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We just released four new Bricklets:

• Industrial Dual AC Relay Bricklet,
• Industrial PTC Bricklet,
• DC Bricklet 2.0 and
• Silent Stepper Bricklet 2.0.

The Industrial Dual AC Relay Bricklet can be used to switch 240V AC with up to 1.2A (max 12A surge current). Compared to the Industrial Dual Relay Bricklet it uses a solid state relay and it supports switching during zero-crossing.

The Industrial PTC Bricklet has the same functionality as the PTC Bricklet, but it uses the standardized 8-pole connector that we use for all Industrial Bricklets. This was often requested, since many customers use the PTC Bricklet together with other Industrial Bricklets and would like to use the same connector for all of them. For now we will stock both (the old PTC Bricklet and the new Industrial PTC Bricklet), but if the sale numbers of the PTC Bricklet start to drop off now we will likely retire it in the future.

The new DC Bricklet 2.0 and Silent Stepper Bricklet 2.0 are Bricklet replacements for the old DC Brick and Silent Stepper Brick. They come with the same driver IC and thus have the same capabilities. As a small bonus the Silent Stepper Bricklet has two GPIOs that can be used for end-stops and similar. With these new Bricklets you can now use the whole Tinkerforge ecosystem together with the HAT and HAT Zero Bricks! There is no feature anymore that is only available in the Brick-formfactor.

As the next step we will replace the 10-pole Bricklet connector on the Bricks with 7-pole equivalents. After that the whole system will use 7-7p cables and the 10p-10p and 10p-7p cables can be retired. We will still stock the Master Brick 2.1 with 10p Bricklet connectors for replacements in legacy systems, but otherwise all products with 10-pole connector will be completely removed from the shop.

This blog post is only available in German. See here: https://www.tinkerforge.com/de/blog/auslieferung-warp-charger/

We noticed since the end of last year that obtaining components becomes harder and harder. In march the situation got even more serious: Lead times of one year or more are now common for some components. Though this happened for some odd parts every now and then, currently the better part of processors, sensors, motor control ICs and so on are all out of stock. It is currently not known to us, how long this will be the case, however we assume, that the supply issues will last for the rest of the year.

Causes for the supply issues are the coronavirus pandemic and the rising demand for ICs for game consoles, laptops etc. This demand exceeds the number of available silicon wafers. Additionally, the outage of foundrys in Texas due to extreme snow fall, as well as a plant in Japan that was gutted by fire, further reduce the availability of ICs.

We, as well as many other companies, stocked up our inventory. Luckily we already had a large stock of the most important components, so we don't expect near-term supply issues for a large part of our products. However single products can have longer lead times in the near future.

The first product, that will not be available for the next months is the IMU Brick. It is already out of stock. Production was already planned and the components were ordered, but our shipment of BNO055 sensors was cancelled. It seems to be the case, that this sensor is globally out of stock and the manufacturer does not specify binding delivery dates. The sensor seems to be not available for the next six months. We have already placed orders and will start to produce the Bricks as soon as we get our hands on the sensors. As an alternative we still have the IMU Bricklet 3.0 in stock. This Bricklet also uses the BNO055 sensor and can be combined with a Master Brick to replace an IMU Brick (minimal software changes have to be made).

If you plan to order large quantities, feel free to contact us, so we can make sure, the necessary components can be supplied shortly.

This blog entry is about the WARP Charger. It is only available in German: https://www.tinkerforge.com/de/blog/warp-charger-how-is-it-going-what-comes-next/

This blog entry is not available in english. See here for the german version.