Components & Parts / IC & Transistors

Need to add analog inputs? This chip will add 8 channels of 10-bit analog input to your microcontroller or microcomputer project. It's super easy to use and uses SPI so only 4 pins are required. We chose this chip as a great accompaniment to the Raspberry Pi computer because it's fun to have analog inputs but the Pi does not have an ADC. We have a tutorial and code...

When you need to switch a lot of power, N-channel MOSFETs are best for the job. These FETs can switch over 60A and 30V and are TO-220 packages so they fit nicely into any breadboard or perfboard. Heat sinking is easy with TO-220's, but because of the very low Rds(on) of down to 0.009 ohms (depending on the Vgs - check the datasheet), you can get away with no...

Add another 16 pins to your microcontroller using an MCP23017 port expander. The MCP23017 uses two i2c pins (these can be shared with other i2c devices), and in exchange gives you 16 general purpose pins. You can set each of 16 pins to be input, output, or input with a pullup. There's even the ability to get an interrupt via an external pin when any of the inputs...

Add lots more outputs to a microcontroller system with chainable shift registers. These chips take a serial input (SPI) of 1 byte (8 bits) and then output those digital bits onto 8 pins. You can chain them together so putting three in a row with the serial output of one plugged into the serial input of another to make 3 x 8 = 24 digital outputs. You can chain pretty...

When you need some help driving a lot of LEDs, the MAX7219 is the best friend you could hope for. Many of us know that if you want to control a lot of LEDs, you'll want to use multiplexing, a technique that lets you control 64 LEDs (say) with only 16 pins (8x8). The annoying thing about 'plexing is that you need to use 8 power transistors (or a power register/latch,...

Transistors are powerful little electronic switches, and when our little NPN transistors aren't power enough for your project, we have been known to use these beefy TIP120 Darlington transistors. Great for whenever you need to control medium to high-power electronics such as motors, solenoids, or 1W+ LEDs. We find them so handy, they come in a pack of 3! Each...

Transistors are powerful little electronic switches, and we really like these NPN transistors whenever we need to control medium-power electronics such as small motors, solenoids, or IR LEDs. We find them so handy, they come in a pack of 10! Each transistor is a general-purpose amplifier, model PN2222 (same pinout as the 2N3904), and has a standard EBC pinout. They...

This here is a 10 pack of the classic 1N4001 power blocking diode. These are good for reverse polarity protection (put it between your DC power jack and circuitry to avoid a negative-voltage that would zap your delicate electronics), kickback protection (place across your solenoids, relays & DC motors to safely discharge the spikes generated by the coils),...

When you need to amplify, filter, add, or otherwise manipulate analog signals you'll certainly want an operational amplifier at your side. This is our favorite hobby op-amp, which we use in our kits! It's DIP package so very easy to work with on a breadboard or perfboard. It has two amplifiers inside. It can run from voltages as low as 2.7V and up to 6V. It has rail...

Bring in some muscle to your output pins with 8 mighty Darlingtons! This DIP chip contains 8 drivers that can sink 500mA from a 50V supply and has kickback diodes included inside for driving coils. This will let your little microcontroller or microcomputer power solenoids, DC motors (in one direction), and unipolar stepper motors. Please note, this is an 'open...

Add another 8 pins to your microcontroller using an MCP23008 port expander. The MCP23008 uses two i2c pins (these can be shared with other i2c devices), and in exchange gives you 8 general purpose pins. You can set each of 8 pins to be input, output, or input with a pullup. There's even the ability to get an interrupt via an external pin when any of the inputs change...

Add a bunch of high-power outputs to a microcontroller system with chainable shift registers. These chips take a serial input (SPI) of 1 byte (8 bits) and then output those digital bits onto 8 pins. You can chain them together so putting three in a row with the serial output of one plugged into the serial input of another to make 3 x 8 = 24 digital outputs. You can...

Level shifting chips let you connect 3V and 5V devices together safely. This chip is similar to others in the shop (such as the 74LVC125) except this one is particularly good at converting 3V logic up to 5V. This is in demand, especially when connecting some 3V devices such as the Teensy 3 to NeoPixels! Just power the 74AHCT125 with 5V, it will detect 3V logic...

The VS1053 is a multi-format audio codec chip, loved by many for its simplicity and power. CODEC stands for "Coder & Decoder" and that's pretty much what this little chip does - it can decode digital audio files such as MP3, FLAC, AAC, OGG, and WAV as well as encode audio into digital formats (right now only WAV and OGG are supported for encoding). For many small...

When you need to switch a lot of power, P channel MOSFETs are best for the job. These P-FETs can switch over 60V and 25A (with proper heat-sinking) and are TO-220 package so they fit nicely into any breadboard or perfboard. Heat sinking is easy with TO-220s, but because of the very low Rds(on) of down to 70 mOhms (depending on the Vgs - check the datasheet) you can...

Ah the esteemed LD1117, who amongst us has not used this popular low drop voltage regulator? This big chunky regulator will help you get your 4-15V battery or wall adapter down to a nice clean 3.3V with 1% regulation. Perfect for just about all electronics! This is the TO-220 version, with up to 800mA current capability, and has internal current limiting + thermal...

Need a nice little 3.3V regulator? We rather like the very-low-dropout L4931 from ST! This little guy will help you get your 4-20V battery or wall adapter down to a nice clean 3.3V with 2% regulation. Perfect for just about all electronics! This is a TO-92 package version, with up to 250mA current capability, and has internal current limiting + thermal shut-down...

Ah, the venerable 7805, who amongst us has not used this popular linear regulator? This big chunky regulator will help you get your 7-35V battery or wall adapter down to a nice clean 5.0V with 2% regulation. Perfect for just about all electronics! This is the TO-220 version, with up to 1.5A current capability, and has internal current limiting + thermal shut-down...

You have some electrons over here, and you want them over there but you don't want the electrons from over there to be able to come over here? That's what a diode is for, these are directional current valves and have the benefit of being waaay smaller than vacuum tubes. Classic 1N4148's are great for any kind of small signal (not power!) rectification. Use them all...

Need a nice little 5V regulator? We rather like the very-low-dropout L4931 from ST! This little guy will help you get your 5.5-20V battery or wall adapter down to a nice clean 5V with 2% regulation. Perfect for just about all electronics! This is a TO-92 package version, with up to 300mA current capability, and has internal current limiting + thermal shut-down...

Run two solenoids or a single DC motor with up to 800mA per channel using the super-simple L9110H H-bridge driver. This bridge chip is an 8 DIP package so it's easy to fit onto any breadboard or perfboard. Each chip contains one full H-bridges (two half H-bridges). That means you can drive 2 solenoids or a single DC motor bi-directionally. Just make sure they're good...

Sometimes you feel low, and sometimes you feel high - cause your logic levels are opposite to what they should be! But this easy-to-use inverter chip will flip that frown upside-down. This chip is spec'd to run at 5V but we've run it at 3V just fine. Power it by connecting up GND and VCC to your desired output logic level. High-level inputs can be as low as 2V and...

You have some electrons over here, and you want them over there but you don't want the electrons from over there to be able to come over here? That's what a diode is for, these are directional current valves and have the benefit of being waaay smaller than vacuum tubes. Classic 1N4148's are great for any kind of small signal (not power!) rectification. Use them all...

A voltage detector is handy for projects where you want to make sure your microcontroller doesn't run at a low voltage. For example, say you have a Feather Huzzah running on a lipoly battery every few minutes. Eventually, the battery runs down and goes below 3.3V, so the voltage to the ESP8266 core is too low, and could cause a lockup or corrupted data. Or maybe your...

According to The Internet, 95% of electronic projects can be done with an op-amp or 555 timer chip. We're not so sure about it, but the 'triple nickel' (as we like to call it after we've had a gin&tonic) does come in handy for many simple analog or digital circuits. The classic part number is often referred to as the "NE555", and here we've got a modern spin on...

Transistors are powerful little electronic switches, and we really like these NPN and PNP transistors whenever we need to control medium-power electronics, such as small motors, solenoids, or IR LEDs. We find them so handy we threw together a mix-and-match bag of PN2222 and PN2907! You get 5 x NPN and 5 x PNP, very handy for your class B amplifier, high or low side...

Transistors are powerful little electronic switches, and we really like these PNP transistors whenever we need to control medium-power electronics, such as small motors, solenoids, or IR LEDs. We find them so handy, they now come in a pack of 10! Each transistor is a general-purpose amplifier, model PN2907, and has a standard EBC pinout. They can switch up to 60V at...

Run four solenoids, two DC motors, or one bi-polar or uni-polar stepper with up to 600mA per channel using the L293D. These are perhaps better known as "the drivers in our Adafruit Motorshield". If you accidentally damaged the drivers in a shield, you can use one of these puppies to replace it. Or you can breadboard something on your own! Each chip contains two full...

Most of our customers love using the Arduino for prototyping, design, and invention but find themselves stuck when trying to connect the Arduino to the latest sensors, displays, controllers, interfaces, etc. as they are almost all 3.3V logic these days. We try to solve this problem by having all our breakout boards be 5V compatible or when that's not possible,...

These little chips are like miniature SSD drives for your electronics. When you don't need something with as much storage as a micro SD card, but an EEPROM is too small, SPI (or QSPI) Flash chips give you on-the-order-of megabytes, with little cost and complexity. We use these chips all the time on our RP2040 and CircuitPython boards to let folks store code and...

Make your own mini MIDI synth with DSP-G1 Voice Chip analog modeling synthesizer by Jan Ostman at DSP Synthesizers. It's a tiny LPC810 chip programmed to read in MIDI streams and make music! The chip reads TTL level serial MIDI data and outputs sound through a 44.1KHz Delta-Sigma DAC. The synth is a 15-DCO structured as 5-note paraphonic with a 24db lowpass filter...

This adorable little DIP chip has a megabyte of flash storage. It's solid-state and less expensive than an SD card, and has more storage than your microcontroller's EEPROM. Perfect for when you want to store or retreive up to 1 Megabyte of data. Use any microcontroller with SPI. This is a 3.3V part so you'll need to power it with 3.3VDC and use a level shifter if...

These little chips are like miniature SSD drives for your electronics. When you don't need something with as much storage as a micro SD card, but an EEPROM is too small, SPI (or QSPI) Flash chips give you on-the-order-of megabytes, with little cost and complexity. We use these chips all the time on our RP2040 and CircuitPython boards to let folks store code and...

Discontinued - you can grab FTDI Friend + extras - v1.0 instead! It's a blast-from-the-past with these FT232BL chips that we found while cleaning out a shelf at Adafruit. We haven't used these for years, having moved to the FT232R and CP210x. Stiiiiiiiiiilllll........with the silicon shortage, some folks may be building very old designs and need some of these ancient...