First, I was at radioshack, about to drop 5 bucks a pop on some crappy little relays, when a voice inside my head screamed out. "A dollar saved is two dollars earned!" At least, according to something I read on the internet about the subject ( I will try and find the link and post it here). Anyways, I quickly checked online and found the same relay for about .50$ so I scoffed at the radioshack employees and made my exit.
I got home and went to all electronics, and just as I finished my shopping list, I stopped and thought some more... I was on a roll you see... I thought, "Why stop here man? Why use mechanical relays when I am sure we can find some solid state motor drivers somewhere..." I started by googling some chips, but then I landed on this brilliant idea!
Sparkfun. I went to sparkfun, and located my motor drivers in about 3 minutes. Along with that I found a good graycode encoder, and some light sensors. Everything I need to finish this project! Not only that, but most of the stuff from sparkfun is centered around interfacing to the Arduino to begin with, making my work even easier (and more fun).
Here's what I bought:
| Rotary Encoder | $2.95 | 1 | $2.95 | |
| Light Intensity to Frequency IC | $5.95 | 1 | $5.95 | |
| Motor Driver 1A Dual TB6612FNG | $8.95 | 1 | $8.95 | |
| Light to Frequency Converter - TSL235R | $2.95 | 1 | $2.95 | |
Apart from this stuff, I saw tons of other tasty items for future projects.
Sparkfun, ftw!
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