Tindie

When starting out with electronics, you likely used an Arduino Uno or other similar board with built-in serial communication capabilities over USB. This is a great intro, allowing you to avoid certain connection hassles. At some point though, you’ll want to use a dedicated device to act as the go-between from your microcontroller to PC. These can be had for a few dollars—with the appropriate wait time, and from a supplier you’ve never heard of. Or they can be had in the ~$20 range from more well-known sources within a few days.

Any of these options will be good enough for most. If, however, you use otherwise high-quality tools on your workbench, you may want a correspondingly solid serial module. The COMBOX serial interface, based on the FTDI232 chip, aims to fill this role. It features a heavy Alumide enclosure, as well as 4mm test sockets for TX, RX, and GND. 5V or 3.3V modes are available via a selection switch, and LEDs give visual feedback as to what is going on inside. The device comes fully assembled.

As seller Trinology puts it, a “professional workshop earns a solid product.” You can see a nice 3D illustration of the device’s features via the video below:

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Why use WiFi when a physical link can do the job? Using a wired link is often more reliable and removes some security risks associated with wireless access. And what better cable for the job than the ubiquitous, time-tested RS-232? This dual-outlet metal junction box contains RS-232 control electronics to give any device that can speak serial control over the output.

WiFi devices have increased exponentially in popularity over the past 5 years. A larger and larger percentage of the population have WiFi controlled lighting, heating, appliances, and even door locks. The convenience is hard to beat, but wireless communications that aren’t properly secured can be exploited by an attacker. In most domestic use cases, the results would be more annoying than catastrophic. In an industrial setting, on the other hand, the consequences could be much more severe depending on the equipment being controlled. Wireless automation has made progress in industrial equipment, but many factories and workshops still prefer to use wired connections.

RS-232 was introduced all the way back in 1960, but wasn’t standardized until 1969. It can support near real-time speeds, making it ideal for applications that require low latency communication, such as power switching. Though modern computers often don’t have DE-9 serial ports, USB to DE-9 dongles are cheap and commonplace. Some ATX motherboards still have serial ports, and PCI express serial port cards are another option as well.  Serial communication has been tried and tested for over 50 years and is extremely reliable when implemented properly.

This power box may not find its way into the average consumer’s home, but it might be really handy to have in your electronics lab. You could set it up to power all your test equipment, and have it remotely turn them on when needed. It could also see use in amateur radio, where remote usage of base stations has grown in popularity. This box would make an excellent way to power up a radio via computer control.

Whatever the use cases you are thinking of, this box can handle up to 2200W! For safety, we would suggest sticking to under 1200W, especially on 120V. Pretty beefy though! The metal case is an excellent upgrade over common plastic junction boxes. It looks rugged and built-to-last!

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Do you like art, in combination with trying to fit small pieces together that very often don’t fit? Yep, I’ve just described jigsaw puzzles. These classic games have kept people entertained and frustrated for hours, following a pattern that’s laid out on the box.

For a real challenge, you can always try doing a puzzle like this without the final picture available. At least you can still attempt to match up the colors. If that’s somehow not frustrating enough, why not try your hand at the Completely Clear Jigsaw Puzzle by Kismet Wireless. These are available in 150, 70, and 48-piece versions, and a picture of what its supposed to look like is available… by staring at any window.

Early testing produced such reviews as, “Why would you do this?” and “Update: I found the corners,” so you too will certainly have an experience to remember when attempting the puzzle. On the other hand, the parts are laser cut out of clear acrylic, so they should be quite durable if you do end up tossing a piece or two in exasperation. Though good luck actually finding them again!

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As someone who grew up in the state of Florida, the thought of earthquakes never really crossed my mind. Florida is not located near any tectonic plate boundaries so earthquakes very rarely occur… but it was a different story when I moved to Virginia. While Virginia isn’t exactly known for earthquakes, they do happen here.

Which brings me to this helpful little product on Tindie: the Earthquake sensor. The Earthquake sensor product is a breakout board based on the world’s smallest seismic sensor, the D7S. The D7S is a vibration sensor created by Omron and composed of a three-axis accelerometer. This board breaks out all of the important pins of the D7S into a 9-pin header. There are also three status LEDs on the breakout board, one for the power supply, and one for each of the INT1 and INT2 pins.

It’s an I²C device for connecting to Arduino or any other microcontroller. The SET pin can be connected to a button if you want to ability to click the the different functions of the sensor manually. The board is fully mounted, you only need to solder the pin header.

Be sure to check out the earthquake sensor for your next project of seismic proportions!

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What’s the best way to practice your soldering skills? Your face of course! Well not really, but you should practice on the Face Soldering Kit.

The Face is a soldering kit that provides practice for novice and intermediate electronics enthusiasts. There are two different boards to practice on, one for the LEDs and one for the control circuit, all powered via USB. The creators, Maker’s Corner, recommend that users start with the controller board, which is the easier of the two to solder.

The Face includes seven different facial expressions that react to sound, changing depending on where that sound is coming from and how loud it sound is. It often looks like it’s looking at you when you are speaking, which is a pretty awesome design.

What are you waiting for? Go level up your soldering skills on The Face!

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ESP8266 modules are amazing devices, allowing you to connect via WiFi and control “whatever” you want. However, as they produce only low-voltage DC power, you’ll need a relay board to activate lights, fans, or anything that requires much more power than a simple LED or two. As a solution to this challenge, appropriately named Tindarian “Universal-Solder” is selling a WEMOS D1 mini DIY kit, that allows it to control 4 relays on a custom PCB.

This setup would allow you to control up to four items from the comfort of your phone (via downloadable code that you can modify as needed). The device can also be expanded via I2C, allowing it to interface with other microcontrollers, for either control of external devices, or perhaps for sensing duties. Imagine, for instance, if when you walk into your shop, that the lights are adjusted to your previous setting, the fan turns on, and the soldering iron starts to heat up via a PIR sensor. Or perhaps you’d like to start an AC unit installed in your garage, via your phone or computer, a few minutes before entering the previously-sweltering chamber.

Of course, this isn’t the only relay board listed on Tindie. For more channels, and reliable operation, here’s an 8-channel solid-state relay board, and another that gives you 16 channels if you need a massive amount of solid-state control.

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Did you know there are rechargeable coin cell batteries? They usually have the same number but begin with LIR. So a rechargeable CR2032 is called LIR2032 and a rechargeable CR1220 is an LIR1220. But recharging isn’t as simple as giving them some juice.

Rechargeable lithium batteries should be charged in different stages. And if the battery is less than 2.9V it will also need preconditioning. Charge controllers make this easy, and for the examples mentioned before you can use the ChargeMe: LIR2032 or ChargeMe: LIR1220 battery chargers.

The battery should first be trickle charged, which brings the battery voltage up to a safe level for a full charge. Then the constant current full-throttle charge should occur, followed by a final constant-voltage trickle charge to top off the battery.

The ChargeME is the perfect product for recharging your coin cell batteries. This product’s features include a smart three-stage charge controller, a current monitor, an undervoltage lockout, and preconditioning of low voltage batteries. It also includes two LEDs to represent the power and charging status of the battery, one green LED for Power On, and one red LED for Charging. The power is automatically cut off when the battery is fully charged.

Charging time is approximately four hours, but depends on the battery’s capacity. It is a standard 5V USB powered device with a micro USB connection.

Now you’re all set to recharge your batteries and continue on with your projects!

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Distortion is one of the mainstays of heavy metal, rock and electronic music – who doesn’t love the sound of a meaty overdriven guitar chugging around your speakers?! The LEDRover is a distortion unit for eurorack which offers THREE types of distortion, one of which uses all time classic germanium diodes for the authentic thick vintage sound!

This modular overdrive weighs in at 8HP of your synth real-estate, making it pack a weighty punch for its size. It comes with distortion from a blue LED (Compressed harmonics with rich drive), red LED (punchy and crunchy) and the aforementioned germanium diodes for a really crisp raw metal edge. Each distortion type has a drive feature to alter the effect to taste, with control coming via CV or from the big red knob!

The LEDRover has 3 boost levels, a drive colour knob for tone control and control for input gain and output volume. Its design is well thought out, with two inputs and one output available on the front panel – as well as a depth of only 25mm.

The LEDRover will bring back authentic vintage tones to your modular adventures! It’s Sold by VoicAs who are based in Israel, producers of the demo video below:

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Recently, I wrote a post about this awesome replica PCB for the Commodore Amiga 500 series. That same designer has now released a similar replica PCB for the Amiga’s older sister, the Commodore 64!

The “SixtyClone” comes in two different flavours, depending on which era of 64 you are trying to repair (or create from scratch!). The older design uses chips which are slightly easier to get, but has a less reliable design (according to Commodore enthusiasts). The newer design reduced the number of logic chips, but some of the chips — such as the less common 2x32kb RAM chips — are much more difficult to obtain. Despite this, it is considered the superior design with less complexity and higher reliability.

Why offer these boards in the first place? As many vintage computers age, they tend to have capacitors and/or backup batteries which leak, causing corrosion damage to the PCB. Sometimes it’s possible to clean and repair, but in many cases the corrosion has eaten through internal copper layers, and repair can be a hair-pulling exercise in futility. Having a brand new, tested, and reliably made replacement board can make refurbishing older machines much easier and less frustrating!

Look at that beautiful design and silkscreen!

As he did with the Amiga replicas, Bob’s Bits has improved the silkscreen design, making it easier to read and with better placement and naming of component labels. He has also made a few small tweaks to the layout, in order to improve a few small design elements that were likely rushed on the Commodore 64.

As a bonus, his Tindie store also sells optional extras to help repair a damaged or old 64. He stocks resistor and capacitor packs which have every capacitor and resistor needed to populate the replacement board. As of this writing, the older style board is sold out, but there are still quite a few of the newer design available. Keep checking back to see when new stock comes in!

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Using MIDI to send and control devices has been the standard since the late 1908s.You can find out all about its magical applications from the comprehensive MIDI guide I wrote; but for now, we’re going to look at Midify, a new experimentation Lab designed to connect MIDI hardware to your computer and other external controllers. It fits into a normal sized breadboard, and allows for a multitude of devices to be connected, controlled and interacted with over MIDI.

The Midify is USB powered (to around 500mA), has 4 simultaneous MIDI inputs and outputs and a total of 20 inputs and outputs for microcontroller tasks. This makes it possible to create thermins, sequencers, and all manner of sensor controlled sounds, using LDRs, pressure sensors, light sensors, touch switches, IR sensors and more.

Using a 16Mhz programmable controller the unit can be loaded with custom software using any PIC Microcontroller Programmer. So if you’re in the mood to take MIDI into the real world and back, then Midify is certainly going to rock your computer world!

The Midify is sold by Zero Crossing  who are based in the USA. See the video below to watch implementation of custom software, sending MIDI notes to a Piano plugin.

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