Blog

The first day at CeBIT was a success from our point of view. We got many visitors with questions and suggestions. Some of the visitors already use Tinkerforge and shared their project ideas and their experiences with us. Many thanks for this!

At the end of the first exhibition day we were awarded to be the third in the hardware category of the Innovationspreis-IT.

A (german) description of the price can be found here. Of course, we attached the award signet directly on our stand. ;-)

We are at CeBIT until friday. We still have some free tickets for the exhibition. If you are interested in a visit and need a free ticket, please contact us.

Journey and setup went “reasonably” well. We were already late and on top of that there was a traffic jam on the way to Hannover. Because of that the exhibitor entrances had been closed already and we had to bring our stuff through the normal visitor entrances. But here it is:

We made a new display stand to show all our modules neat and tidy. Additionally we brought a Starter Kit: Camera Slider with RED Brick Extension, a workbench equipped with some Bricks and Bricklets and an extra box with more Bricks and Bricklets for testing.

Bastian in conversation with with some visitors.

In the last years we only visited one trade fair per year. This year we already have three appointments booked:

• March 14.-18. 2016: CeBIT Hannover, Hall 11, Stand D33(19)

• May 28.-29. 2016: Maker Faire Hannover

• June 21.-24. 2016: Automatica München, Hall A5, Stand 139A

CeBIT Hannover

We will start with the CeBIT in Hannover. It takes place from March 14th to 18th. The CeBIT is the worlds biggest trade fair for information technology, it has about 300,000 visitors each year. Instead of investing millions in an ostentatious Tinkerforge pavillion, we settled with a small “Workstation” on the “Gemeinschaftsstand für junge innovative Unternehmen” in Hall 011 ;-). We will showcase our products there.

Maker Faire Hannover

As in the year before last year we will be an exhibitor at the Maker Faire Hannover again. It takes place from May 28th to 29th. It is a forum for makers. You can find everything there from robots to steampunk to upcycling. The Maker Faire Hannover had 10,000 visitors last year.

Automatica München

From the makers we go straight over to industry. From June 21st to 24th we will be at Automatica in Munich. This trade fair, with about 35,000 visitors, is a fair for industrial control technologies. We will have a corner booth in Hall A5, Stand 139A.

We are eager to see what awaits us at the trade fairs. Especially CeBIT and Automatica are exciting experiments. We will report from our booths and perhaps we will even see you on-site!

The new Ethernet Extension Version 1.1 is now available.

We have already been shipping the new version of the Ethernet Extension for one week, so the first of you already received it.

In version 1.0 we only had one Ethernet Extension with two different component placements (with and without PoE). In version 1.1 we now have to different products that have been optimized to be used with/without PoE. Additionally we updated the Ethernet IC from Wiznet W5200 to the successor W5500 and added additional filtering (RC low-pass filter) to the SPI data line. Because of the optimizations the Ethernet Extensions will now be even less vulnerable to interferences. There are no software changes necessary, both versions behave the same. The Master Brick firmware is compatible since version 2.3.1.

Furthermore we now have a K-Type Thermocouple in our shop.

The Thermocouple is “Made in Germany” and has a class 1 precision (± 1,5 °C in the complete measurement range). Together with the Thermocouple Bricklet it is now possible to measure temperatures in the range of -40°C to +400°C with very high precision. For comparison: With the PTC Bricklet and a Pt100 Temperature Sensor you can only measure in a range of -35°C to +105°C.

We just released five new Bricklet:

CO2 Bricklet

The CO2 Bricklet is equipped with a precise CO2 sensor. The sensor can measure in a range from 0 - 10000ppm. One possible application is an automated ventilation control. During our testing here in the laboratory we also noticed that you can precisely see when a person enters a room (CO2 concentrations rises) and leaves a room (CO2 concentration falls).

OLED 128x64 Bricklet

Additionally to the LCD 20x4 Bricklet and the Segment Display 4x7 Bricklet we now offer two OLED displays. The big OLED 128x64 Bricklet has a resolution of 128x64 pixel and it can be mounted directly on top of a stack of Bricks (dimension is 4x4cm). The display can be updated up to 60 times per second, it shows white pixels on black background. As usual with OLEDs, it has a high contrast. It can be used for combined graphics and text output.

We made a small demo application with the display:

OLED 64x48 Bricklet

The OLED 64x48 Bricklet is a smaller version of the OLED 128x64 Bricklet with a resolution of 64x48. It has the tiny size of 0.66″. You can mount it even in the smallest projects and still show lots of text and small graphics!

Thermocouple Bricklet

With the Thermocouple Bricklet you can measure temperature with the help of a thermocouple. The thermocouple types B, E, J, K, K, N, R, S and T are supported. The most prevalent type is the K-type. The PTC Bricklet can measure temperature with the help of Pt100 or Pt1000 resistance thermometer. A thermocouple can in comparison have a much higher temperature range. It is for example possible to measure the temperature of a heating system.

UV Light Bricklet

The UV Light Bricklet can measure the strength of ultraviolet light. Additionally it can determine the UV Index.

Releases

The software for the new Bricklets was already released yesterday. As of now all of the new Bricklets are available in our shop!