USB Mini-B connector breakout board with included optional header pins.

USB Micro-B connector breakout board (older usb04b version) with included optional header pins.

These basic boards conveniently break out the VBUS, GND, D-, D+ and ID pins of USB Mini-B and Micro-B connectors to a set of five 0.1″-spaced pins, making it easy to power your project from a USB port or to add a USB connector to your breadboarded USB microcontroller. The compact USB Mini-B Connector Breakout Board measures 0.55" × 0.85", while the even smaller USB Micro-B Connector Breakout Board measures 0.44" × 0.5" (including the USB connectors).

We are now carrying female 0.1" headers with right-angle pins, in sizes from 1×2 to 1×12. You can view these and other female header products on the category page.

Pololu RC Switch with Digital Output.

Pololu RC Switch with Small Low-Side MOSFET.

With the release of the new RC Switch with Digital Output and the new RC Switch with Small Low-Side MOSFET, our RC switch family overhaul is now complete. These compact modules convert hobby radio control pulses to digital on/off signals for use in RC switch and simple RC adapter applications. These products replace item #752 and item #1210, which have been put on clearance and will be discontinued when the remaining stock is gone.

For more information about these products and the rest of our RC switch family, see our RC Switch category.

Related posts:

• New product: 4-Channel RC Servo Multiplexer
• New product: RC Switch with Medium Low-Side MOSFET
• New product: Pololu RC Switch with Relay

Leonid Karchevsky, of Xronos Clock, used our Custom Laser Cutting Service to create an enclosure for his Arduino Based Talking Alarm Clock, the Xronos Clock. The Xronos Clock is open-source, hackable, customizable, and is available in both assembled and kit form.

Related products

Custom Laser Cutting Service

The overhaul of our RC switch and RC multiplexer products continues with the new Pololu 4-Channel RC Servo Multiplexer. This compact four-channel multiplexer of hobby radio control pulses allows for easy switching between two independent RC signal sources. An auxiliary channel selects whether master or slave inputs show up on the four output channels. This makes it ideal for applications in which you have two possible control sources and want to be able to switch between them on the fly.

This product replaces items #721 and #722 and includes valuable new features such as user-configurable input direction and threshold.

For more information about the new Pololu 4-Channel RC Servo Multiplexer, see the product page.

Related posts:

• Our RC Switch overhaul is complete
• New product: RC Switch with Medium Low-Side MOSFET
• New product: Pololu RC Switch with Relay

Halloween’s always a good time at Pololu. Here’s a shot of all the people here that dressed up for the holiday:

As for some of us that post on the Pololu blog regularly, Jon, Jeremy, Grant, and Brandon, who like to refer to themselves as Pololu’s “B-Team”, dressed up as…

Kevin did a twist on Iron Man and became “Ironing Man”. His costume uses some of our Wixels to control the servo used in the mask from a button in the iron.

I (Emily) used some of our LED strips to make a Luxor Hotel costume. (For those of you that don’t know, Pololu is located in Las Vegas, NV, not too far from this building.) You can see a video of this costume in action here.

If you used any Pololu products in your Halloween costume or decorations, we’d love to hear about it! Please post about it on our forum and maybe we will feature it here on the blog. Have a Happy Halloween!

Pololu forum user Martan recently released a project called Wireless Servo Widget. The project website says:

Wireless Servo Widgets allow you to control up to 64 slaves, with each slave controlling up to six R/C type servos. In addition, each slave can return 3 analog input values to your Raspberry Pi. Slaves have a range of about 50 feet from the master. Use them for home automation, robotics, model train controls, or whatever you want!

The Wireless Servo Widget is based on our Wixel Programmable USB Wireless Module. Martan wrote apps for the Wixel that use the packet addressing feature of the CC2511F32 chip to implement a round-robin protocol. He also made a Slave Widget Breakout Board which makes it easy to plug servos into the slave Wixels. All of this and more can be found on the Wireless Servo Widget website.

Related products

	Wixel Programmable USB Wireless Module
	Raspberry Pi Model B+

Forum user robo_proyect uses an IR sensor for RC control and an ultrasonic sensor for obstacle avoidance on his Zumo robot.

You can see more about robo_proyect’s robot in his forum post.

Do you like our Zumo Robot?
Does royal blue look good on you?
Do you like T-shirts that have robots on them?
Does the phrase “Push.” motivate you?

If you said “yes” to any of these questions, you might just be interested in our 2013 Pololu T-Shirt!

These royal blue T-shirts feature our Zumo robot and are available in small, medium, large, and extra large. They are made from 100% cotton, pre-shrunk.

Some of our favorite examples of when/where to wear this T-shirt:

• In the delivery room!
• During a mini-sumo competition!
• During an actual sumo competition!
• Inside your local hackerspace!
• At your local robotics club meetings!

You can find these and last year’s shirts in our shirts category.

Halloween is just around the corner, and people are looking to make fun costumes. I recently took a couple of calls from customers who were looking to make Katy Perry-inspired costume dresses with spinning peppermints, following the instructions found on this RPF forum thread. Parts from Pololu used to make the dress included an enclosed 3-AA battery holder with a switch and a Solarbotics GM3 224:1 Gear Motor. However, we suggest substituting our 200:1 Plastic Gearmotor, which has similar performance but no back shaft that needs to be removed.

If you have a cool costume that uses our products, please feel free to share them in the “Share your projects” section of our Forum.

Featured link: http://www.therpf.com/f24/katy-perry-peppermint-dress-completed-i-think-189238/