fi scanner
Remote control from the Internet browser (using a smartphone or PC) – Web Server
Storing temperature and humidity data in the Cloud
Low-Power Operation
Using a timer to wake up the processor
A Beginner's Guide to AI and Edge Computing
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now part of our daily lives. With companies developing low-cost AI-powered hardware into their products, it is now becoming a reality to purchase AI accelerator hardware at comparatively very low costs. One such hardware accelerator is the Hailo module which is fully compatible with the Raspberry Pi 5. The Raspberry Pi AI Kit is a cleverly designed hardware as it bundles an M.2-based Hailo-8L accelerator with the Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+ to offer high speed inferencing on the Raspberry Pi 5. Using the Raspberry Pi AI Kit, you can build complex AI-based vision applications, running in real-time, such as object detection, pose estimation, instance segmentation, home automation, security, robotics, and many more neural network-based applications.
This book is an introduction to the Raspberry Pi AI Kit, and it is aimed to provide some help to readers who are new to the kit and wanting to run some simple AI-based visual models on their Raspberry Pi 5 computers. The book is not meant to cover the detailed process of model creation and compilation, which is done on an Ubuntu computer with massive disk space and 32 GB memory. Examples of pre-trained and custom object detection are given in the book.
Two fully tested and working projects are given in the book. The first project explains how a person can be detected and how an LED can be activated after the detection, and how the detection can be acknowledged by pressing an external button. The second project illustrates how a person can be detected, and how this information can be passed to a smart phone over a Wi-Fi link, as well as how the detection can be acknowledged by sending a message from the smartphone to your Raspberry Pi 5.
RTL-SDR is an affordable dongle that can be used as a computer based radio scanner for receiving live radio signals in your area. This particular dongle includes a R820T2 tuner, a 1 PPM temperature compensated oscillator (TCXO), SMA F connector. It features an aluminium case with passive cooling via a thermal pad. Moreover, there is a software switchable bias tee circuit, supplementary ESD protection, lower overall noise and built-in direct sampling for HF reception. This device can receive frequencies from 500 kHz to 1.7 GHz and has up to 3.2 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth (2.4 MHz stable).
Note: RTL-SDR dongles are RX only.
You can use this kit either for terrestrial or satellite reception just by changing the orientation of the antenna. Thanks to the included mounts and extension cables it is possible to temporarily place the antenna outside for a better reception. Other potential applications are general radio scanning, air traffic control, public safety radio, ADSB, ACARS, trunked radio, P25 digital voice, POCSAG, weather balloons, APRS, NOAA APT weather satellites, radio astronomy, meteor scatter monitoring etc.
Included
RTL-SDR V3 Dongle (R820T2 RTL2832U 1PPM TCXO SMA)
2x 23 cm to 1 m telescopic antenna
2x 5 cm to 13 cm telescopic antenna
Dipole Antenna Base with 60 cm RG174 extension cable
3 m RG174 extension cable
Flexible Tripod Mount
Suction Cup Mount
Downloads
Datasheet
Quick Start Guide
SDR# User Guide
Dipole Antenna Kit Guide
RTL-SDR is an affordable dongle that can be used as a computer-based radio scanner for receiving live radio signals between 500 kHz and 1.75 GHz in your area.
The RTL-SDR V4 offers several improvements over generic brands including use of the R828D tuner chip, triplexed input filter, notch filter, improved component tolerances, a 1 PPM temperature compensated oscillator (TCXO), SMA F connector, aluminium case with passive cooling, bias tee circuit, improved power supply, and a built in HF upconverter.
RTL-SDR V4 comes with the portable dipole antenna kit. It is great for beginners as it allows for terrestrial and satellite reception and easy to mount outdoors and designed for portable and temporary outside usage.
Features
Improved HF reception: V4 now uses a built-in upconverter instead of using a direct sampling circuit. This means no more Nyquist folding of signals around 14.4 MHz, improved sensitivity, and adjustable gain on HF. Like the V3, the lower tuning range remains at 500 kHz and very strong reception may still require front end attenuation/filtering.
Improved filtering: The V4 makes use of the R828D tuner chip, which has three inputs. The SMA input has been triplexed input into 3 bands: HF, VHF and UHF. This provides some isolation between the 3 bands, meaning out of band interference from strong broadcast stations is less likely to cause desensitization or imaging.
Improved filtering x2: In addition to the triplexing, the open drain pin on the R828D can be also used, which allows to add simple notch filters for common interference bands such as broadcast AM, broadcast FM and the DAB bands. These only attenuate by a few dB, but may still help.
Improved phase noise on strong signals: Due to an improved power supply design, phase noise from power supply noise has been significantly reduced.
Less heat: Another advantage of the improved power supply is low power consumption and less heat generation compared to the V3.
Included
1x RTL-SDR V4 dongle (R828D RTL2832U 1PPM TCXO SMA)
2x 23 cm to 1 m telescopic antenna
2x 5 cm to 13 cm telescopic antenna
1x Dipole antenna base with 60 cm RG174
1x 3 m RG174 extension cable
1x Flexible tripod mount
1x Suction cup mount
Downloads
Datasheet
User Guide
Quick Start Guide
SDR# User Guide
Dipole Antenna Guide
A Practical Guide to AI, Python, and Hardware Projects
Welcome to your BeagleY-AI journey! This compact, powerful, and affordable single-board computer is perfect for developers and hobbyists. With its dedicated 4 TOPS AI co-processor and a 1.4 GHz Quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU, the BeagleY-AI is equipped to handle both AI applications and real-time I/O tasks. Powered by the Texas Instruments AM67A processor, it offers DSPs, a 3D graphics unit, and video accelerators.
Inside this handbook, you‘ll find over 50 hands-on projects that cover a wide range of topics—from basic circuits with LEDs and sensors to an AI-driven project. Each project is written in Python 3 and includes detailed explanations and full program listings to guide you. Whether you‘re a beginner or more advanced, you can follow these projects as they are or modify them to fit your own creative ideas.
Here’s a glimpse of some exciting projects included in this handbook:
Morse Code Exerciser with LED or BuzzerType a message and watch it come to life as an LED or buzzer translates your text into Morse code.
Ultrasonic Distance MeasurementUse an ultrasonic sensor to measure distances and display the result in real time.
Environmental Data Display & VisualizationCollect temperature, pressure, and humidity readings from the BME280 sensor, and display or plot them on a graphical interface.
SPI – Voltmeter with ADCLearn how to measure voltage using an external ADC and display the results on your BeagleY-AI.
GPS Coordinates DisplayTrack your location with a GPS module and view geographic coordinates on your screen.
BeagleY-AI and Raspberry Pi 4 CommunicationDiscover how to make your BeagleY-AI and Raspberry Pi communicate over a serial link and exchange data.
AI-Driven Object Detection with TensorFlow LiteSet up and run an object detection model using TensorFlow Lite on the BeagleY-AI platform, with complete hardware and software details provided.
The Elektor Arduino Nano MCCAB Training Board contains all the components (incl. Arduino Nano) required for the exercises in the "Microcontrollers Hands-on Course for Arduino Starters", such as light-emitting diodes, switches, pushbuttons, acoustic signal transmitters, etc. External sensors, motors or assemblies can also be queried or controlled with this microcontroller training system.
Specifications (Arduino Nano MCCAB Training Board)
Power Supply
Via the USB connection of the connected PC or an external power supply unit (not included)
Operating Voltage
+5 Vcc
Input Voltage
All inputs
0 V to +5 V
VX1 and VX2
+8 V to +12 V (only when using an external power supply)
Hardware periphery
LCD
2x16 characters
Potentiometer P1 & P2
JP3: selection of operating voltage of P1 & P2
Distributor
SV4: Distributor for the operating voltagesSV5, SV6: Distributor for the inputs/outputs of the microcontroller
Switches and buttons
RESET button on the Arduino Nano module 6x pushbutton switches K1 ... K6 6x slide switches S1 ... S6 JP2: Connection of the switches with the inputs of the microcontroller
Buzzer
Piezo buzzer Buzzer1 with jumper on JP6
Indicator lights
11 x LED: Status indicator for the inputs/outputs LED L on the Arduino Nano module, connected to GPIO D13 JP6: Connection of LEDs LD10 ... LD20 with GPIOs D2 ... D12
Serial interfacesSPI & I²C
JP4: Selection of the signal at pin X of the SPI connector SV12 SV9 to SV12: SPI interface (3.3 V/5 V) or I²C interface
Switching output for external devices
SV1, SV7: Switching output (maximum +24 V/160 mA, externally supplied) SV2: 2x13 pins for connection of external modules
3x3 LED matrix(9 red LEDs)
SV3: Columns of the 3x3 LED matrix (outputs D6 ... D8) JP1: Connection of the rows with the GPIOs D3 ... D5
Software
Library MCCABLib
Control of hardware components (switches, buttons, LEDs, 3x3 LED matrix, buzzer) on the MCCAB Training Board
Operating Temperature
Up to +40 °C
Dimensions
100 x 100 x 20 mm
Specifications (Arduino Nano)
Microcontroller
ATmega328P
Architecture
AVR
Operating Voltage
5 V
Flash Memory
32 KB, of which 2 KB used by bootloader
SRAM
2 KB
Clock Speed
16 MHz
Analog IN Pins
8
EEPROM
1 KB
DC Current per I/O Pins
40 mA on one I/O pin, total maximum 200 mA on all pins together
Input Voltage
7-12 V
Digital I/O Pins
22 (6 of which are PWM)
PWM Output
6
Power Consumption
19 mA
Dimensions
18 x 45 mm
Weight
7 g
Included
1x Elektor Arduino Nano Training Board MCCAB
1x Arduino Nano
The SQ series of handsfree PCBite probes from Sensepeek are insulated, come with included color-coded cable holders and have a lower point of gravity making them even more stable compared with the original SP series of probes. All the loved features of handsfree measurement, exchangeable fine pitch spring tipped test needle and the minimalistic design is maintained to make traditional sized and handheld probes obsolete.
Features
All handsfree probes from Sensepeek makes instant measurements or long triggering sessions a breeze.
No more soldering wires to connect your probe or complicated tools to setup, just positioning the probe needle on any test point or component in the signal path and release.
Saves time and frustration during development, verification and repairs.
The minimalist design and the spring-loaded test needle makes it possible to simultaneously measure on fine pitch components and nearby signals.
Both length and weight of the SQ probes are perfectly balanced to be used with the included PCB holders and base plate which is a must for handsfree function.
The probe holder comes with a powerful magnet in the base, as for all PCBite probes and holders which makes the probe easy to place and reposition.
The SQ series of probes can be used handheld without the probe holder as they have an insulated grip but their full potential is used when measuring handsfree.
One side of the included baseplate is matte and the other is mirror polished. The mirror polished surface makes it easy to see components on the circuit board underside. For added protection during measurement the included insulation cover can be mounted on one of the surfaces.
Included
4x PCBite PCB holders
1x Set of yellow insulation washers for the PCB holders
1x Large Base plate (A4)
1x Insulation cover for the base plate (A4)
1x Micro fiber cloth
4x SQ10 probes and pin tipped test needles (black)
2x Banana to dupont test wires (red/black)
5x Dupont to dupont test wires
1x Set of cable holders (4 colors)
4x Extra test needles
Downloads
User guide (PCBite kit)
User guide (SQ10 probes)
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by Saad Imtiaz
SparkFun Thing Plus Matter (MGM240P): A Versatile Matter-Based IoT Development Board (Review)
The SparkFun Thing Plus Matter (MGM240P) is a versatile and feature-rich development board designed for creating Matter-based IoT devices. Matter, formerly known as Project CHIP...