Friday, November 26, 2021

Black Friday 2021 Electronics Deals

I haven't found as many Black Friday promotions this year for electronics - probably due to the ongoing supply chain issues.  If you see a good deal that is not in the list, please leave a comment.

Adafruit has a code for 15% off all weekend here.  It's also Feather Friday which means 20% off all Feather (mainboards) and wing (daughterboards) with the code shown in the site header today.

Parts Express (audio components) has 10% of sitewide.

Pololu Robotics & Electronics Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on select products are here.

RobotShop has a sale on some items until November 30 here.

Jameco Electronics has free shipping with a code on all orders.

Friday, September 10, 2021

Xilinx Adaptive Computing Challenge 2021 at hackster.io

The 2021 Adaptive Computing Challenge at hackster.io will reward top Xilinx development projects up to $10,000 (prizes are all Visa gift cards).   You can apply for free hardware to compete in the contest until October 15, 2021.  Final submissions are due February 28, 2022.  The Xilinx University Program is sponsoring an additional $2500 prize for college students.

There are three main categories in the contest: Edge Computing, Data Center AI and Big Data Analytics.  The edge computing requires a solution running on the Xilinx Kria KV260 Vision AI Starter Kit.  Data center AI must use the Xilinx VCK5000 development card.  Big data analytics requires the Xilinx Big Data Analytics card (not much information on this board).

The Kria KV260 Vision AI Starter Kit is listed at $199 but currently out of stock at most distributors.  It is meant for vision application development for Edge computing.  It has multiple camera interfaces including support for the Raspberry Pi camera module.  Multiple cameras are supported by using additional interfaces such as IAS or USB.  A power supply is also required.  One is also included in the  basic accessory pack which also includes a 13MP camera module, available from Xilinx for $59.

KV260 Vision AI Starter Kit with Basic Accessory Pack

Thursday, December 3, 2020

MIDI Hack Competition at NAMM 2021

The MIDI Innovation Awards, a design competition for MIDI hacks, DIY projects, or innovative MIDI products is now open with final judging at NAMM 2021.  This competition was announced by Music Hackspace, the MIDI Association and NAMM.


The first prize includes an exhibition booth and free advertising at the 2022 NAMM show.  Other prizes to be announced.  Submissions of existing commercialized products and art installations are also eligible.  For more details see the Music Hackspace Innovation Awards page.

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Arduino Sensor Kit

Arduino and Seeed have released the Arduino Sensor Kit for $23 (USD).  The kit includes 10 modules and sensors including light, sound, air pressure, temperature, an accelerometer, buzzer, button, and a small OLED screen.  The Arduino sensor kit base is an Arduino Shield (daughterboard) so you will need an Arduino UNO or compatible board to use it.  If you buy both from Arduino you can get them bundled for a discounted price ($38.70).  The Arduino Sensor Kit can be purchased directly from Arduino or Seeed and Arduino has developed a step-by-step tutorial to go with it and the Arduino UNO. 

Seed has a very similar all-in-one board, the Seeed Grove Beginner Kit for Arduino ($19.90), which includes an Arduino compatible base board.

Monday, November 30, 2020

Electronics Deals Cyber Monday 2020

Cyber Monday electronics deals are here.  Many of the deals listed in my blog post on Black Friday are still available from Adafruit, Polulu, SparkFun, and Tindie.

1BitSquared has a 15% discount off any piece of hardware with the checkout code BLACKFRIDAY2020 through Midnight (US PST).  They have a few unique development boards and JTAG accessories.  They have hard to find JTAG adapters and cables that are useful for ARM processor debugging.  I have used the Black Magic 0.1in Pin Header JTAG cable for STM32 debugging.  They also have STM32 and FPGA development boards and the Black Magic Probe for ARM Cortex MCUs.

MikroE is having deals until Tuesday December 1st on many products.  This includes 25% off most Click Boards.  These are small accessory boards that use the microBUS socket available on many different development boards including the low cost Microchip Curiosity Development BoardsMicroBus Click Boards are great for prototyping or general DIY projects.  You can add just about any sensor, analog or digital interface, or communications module you would need.

RobotShop is discounting specific products from 5% to 50% for it's Cyber Monday sale.  Of course this includes robot kits and parts, but you can also find Arduino boards, electronic learning kits, drones and Raspberry Pi development boards.

Friday, November 27, 2020

Electronics Deals Black Friday 2020

Black Friday is a great time to get a new development board or some parts for a DIY electronics project.  Here are a few great online electronics stores where you can find deals.

Adafruit is having two sales, one is for 15% all items in stock with the code ADATHX see more details in the Adafruit Thanksgiving Weekend Sale blog post.  The Adafruit Feather line of development boards is 20% off today only with the same code, see Adafruit Feather Friday Sale for details.

Polulu has a few different Black Friday deals.  There are coupons for individual products, discounts on your entire order and the unique design your own deal sale.  Follow this link to Pololu Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale 2020 for the details.

The design your own deal allows you to propose propose a discount for up to three products.  Last year I was able to get even bigger discounts than I asked for.  I don't recall the original prices but I was pleasantly surprised that they were all approved and discounted further.  Here are my three wishes and the deals I was offered.

You requested: 1 at $12.00 each.
We can do even better!  Up to 3 at $8.88 each.

You requested: 1 at $3.00 each.
We can do even better!  Up to 3 at $2.75 each.
   

You requested: 1 at $15.00 each.
We can do even better!  Up to 3 at $14.00 each.

SparkFun Black Friday Deals are discounts from 15 to 60 percent off select products.  There are not as many deals here but you might get lucky and find something you want.  You can also check out this sneak peak of Cyber Monday Deals.

At the Black Friday Sale on Tindie many development boards are discounted.  Tindie is a unique online store featuring independent sellers of all kinds of development boards and accessories for unique applications.   If you haven't been to this site before it's a great time to look around.

Friday, October 30, 2020

SparkFun A La Carte Custom Board Designer

SparkFun Electronics is offering a web based custom board design service called SparkFun A La Carte (ALC).  You can choose from a few different microcontrollers that can run Arduino programs.  You also have a choice of I/O, connectors and power options.  Communications options include RFID, WiFi and Bluetooth.  There is a one-time design fee for each board and a per unit cost calculated as you add the components.  You can get a 50% discount on the design fee until 12/31/2020 with the promocode ALCSPARKFUN50. For more information see this ALC post on the SparkFun Blog  

This YouTube video on the custom board designer goes over an example design.




Monday, July 8, 2019

WIZnet IoT iOffload Contest

WIZnet is running a contest this summer for IoT designs that use either the W6100 Internet controller chip or WIZ610io Ethernet  module.  They are looking for 'IoT innovation' and will award five $1000 and ten $500 prizes.  For more details see the IoT iOffload Contest.

WIZnet products include chips and modules to enable networking for microcontrollers.  For example, the Arduino Ethernet Shield 2 uses the W5500 Ethernet Controller.







Monday, December 17, 2018

Lattice Development Board Sale and New Crowd Funded Board

Lattice has three boards on sale until December 31, 2018, click on the board links to learn more.
MachXO3-9400 Development Board - MachXO3LF-9400C PLD - includes Arduino and Raspberry Pi connectors -  $39


Embedded Vision Development Kit - FPGA for embedded vision systems - $199


iCE40 UltraPlus Breakout Board - FPGA for mobile and IoT - $49


If you are interested in learning how to program the iCE40 with open source tools and hardware see the recently funded iCEBreaker FPGA project by 1BitSquared.


Thursday, February 8, 2018

Atmel-ICE and Development Board Sale at Microchipdirect.com

The Atmel-ICE Full Kit is half off with coupon code TP1747 until February 28, 2018.  A few other development boards are discounted as well.  See details at http://www.microchipdirect.com/product/DevToolDeals


I have used the Atmel-ICE with a few different AVR microcontrollers along with the Atmel Studio 7.  It works well but I have had a few small issues with JTAG debugging from Atmel Studio, usually I just restart the debug session and things work.  Definitely the best tool I have found for AVR JTAG debugging. For more information see the the Atmel-ICE product page.  The link to the online user's guide on that page is currently broken, I will add it to the comments if I can find a link.  Here is the Atmel-ICE User Guide at DigiKey.  The Youtube video Atmel Edge With Paul Rako: Debug 102 shows and unboxing and goes over the basics of the kit.  The video is embedded below (no pun intended).