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Our huge Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale is almost here!

Posted by Ben on 20 November 2018



Greetings and Happy Thanksgiving from Pololu! Our biggest sale of the year is almost here, and like last year, we are offering different deals and doorbusters every day, starting tomorrow and running through Cyber Monday. Most sale products will be available with free US shipping, which should make it easy for you to place multiple orders throughout the sale to get in on the different deals. All of the sale details along with Wednesday’s specials are up on the sale page now, and don’t forget that the Wednesday doorbusters start at 6 AM Pacific Time!

Be sure to check the sale page daily for new deals, and you can also sign up for our mailing list to receive sale updates and exclusive offers.

New RoboClaw and MCP motor controllers from Basicmicro

Posted by Ben on 17 November 2018
Tags: new products

RoboClaw 2×60AHV, 60VDC Motor Controller.

We are excited to offer eight new powerful motor controllers from Basicmicro (formerly Ion Motion Control):

The two new RoboClaws bring our total selection of those to nine versions. Unlike the other RoboClaws, which have a maximum operating voltage of 34 V, these new RoboClaws and some of the new MCP controllers can work up to 60 V and deliver a continuous 60 A or 120 A per channel, making them the most powerful motor controllers we carry by far.

MCP233 Dual 30A, 34VDC Advanced Motor Controller.

MCP263 Dual 60A, 34VDC Advanced Motor Controller.

MCP2163 Dual 160A, 34VDC Advanced Motor Controller.

The six MCP products are from Basicmicro’s rugged new line of MCP Advanced Motor Controllers, which are optionally programmable via a built-in scripting language and support a variety of interfaces, including USB serial, TTL serial, RS-232 serial, CAN bus, RC hobby servo pulses, and analog voltages. Here is a summary of the key features of the MCP:

  • Simple bidirectional control of two brushed DC motors
  • 10–34 V or 10–60 V operating supply range, depending on controller model
  • 30 A to 160 A maximum continuous current output, depending on controller model
  • Channel bridging allows control of a single motor with double the current capability
  • Automatic current limiting reduces duty cycle when temperature exceeds 85° C
  • Six communication or control options:
    1. USB serial interface (virtual COM port)
    2. 3.3 V logic-level (TTL) serial interface for direct connection to microcontrollers or other embedded controllers
    3. RS-232 serial interface
    4. CAN bus interface supporting CANopen protocol as master or slave device
    5. Hobby radio control (RC) pulse width interface for direct connection to an RC receiver or RC servo controller
    6. Analog voltage (0 V to 5 V) interface for direct connection to potentiometers and analog joysticks
  • Automatic control switching with user-defined priority settings
  • I²C interface accessible by user script
  • Up to 20 user-defined input pins for control, feedback, or scripting, depending on controller model
  • All inputs are 15 V tolerant for interfacing to industrial devices such as PLCs
  • Up to 8 user-defined open-drain output pins (40 V max) for driving auxiliary loads, depending on controller model
  • Multiple feedback options for PID closed-loop control:
    • Speed or position control with quadrature encoders, up to 21 million encoder pulses per second
    • Position control with analog encoders or potentiometers
    • (Open-loop control with no feedback also available)
  • Programmable with built-in user scripting language
  • Screw terminals for quick connect/disconnect
  • Configurable via USB connection and PC software
  • Regenerative braking
  • Tolerates high-speed direction changes
  • 5 V BEC can power external logic
  • Battery monitoring and under-voltage cutoff protects batteries from over-discharging
  • Fully enclosed for protection
  • Conduction plate for cooling on bottom of enclosure

Polo-BOO! Halloween Sale

Posted by Ben on 10 October 2018


Looking to make an awesome Halloween costume or impressive yard display? Well, we want to help, so we’re having a sale through Wednesday, October 24 on hundreds of items you can use to make things that will impress or terrify your friends and neighbors! Visit the sale page for more information, and if you are in need of some inspiration, check out our Halloween-tagged blog posts for some sample projects.

By the way, we’d love to see more about the amazing things you all are building with our products, so please don’t hesitate to share them with us!

New-ish product roundup: 24 more QTR arrays, MP6500 carriers with soldered headers, and a pressure sensor

Posted by Ben on 20 September 2018


We’ve been hard at work over the past week putting up lots of new (but perhaps familiar-seeming) products. Here’s a quick recap:

24 new QTR reflectance sensor arrays

Our rapidly growing selection of new QTR sensors now includes high-density (HD) versions with 3, 6, and 9 channels, and medium-density (MD) versions with 2, 3, and 5 channels.

Each of these is available with two sensor options—traditional QTR and high-performance, low-current QTRX—and with analog or digital (RC) outputs, making 24 new products in all. Check out the QTR reflectance sensor category to see our full selection, which now stands at 68 varieties, and don’t forget to use our QTR introductory promotion to get 50% off any of these new sensors! (Limited to the first 100 customers who use coupon code QTRINTRO, limit 3 per item per customer.)


MP6500 stepper motor driver carriers with soldered header pins

We have received a number of requests to make the MP6500 stepper motor driver carriers we released earlier this year available with the header pins already soldered, so here they are! These carriers are available in two versions, one with the current limit set by a potentiometer, and one that allows for dynamic current limit control through a pair of digital inputs, and both are now available with soldered header pins:

For a more detailed introduction to these drivers, see our original MP6500 carrier product announcement.


LPS25HB pressure/altitude sensor carrier

This is a minor update to our existing LPS25H pressure sensor carrier, which is now on clearance. The new version uses the same PCB as the original, hence the “©2014” on the silkscreen. and replaces the LPS25H with the newer LPS25HB, a drop-in replacement with the same register map and performance. Most people shouldn’t notice any difference using the new version compared to the old one, though ST says in their LPS25H upgrade guide (200k pdf) that the LPS25HB has better moisture resistance and reliability. That said, please keep in mind that we have not characterized the moisture resistance of the rest of the carrier, and moisture is generally something we recommend you keep away from all of our electronics.

Visually, the LPS25HB is easy to distinguish from the LPS25H as the former has a shiny silver square patch on the package while the latter has a more noticeable hole:

We have already started making our AltIMU-10 v4 and AltIMU-10 v5 IMUs with the LPS25HB, and we did so without using new product numbers or updating the pictures or descriptions because this change should not affect those products in any meaningful way (we have a new product number for the updated basic carrier since the specific sensor on there is pretty much the whole point of the product).

On a related note, we still have a lot of the even older LPS331AP pressure sensors/digital barometers left, so we have put the LPS331AP carriers on even more clearancy clearance!

New products: 5-channel QTR HD reflectance sensor arrays

Posted by Ben on 10 September 2018
Tags: new products

QTRX-HD-05RC Reflectance Sensor Array, front and back views.

We now have five-sensor versions of our new high-density QTR reflectance sensor arrays. Like the versions already released, these new modules are available in analog and RC configurations and with two different sensor types, so this post covers four new products:

QTR-HD-05A Reflectance Sensor Array.

(Medium-density versions with 3 sensors on an 8 mm pitch will be available soon.)

We expect these to be the smallest arrays that still offer independent control of the odd and even emitters, which gives you extra options for detecting light reflected at various angles. For more information on our new QTR sensor family, you can see some of our previous blog post about the versions we have already released:

Don’t forget to get in on our QTR introductory promotion! Be one of the first 100 customers to use coupon code QTRINTRO and get any of these new sensors at half price! (Limit 3 per item per customer.)

Labor Day weekend sale

Posted by Ben on 31 August 2018


We are having a Labor Day sale all weekend long with site-wide discounts of up to 25%! Check out the sale page for more information. Please note that we will be closed Monday, so orders placed after 2 PM Pacific Time today (Friday, August 31) will be shipped on Tuesday, September 4.

Independence Day Sale

Posted by Ben on 3 July 2018


In celebration of Independence Day (July 4th), we are discounting selected products by up to 25% and offering an upgrade to the next best price break for everything else in our store. Please note that we will be closed Wednesday, so orders placed after 2 PM Pacific Time on Tuesday, July 3 will be shipped on Thursday, July 5.

For more information, including all the discount coupon codes, see the sale page.

Happy 4th of July!

Save on all active Pololu-brand products, now through Tuesday

Posted by Ben on 25 May 2018


Over the next few days, we’re welcoming summer by discounting all active Pololu-brand products, which is almost everything we make. If you’re about to have a lot of free time on your hands, why not spend some of it building a robot? And if you’re going to be as busy as ever this summer, why not unwind by building a robot?

Check out the sale page for details!

Please note that we will be closed on Monday for Memorial Day, so orders will not ship until Tuesday, May 29.

We're having an Arduino Day sale, now through Monday!

Posted by Ben on 10 May 2018


Arduino Day is this Saturday, May 12, and in celebration, we are having a big sale on many of our Arduino-related products, including Pololu-made Arduino shields and Arduino-compatible A-Stars and robots. For those who aren’t necessarily enamored with the Arduino environment but are excited about AVR microcontrollers, you can program these products from AVR Studio or other environments using our AVR Programmer, which is also on sale. And because of the awesome way we don’t include motors with the Balboa or Zumo Robot kits, we are also putting those on sale so you can get all the parts for your robots at a discount (we’ll let it slide if you just want to stock up on motors independent of any kind of Arduino application)!

The sale has already started, and it runs through Monday, May 14.

Performance graphs for our Micro Metal Gearmotors

Posted by Ben on 5 April 2018
Tags: motors

After spending many months conducting thousands of motor tests, we are excited to finally publish performance graphs for our micro metal gearmotors (5MB pdf). In some sense, this datasheet is the culmination of a decade of work to improve our processes and better characterize our gearmotors, and we have come a long way since those early tests clamping motors in vises and making them lift ever heavier bags of steel bearings. Here is one of the setups we are using now:

Micro metal gearmotor undergoing dynamic performance testing.

The key thing is to be able to apply a measurable, variable load while the motor is spinning, which we do via an electromagnetic brake coupled to a torque meter. A combination of programs running on an A-Star 32U4 Prime test controller and a PC automatically sweep the load through a sequence of points while measuring parameters such as speed, current, and torque (plus internal test rig currents, voltages, etc).

Micro Metal Gearmotor performance test setup.

These performance characterizations are the latest example of our continued commitment to being the best source for this popular form factor of gearmotor. You might see similar-looking motors elsewhere, but no one comes close to our offering, from the quality of the gears to our exclusive long-life carbon brush options to the overall breadth of our selection (over 100 versions!), all in stock for shipment the day you order.

Please note that we are still in the process of updating the specifications on our website to match new, more accurate data from the performance graphs, so if you notice discrepancies between what is in the datasheet and what is on the product page, go with the datasheet.

If you have any questions or feedback about these graphs or if there is additional information you would like to see available for our motors, please feel free to contact us (or just leave a comment below). And if you are wondering about graphs for our larger gearmotors, don’t worry, those are coming! (If you need something before those datasheets are done, just let us know and we might be able to get you preliminary data for a particular gearmotor.)

Performance summary table from Micro Metal Geamotor datasheet.

New Products

Ribbon Cable with Pre-Crimped Terminals 10-Color M-F 36" (90 cm)
Motoron M2T550 Dual I²C Motor Controller (Header Pins Soldered)
Zumo 2040 Robot (Assembled with 75:1 HP Motors)
ACS724 Current Sensor Carrier -10A to +10A
4.2-15V, 3.3A Fine-Adjust Step-Down Voltage Regulator D30V33MAS
6V Step-Up/Step-Down Voltage Regulator S8V9F6
ACS724 Current Sensor Carrier -2.5A to +2.5A
3pi+ 2040 Robot - Hyper Edition (15:1 HPCB Motors), Assembled
3.3V Step-Up/Step-Down Voltage Regulator S8V9F3
DRV8434 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier (Header Pins Soldered)
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