CORRECTION: The MAX11131BOB is $12.95. My bad!

This kit has a nickname – BOB – short for Breakout Board. And while the MAX11131BOB is essentially a shield for Arduino or mbed host boards, it doesn’t short on anything else, especially for designers of sensor systems.

The MAX11131 on the BOB is a 16-channel, 12-bit successive approximation register ADC with a sampling rate of 3 Megasamples per second. The devices are highly accurate, to within one least significant bit and thereby guarantee no missing codes. Its analog input channels can be configured as single-ended inputs, fully differential pairs, or pseudo-differential inputs.

However, the real headliner of the MAX11131BOB is a feature of the ADC called SampleSet. SampleSet is a user-programmable analog input channel sequencer for multi-channel applications that allows you to adjust the sample rate for each input channel individually when using the device in external clock mode. In other words, you could be sampling at a very low rate on one channel and much faster on another, depending on the interface you’re using.

But, instead of counting channels sequentially from one to six, let’s say, SampleSet allows you to move between various channels from one to 16. So, for example, you can be sampling at one rate on channel five and then hop over to channel 11. This is possible thanks to a couple of special functions available through SampleSet, namely conversion start and interrupt commands.

All in all, if you’re designing data acquisition and control systems, instrumentation, portable or battery powered devices, or any other type of equipment that could benefit from high-speed sampling, you’ve found a leg up on the competition with the MAX11131BOB. Even if you’re dealing with harsh environment applications you should give this a look, as the ADC – not the board, mind you – supports a wide temperature operating range of -40 to +125º C.

And all of that for just $12.95.

But 11 of you – that’s right, ten more than normal – will be waiving that $12.95 fee. We have 11 BOBs behind me that we’ll be shipping out to those who win this raffle, which you can enter by filling out the form linked to on the screen and in the description below.

And, as an extra-special-something, I’ll also throw in this MAX32625 mbed platform to one of those lucky 11 so you can start sampling right out of the box.

Enter the raffle below:

Best of luck, and we'll see you next time on Dev Kit Weekly.