Adafruit’s Top Ten Best Selling Products of 2017 #AdafruitTopTen
by Daniel Nosonowitz
Happy 2018! To celebrate another year in the books, here are our top 10 best selling Adafruit products from 2017!
10. Adafruit Trinket M0 – for use with CircuitPython & Arduino IDE
The Adafruit Trinket M0 may be small, but do not be fooled by its size! It’s a tiny microcontroller board, built around the Atmel ATSAMD21, a little chip with a lot of power. We wanted to design a microcontroller board that was small enough to fit into any project, and low cost enough to use without hesitation. Perfect for when you don’t want to give up your expensive dev-board and you aren’t willing to take apart the project you worked so hard to design. It’s our lowest-cost CircuitPython programmable board!
9. PowerBoost 1000 Charger – Rechargeable 5V Lipo USB Boost @ 1A – 1000C
PowerBoost 1000C is the perfect power supply for your portable project! With a built-in load-sharing battery charger circuit, you’ll be able to keep your power-hungry project running even while recharging the battery! This little DC/DC boost converter module can be powered by any 3.7V LiIon/LiPoly battery, and convert the battery output to 5.2V DC for running your 5V projects.
8. Adafruit Feather HUZZAH with ESP8266 WiFi
This is our take on an ‘all-in-one’ ESP8266 WiFi development board with built in USB and battery charging. Its an ESP8266 WiFi module with all the extras you need, ready to rock!
At the Feather HUZZAH’s heart is an ESP8266 WiFi microcontroller clocked at 80 MHz and at 3.3V logic. This microcontroller contains a Tensilica chip core as well as a full WiFi stack. You can program the microcontroller using the Arduino IDE for an easy-to-run Internet of Things core. We wired up a high-quality SiLabs CP2104 USB-Serial chip that can upload code at a blistering 921600 baud for fast development time. It also has auto-reset so no noodling with pins and reset button pressings. The CP2104 has better driver support than the CH340 and can do very high speeds without stability issues.
7. Adafruit Raspberry Pi Camera Board Case with 1/4″ Tripod Mount
This is a basic, classic Adafruit Raspberry Pi Camera Board Enclosure with a black base and a clear top. The case is as minimal as it gets, coming in just two pieces of polycarbonate that snap snugly together. This case will keep your Pi Camera safe and secure while also looking super sleek. Works with Pi Camera v1 and v2.
6. Adafruit GEMMA M0 – Miniature wearable electronic platform
The Adafruit Gemma M0 is a super small microcontroller board, with just enough built-in to create many simple projects. It may look small and cute: round, about the size of a quarter, with friendly alligator-clip sew pads. But do not be fooled! The Gemma M0 is incredibly powerful! We’ve taken the same form factor we used for the original ATtiny85-based Gemma and gave it an upgrade. The Gemma M0 has swapped out the lightweight ATtiny85 for a ATSAMD21E18 powerhouse.
5. Circuit Playground Classic
This is the Classic version of Circuit Playground, which comes with an ATmega32u4. It’s designed to be used with Arduino IDE and code.org CS Discoveries only. It even comes with Firmata already programmed in, so you can use it immediately with code.org Discoveries without any preparation or updates.
Circuit Playground features an ATmega32u4 processor, just like our popular Flora. The board’s also round and has alligator-clip pads around it so you don’t have to solder or sew to make it work. You can power it from USB, a AAA battery pack, or with a Lipoly battery (for advanced users). Just program your code into the board then take it on the go!
4. Adafruit Micro Lipo w/MicroUSB Jack – USB LiIon/LiPoly charger – v1
Oh so handy, this little lipo charger is so small and easy to use you can keep it on your desk or mount it easily into any project! Simply plug it via any MicroUSB cable into a USB port and a 3.7V/4.2V lithium polymer or lithium ion rechargeable battery into the JST plug on the other end. There are two LEDs – one red and one green. While charging, the red LED is lit. When the battery is fully charged and ready for use, the green LED turns on. Seriously, it could not get more easy.
3. Adafruit Pro Trinket – 5V 16MHz
Trinket’s got a big sister in town – the Pro Trinket 5V! Pro Trinket combines everything you love about Trinket with the familiarity of the common core Arduino chip, the ATmega328. It’s like an Arduino Pro Mini with more pins and USB tossed in, so delicious.
Like the Trinket, it has onboard USB bootloading support – we opted for a MicroUSB jack this time. We also added Optiboot support, so you can either program your Pro Trinket over USB or with a FTDI cable just like the Pro Mini and friends.
The Pro Trinket PCB measures only 1.5″ x 0.7″ x 0.2″ (without headers) but packs much of the same capability as an Arduino UNO. So it’s great once you’ve finished up a prototype on an official Arduino UNO and want to make the project smaller.
The Pro Trinket 5V uses the Atmega328P chip, which is the same core chip in the Arduino UNO/Duemilanove/Mini/etc. at the same speed and voltage. So you’ll be happy to hear that not only is Pro Trinket programmable using the Arduino IDE as you already set up, but 99% of Arduino projects will work out of the box!
2. Adafruit Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield for Arduino v2 Kit – v2.3
The original Adafruit Motorshield kit is one of our most beloved kits, which is why we decided to make something even better. We have upgraded the shield kit to make the bestest, easiest way to drive DC and Stepper motors. This shield will make quick work of your next robotics project! We kept the ability to drive up to 4 DC motors or 2 stepper motors, but added many improvements:
Instead of a L293D darlington driver, we now have the TB6612 MOSFET drivers with 1.2A per channel current capability (you can draw up to 3A peak for approx 20ms at a time). It also has much lower voltage drops across the motor so you get more torque out of your batteries, and there are built-in flyback diodes as well.
Instead of using a latch and the Arduino’s PWM pins, we have a fully-dedicated PWM driver chip onboard. This chip handles all the motor and speed controls over I2C. Only two data pins (SDA & SCL in addition to the power pins GND & 5V) are required to drive the multiple motors, and since it’s I2C you can also connect any other I2C devices or shields to the same pins. This also makes it drop-in compatible with any Arduino, such as the Uno, Due, Leonardo and Mega R3.
1. Circuit Playground Express
Circuit Playground Express is the next step towards a perfect introduction to electronics and programming. We’ve taken the original Circuit Playground Classic and made it even better! Not only did we pack even more sensors in, we also made it even easier to program.
Start your journey with Microsoft MakeCode block-based or Javascript programming. Then, you can use the same board to try CircuitPython, with the Python interpreter running right on the Express. As you progress, you can advance to using Arduino IDE, which has full support of all the hardware down to the low level, so you can make powerful projects.
Because you can program the same board in 3 different ways – the Express has great value and re-usability. From beginners to experts, Circuit Playground Express has something for everyone.
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