Today is an absolutely exciting and motivating day for us at onlinelabseries. Recently our creator & founder Sherman, spoke with Daniel Williams, Digital Marketing Director at Samtec Inc., a company that specialises in connectors, cabling & sockets solutions. We won't go into the details of how everything came to be, except that we found common grounds surrounding how we can collaborate and work together that benefits each other.
Samtec Inc. is a global organization with International Offices in more than 24 locations around the globe, including more than 23,000 customers. So you might have guessed just how excited we are that Samtec has agreed to collaborate with us on the onlinelabseries. Though we aren't intending on being a registered corporate entity, we are still a platform that promises to deliver high-quality live streaming lab experiences. On that note, we consider it a huge privilege that we get to partner with brands like Samtec Inc.
Whether its just as a main or accompany product sponsor (partner), we respect and appreciate all the support given by our new and potentially upcoming partner brands on onlinelabseries.
Accompanying Product Sponsors
At onlinelabseries, we welcome not just our primary brand sponsors, but also companies with products that play a immensely important supporting role in projects, research and the development of new ideas. Samtec is one of those brands that we believe projects excellence in what they do and how they do it. Though Samtec may not be featured primarily in a lab series of its own, we foresee the use of Samtec's products throughout many of our lab series (sessions) in time to come.
Samtec is one of those brands that we believe projects excellence in what they do and how they do it.
Sherman, whose also an engineer and maker at heart says this, "Apart from the amazing development boards, electronic components and sensors, cables and wirings are the next most important thing when it comes to designing a potential product, or creating a new prototype. There is nothing more fulfilling than to look at the inside of your enclosure and see neat cables flowing through it (as opposed to messy wires criss-crossing all over each other)."
Gallery
A few comments regarding the Samtec products:
When we looked at the individual packaging of the items, we can't help but feel amazed by the dedication the team has taken to enclose their products. We initially thought that the bubble wrap was just an additional layer of wrapping inside the zip-lock bags, but as it turns out, it's actually fused with the zip-lock bag itself, which really makes it very good for storing small electronic items in the long-run without the fear of accidental damage. (Just curious, in the next shipment/delivery, could you guys actually send me a bunch of those zip-lock bags without any labels pasted? I could probably use them in future giveaways during the lab series. Plus I can keep some for my own use. They are really so useful).
"One of my favourite things about Samtec's products", by Sherman
One of the things that our lab instructor Sherman said regarding the products is how he loves and appreciates the fact that the Pin Headers can be customised to the lengths that is desired. Some of the pins that were ordered followed the standard length as per if you had bought it from any local electronics hobby shop. But the one at the back row in the photo (furthest away) is actually much longer. The reason for that length is so that it can be used for bending and it is also much easier to hook up the cables from Digilent's Analog Discovery 2 & Digital Discovery 2.
"The normal pin header lengths are too short to secure the cable on the breadboard.", mentioned Sherman.
High-Quality Cables
Another thing that we really loved is the high-quality finishing of the cables. (see from our gallery above). From the looks and feels of it, you can almost immediately tell that they didn't spare any expense when it comes to producing high-quality products. What amazes us is that they actually provide free samples for their products as well. Overall, we are truly impressed by their attitude of excellence towards their products. Kudos!
...you can almost immediately tell that they didn't spare any expense when it comes to producing high-quality products
Other Kits & Products
Sherman has also mentioned that there would be plans to request for some of the Development Kits that they have including the FPGA/Optics Development Kits as well as the Component Kits to take a look at what is included and what can be used for future series, lab exercises & projects.
As an engineer and avid researcher in embedded systems & electronics, Sherman also plans to put those products into action in an effort to further the research, implement some experiments and projects at a later time. We promise that we will share more juicy hacking pics when they become available to us.
Plans for Samtec on onlinelabseries
Finally, in closing, in-line with our planned series surrounding MikroElektronika, we have plans to include a few sessions throughout the series where we will create some prototype shields/circuits and click boards that will be integrated with the sockets from Samtec. So you will be seeing a lot more of the products from Samtec in the coming months. Meantime, we did realise that we need to order a lot more cables and pin headers.
Useful Links:
Samtec Picture Search: https://www2.samtec.com/picturesearch/
High-Quality Cables: https://www2.samtec.com/cables
Free Samples: http://www2.samtec.com/free-samples-blog