Tindie

The Mac, launched in 1984, was a huge watershed moment in computing history. Though GUIs and mice had been done before, Apple was the first company to really bring those concepts to computer users of all types. And those computers (plus their many follow-ups) are still loved and cherished by their owners. Taking care of vintage computers can be difficult – mechanical parts can fail, power supplies can damage ICs, and hard drives screech to a halt. But, with this awesome Optical ADB Mouse replacement board, you can keep your ADB mice going without worrying about the old ball mice mechanism.

Some collectors might hold their nose at the thought of getting rid of the ball in the mouse, but the reality is spare parts are near impossible to get, and if your ball mouse is failing or outright broken, optical replacement boards like this are a great way to extend the life of your hardware while retaining the original look and feel!

Plus, for those of us who were around before optical mice (man that statement makes me feel old!), ball mice were, generally speaking, never really that precise or smooth unless maintained constantly, and used with a really good quality mousepad. When optical mice came around, we ditched ball mice as quickly as we could. They do have a certain nostalgia, but that nostalgia can quickly fade when trying to remove wound-up hair, dirt, and dust from the rollers inside.

So if you’ve got an ADB-compatible machine (from the original Mac all the way to some of the NeXT computers and beyond) and want to restore your mouse, this is a great way to do so!

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There’s a lot of choices to be made these days when it comes to picking out which microcontroller and development board you might choose to tinker with and learn on. Arduino based boards and projects represent a great option with their mature environment and there massive user community and collection of online resources. If you want to bypass a pure Arduino board you could always jump straight to an Arduino-based project. A good example could be the Wizzard Game Development platform.

The Wizzard has an ATmega328p on board, the same chip at the heart of many Arduino boards. The ATmega328P is programmable on the Wizzard via the 6-pin ICSP connector; the board just uses the USB port for power. The Wizzard has 9 NeoPixels on board, with each NeoPixel having an associated momentary switch.  Across the bottom of the device there are 3 other momentary buttons for select, enter and reset and there is a small onboard buzzer for simple audio output.

Included on the Wizzard are numerous game examples: Tic Tac Toe, Simon Says, and other simple games that use the buttons and the NeoPixels. Each example is written in the Arduino IDE and the code is available on the project repository linked from the product page. One thing we love is that there is an STL for a printable cover for the device, and the cover uses the manufacturers’ panel edges which, when left on the Wizzard, create a simple way to attach the cover. Quite genius!

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Macropads have become an indispensable tool for many computer users, especially those doing CAD/CAM work, artists, programmers, and power users in general. Four years ago, dekuNukem released the original duckyPad, which has seen a large, dedicated user base because of its build quality and ease of use. Now comes the new duckyPad Pro: a redesigned and updated version with all sorts of new features!

It has all the basics you’d expect: hot-swappable keys, rotary encoders, USB-C, etc. But it also packs a bunch of new features based on feedback from the original duckyPad. It uses duckyScript, which gives you much more control than typical macropad firmware like QMK/VIA, Bluetooth connectivity for wireless usage, up to 64 profiles for almost four thousand macros, and an expansion module to allow foot pedals and other input devices. The whole design is 100% open-source, and hacking is encouraged — they even provide a tinkering guide to help you hack your duckyPad Pro!

If you’ve been wanting to get a macropad, or want to upgrade to a much higher quality one, then the duckyPad Pro is likely to be the best macropad released this year.

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So many modern microcontroller systems use serial communication both for programming, like the Arduino, and also for user input. In the past, serial connections were done with a current loop instead of voltage sensing. So if you want to control a current-loop device with modern tech, this ASR33 Teletype controller in combination with external relays will work great!

Modern serial traces its legacy all the way back to the Murray-Baudot code and Depression-era teletypes. Today it uses either TTL-level signalling or RS-232 signalling (5V logic and ±12 to 18V respectively). However, before RS-232, serial data was sent through a current loop. A constant 20mA (or, on even older systems, 60mA) flows through both ends of the link,  and interrupting this current is how each bit is sent. It was set up this way because of the electromechanical nature of teletypes. The current in the loop would directly drive coils to move selectors into position. CuriousMarc’s YouTube channel has an excellent series of videos showing both the full restoration of a WW2-era teletype as well as showing how current loops work to send data.

This Teletype controller has some neat features built in, including a copy of Colossal Cave Adventure, one of the very first text adventures ever created! It runs at the correct 110 baud for the ASR33 and can be connected to over WiFi for remote printing. You could use it to display messages sent to an MQTT topic, for example. For a video showing the ASR33 which this device was specifically built for, check out the embedded video below!

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I’m lucky enough to own a few 3D printers, and largely in this modern era, they work really well without too much tinkering and optimisation. Most of the time my printed results are close enough and I don’t get too hung up on calibration. When I do need higher dimensional accuracy one of my starting points is to check the diameter of the filament and then calibrate my extrusion and flow rates accordingly. It’s quite interesting how variable a nominally 1.7mm filament can be. The bdwidth is a device you can place in the filament path and it will constantly check the filament width and report the filament motion; combine it with a Klipper-controlled machine and it will automatically adjust the flow rate to constantly match the filament properties.

It’s an interesting device. Powered via USB, the onboard screen gives live feedback to the user. Its optical system can return filament dimensions to an accuracy of +- 0.015mm using a high-resolution CCD sensor. It also has the more common filament sensor functions built in such as jam detection and it will detect run-out situations and again can link to Klipper to pause the printer on detection of these conditions. There are options to connect this back to your machine via USB or I2C, and the USB port can also be used to update the firmware. Over on the repository, there are instructions on how to install this into Klipper which looks really straightforward and a Klipper config file addition is also supplied.

So if you want to optimize your prints just a little bit more, check out the bdwidth and let us know what you’re printing with it!

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We’ve seen so many square and circular LED arrays — and we certainly love glowy LED panels of all shapes — but when we spotted this triangular panel we immediately started thinking of the nifty shapes you could build with a few of them! From a giant hexagon (the bestagon) to long rectangles to zigzags along a wall, there are all sorts of neat decorative designs just waiting to happen.

With 144 WS2812B/W LEDs on-board, these are about as densely packed as you can get them. The true white LEDs also greatly add to the brightness and colour range that can be generated. JST connectors on the back allow easy daisy-chaining, with additional surface mount pads you can solder directly to or possibly fit a bigger connector.

Show triangles some love and give this RGBW-packed board the limelight! Or, uh, make it generate the limelight. We’re not sure which.

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I’m getting old! While I still own a couple of skateboards and longboards they are gathering dust and merely looking in their direction can make my knees ache in anticipation! I’ve never played with electric skateboards but have seen a few about and they look incredibly fun, and for some journeys, a decent transport option. In operation, E-Skateboards tend to have a handheld remote and a receiver unit attached to the board with the drive mechanism. Improving the remote experience is the mission of the Z.Mote and it’s clear to see it’s had a lot of thought put into the design process.

This particular Z.Mote is an iteration of an earlier remote with more emphasis on styling as well as tweaks to the already impressive functionality. Over on the product page, they describe the work getting the hall effect sensors and throttle to behave well and hint at the amount of CAD iterations getting the PCB and the physical case perfect. On board are addressable RGB LEDs which clearly show the connection status and there is a handy light bar feature which adds a torch-like function to the Z.Mote.

It all adds up to a well-engineered controller, with the additional lighting feature being useful and also a safety feature making the rider more visible. The product looks fantastic and from the product reviews it’s clear that customers have enjoyed using the device. Though it is supplied fully assembled, you’ll need to source your own 102050 Lithium-Polymer battery and you can choose which connector type you would like fitted to the receiver so you can be up and skating with style in no time.

Remember, whenever you’re skating, always wear a helmet and appropriate safety gear! You don’t want to be someone wishing you had worn a helmet, you’d rather be the one thankful you did.

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LED filaments have been around for a while now and have been increasingly spotted in all kinds of projects. They offer some really nice properties in terms of light output and physical flexibility, plus they are pretty easy to drive. One of the original industry use cases for them was making retro light bulbs that mimic older filament bulb aesthetics, therefore it’s really cool to see the RetroLite, a retro-looking modern seven-segment display using them.

Project creator Eean discusses over on the product page that RetroLite is a development continuing from an earlier product: the InfiDig, a similar project, which, under certain conditions, had some small issues with flickering. The form factor has changed a bit too, taking advantage of card-edge connectors which can be used with the proper connectors, or you could cut a slot into your PCB and solder them directly in place! With the proper slot width, you could easily get a tilted display for easy reading.

The RetroLite has moved away from Charlieplexing and now features an onboard direct drive approach to address each LED filament. The result is an easy-to-use device that only needs addressing for changes and makes the creation of numbers, letters, and custom displays even easier. It uses the classic 74HC595 shift register, so there are lots of libraries and example code to get you up and running.  You can drive these displays via an SPI bus, but it is equally possible to drive them from any GPIO.

Supplied fully assembled, their great instructions and documentation are over on the repositories linked on the product page, and the design files are also available. As such we expect to see these cute chain-able glowing displays popping up in lots of projects.

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If you haven’t come across the M5Cardputer before don’t be fooled by the header image of this post. That keyboard is usually a full qwerty setup. The M5Cardputer is an ESP32-S3-powered device with lots of hardware wrapped around it. There is Bluetooth and WiFi, a diminutive but crisp 1.14″ TFT display, a MEMS microphone, an SD card slot, USB-C and much more. It’s a heap of programmable fun and, best of all, it’s around $30. Therefore we are not surprised to see it begin to pop up for resale with custom firmware and modifications for specific use cases, like this excellent 10LC Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) calculator.

RPN is rarely seen in modern calculators but was once a more common option. If you are unfamiliar, in math using reverse Polish notation the operators follow their operands. This means that the conventionally notated “2 + 3 – 1” becomes “2 3 + 1 -“. All operations are based on a stack, and using an RPN calculator is a great way to learn about how stacks work from a practical point of view.

RPN calculators were a hallmark of Hewlett-Packard scientific calculators, and are very collectable, often fetching a few hundred dollars for a good-condition classic. While emulation in software/apps is a good way to explore RPN nothing beats the feel of some real clicky hardware.

With its Xtensa 32-bit LX7 dual-core processor, the M5Cardputer-based 10LC is pretty powerful under the hood. It’s capable of processing 100,000 iterations of a loop in around 10 seconds. The custom 10LC firmware (pre-installed) has font size and colour options as well as optional audible keyboard beeps. The 10LC also comes with custom stickers to add to the M5Cardputer, but as this is a stock M5Cardputer under the hood, if the RPN calculator isn’t ultimately the calculator for you, you’ll find many interesting projects based around this fun little handheld.

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It’s fair to say the RP2040 from Raspberry Pi has swept through the makerverse and become a solid and affordable microcontroller for lots of projects. The chip itself is finding its way onto many independent development board designs, which are getting smaller and smaller. The RP2040 Zero from Waveshare is a variant of an RP2040 board that is so compact it lends itself well to wearable projects. It’s great to see this fabulous little collection of RP2040 Zero wearable cases and mounts appear here on Tindie.

The project creator suggests that these are “nothing fancy” and that you could probably make your own; however, this isn’t easy for those without access to a laser cutter. The upper and lower sections of the cases are laser cut from 1mm microply. The upper panel has two cutout sections which, combined with the flex in the thin ply, form button covers for tactile buttons. There is also a small hole which aligns with the RP2040 Zero onboard LED. Between the upper and lower plywood parts, there is a plastic spacer forming the walls of the cases and also creating the wrist mount loops in the pictured option. There are other options, however. A plain standalone case is available, as well as a case with wings on the rear cover and screw holes for mounting onto your project.

If you have the tools, you might want to create your own case — but if not you might consider one of these well thought out, affordable cases. It might save you a few valuable hours that you can assign to other parts of your RP2040 Zero project!

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