- Hardware
- ADSBee 1090U back in stock
- ADSBee m1090 in production
- EU distribution coming soon
- Something different
- New designs coming soon…
🔧 Hardware
🐝 ADSBee 1090U back in stock!
I’m excited to announce that after a little over a month on backorder, the ADSBee 1090U is back in stock and shipping to customers!
⚙️ ADSBee m1090 in production
ADSBee m1090’s have also been on backorder for a few weeks. Fortunately, our initial volume production run is currently in progress, and we expect to receive stock and fulfill backorders within the next few weeks! In the meantime, ADSBee m1090 Eval Boards are still available, in case you’d like to try out an m1090 module in your project.
🇪🇺 EU distribution coming soon
I’ll wait until we have all of our ducks in a row before making the official announcement, but Pants for Birds LLC is in the final stages of bringing on an official distributor for ADSBee products based in Germany! If you’re looking to get an ADSBee, or parts for an ADSBee, in the EU or nearby regions, this will be a very convenient option in the near future. Stay tuned!
🧮 Something different
In the course of consigning many thousands of parts for ADSBee builds this month, I made a spur of the moment decision to build a new tool for counting SMT components! I call it Dotterboard, because it counts dots (the 4mm pitch holes in SMT tape). It fixes a few gripes I had with existing solutions, in that it works with all widths / pocket depths / transparencies / thicknesses of SMT tape, and can be adjusted to work with various component pitches as well.
The whole thing is open source, with a write-up on my personal website, a repo with source code and design files on GitHub, and a video explaining how it works on my YouTube channel (embedded below).
I’ve created a #dotterboard channel on our Discord server in case people are interested in discussing the design or building their own, and I’m toying with the idea of spinning a PCB for the front panel and MCU, to save people the trouble of wire wrapping or soldering their own device. If you want to build (or buy) one of these, I’d love to hear about it!
👀 New designs coming soon…
Pants for Birds has some new designs in the pipeline that will complement the ADSBee 1090U in two different areas of operation. One product will focus exclusively on extreme low power and minimal size solutions for UAS and lightweight aerial vehicles, while the other will be tailored towards general aviation applications.
These new designs will draw heavily upon the existing codebase built for the ADSBee 1090U, and will be a driving force for adding many frequently requested features to the unified ADSBee 1090 firmware (such as GPS receiver integration and a proper web GUI for the ADSBee). Two talented individuals have joined the Pants for Birds development team to bring these products to life, and I’m excited to introduce them to the community someday soon. In the meantime, we have a lot of code to write (and boards to build)!