Tindie

Every time my girlfriend cooks using fresh herbs, I make a comment about how we should grow our own. It’s a nice idea, unless you live in an apartment that rarely gets enough sun for plants. While we could set up something with grow lights, plants are rarely that simple.

That’s why this DIY home farming kit caught my eye. Building your own grow box is expensive and complicated, but this kit allows beginners and advanced enthusiasts to turn existing furniture into a complete grow box.

The kit includes full spectrum LED grow lights, a controller, sensor, and ventilation solution. Everything is controllable via a smartphone, allowing you to set schedules and light dimming to ensure maximum plant health.

The controller board also exposes the GPIOs needed to flash the onboard ESP32, so it’s entirely hackable. Plus the firmware is open source too! This makes adding additional sensors and modules fairly easy.

There are multiple kits available, but those looking for a place to start should check out this kit to give themselves that green thumb they’ve always wanted.

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Magic tricks depend on our ability to suspend disbelief and imagine that what we’re seeing is in fact, real. As it so happens, technology can go a long way towards making these illusions feel closer to real life.

The Phenomenal Levitating Ball is a kit that lets you achieve the impossible using the magic of an ultrasonic standing wave. Inspired by an article in MAKE magazine by Ulrich Schmerold, the kit lets you levitate small and lightweight objects — like a bead of polystyrene — in mid air.

The kit comes as a single PCB with mouse bites connecting the parts. Two ultrasonic transducers point at each other, generating a standing wave for levitating lightweight items. The only thing you’ll need to provide are two 9V PP3 batteries, and you’ll be all set to start levitating!

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Growing up as a gamer came with a certain set of problems unique to the hobby. One such problem was the near-constant need for AA batteries to power my various Game Boy iterations. The dawn of the rechargeable batteries in handheld devices was a bright one indeed.

If you still have a Game Boy Color or Pocket (and honestly, why wouldn’t you?), you can breathe a sigh of relief. This USB power cable for your Game Boy allows you to power the device via USB and the power port on the Game Boy itself.

Now, you can’t power the device with a 5V source directly, so the power cable here also includes a voltage regulator, short-circuit, overcurrent, and overheating protection, along with a 500 mA fuse for addition protection for your device as well. Keep in mind, this won’t charge internal batteries, it’s simply a way to bypass the batteries entirely.

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To this day, I still have those moments where I lose the remote in the couch, leave it on the table, or somehow kick it under the entertainment center. It’s a frustrating experience, especially when you have multiple remotes for your devices.

Universal remotes have always been one solution, but the PUCK v2 Bluetooth Remote lets you swap out everything for something you always have by your side: your smartphone.

This patented Bluetooth 4.2 to infrared remote bridge turns any iOS or Android device into a remote for devices like your TV, sound bar, streaming players, and even multiple devices at once.

The PUCK 2 has a directional infrared LED effective over about 15 feet and a 100-foot Bluetooth range. Place it near the devices you want to control, download the app, and you’re all set.

This new version of the PUCK includes upgrades to memory, a custom Bluetooth 4.2 system on a chip, and better battery life. Over-the-air firmware upgrades also ensure it will only get better over time.

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We all know you need to use strong passwords that cannot be guessed or solved through brute-force attempts, but each new password makes it a bit harder to remember them all. There are no shortage of options out there when it comes to password managers or electronic wallets, but I also appreciate seeing a simpler solution to this all too common problem.

The p@ss™ bracelet is a memory aid you wear on your wrist. It helps you create and recall complex, semi-random passwords. The idea is to combine a few letters of the website encoded from the bracelet with a secret word to create passwords unique to every site.

Now, you may be thinking that walking around with this on your person could give away your passwords. Not so! Not only can you flip it inside out, but the bracelet is only part of the process.

The documentation (available via the store page), includes the “Dial in” rule which means you look up a couple letters from the URL (say, the H and O from hotmail.com) and translate those two into four characters from the bracelet, add that to your secret word, and use it as the password. Your secret word may be the same between sites, but the lookup characters all differ.

Brilliant in its simplicity, the bracelet features a high contrast (white on black) design, large symbols, and it even glows in the dark!

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Bringing a 3D object into the digital space boggles the mind when you stop to think about it, but 3D scanners are everywhere to serve this exact purpose. The problem is they tend to be quite expensive or difficult for beginners to use. The YScanner is here to solve both of those problems.

This cost-effective scanner comes with intuitive software that allows you to get set up and scanning inside of 10 minutes. It has a 0.2mm resolution and utilizes a single USB connection for both power and data. Not only is this simple, but it makes the scanner portable as well.

External calibration boards are not required here either. An internal algorithm handles this aspect as well. Once you’ve finished scanning something, the software allows for simple Anaglyph 3D, VR, or holographic output with a single click.

For those who want the added challenge of assembling it yourself, this version of the kit scores a nice discount, making it even more tempting to those who need a cost-effective and intuitive 3D scanner.

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The Deftaudio MacroPot is one of a new breed of MIDI controllers redefining the application and use of MIDI to create greater expression and advanced hardware control. It’s built using the Teensy/Arduino hardware and programming environments to enable a superb selection of programmable controls, which can be tailored to your unique studio setup.

The MacroPot is designed for ease of use, allowing for multiple configuartions and settings to multiple locations sent in unison, acting like a Macro controller commonly found in software synths – sending up to 5 simultaneous parameters at any one time! The MacroPot can send MIDI notes, CCs, Pitch Bend, Program Changes – with options to alter maximum and minimium parameter range, select MIDI channel, alter the data curve, and route the message to a particular MIDI output.

It comes loaded with features: one rotary dual colour encoder, OLED display, 2 control buttons, audio/cv/trigger/gate output, 4 USB MIDI ports, operational LEDs, one physical MIDI input port and 3 physical MIDI outputs. The MacroPot is available as a kit and fully assembled unit – with options to get the PCB only, the parts without a Teensy or a fully featured kit – a BOM list and assembly video are also available.

Discover more on the MacroPot GitHub page, and check out the explanation and demo video below.

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From the Game Boy to the PlayStation Vita to the Nintendo Switch, there have been some truly great gaming handhelds over the years. As a maker, the concept of building your own is quite enticing indeed.

The MyPi Premium Handheld Arcade Kit is here to put that kind of power at your fingertips. Using this kit, you can build a Raspberry Pi handheld using custom PCBs, a 5-inch display, and even stereo sound, all within a modular kit.

Soldering skills will be required, but everything you need comes in the kit, including a preconfigured micro SD card. The screen size makes it perfect for everything from PlayStation games to older retro titles as well. It can even display video directly to a TV, making it the ideal retro handheld.

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Much like the lights you put on the tree during the holidays, one bad LED can spoil the bunch. To prevent this kind of scenario, it’s important to test, test, and test again. That’s where this handy LED and diode testing tool comes in.

It provides a constant test current and reads out the diode forward voltage. This allows you to identify LED polarity and brightness at various current levels. Since most other instruments lack these features, it’s helpful to have a tool like this one on hand.

Other quality of life features include a large and easily read display, Arduino compatibility, and a lighted power switch with automatic shutoff. The entire product is also open-source, right down to the hardware itself.

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The DM77 Drum Synthesizer is an expressive eurorack module which functions equally well for percussion and effects as it does for drum sounds. It’s based on the Coron DS8 drum synth, but a completely redesigned circuit makes it more of a stand alone device than a clone.

It has a host of parameters to sculpt your sound, with two oscillators, an LFO, a noise source, sweep, release, frequency modulation, and audio input. The core oscillator works at 1V/Octave and is backed up by a second for angular percussive and metallic FM sounds. The audio input opens up possibilities for layering your drum hits with other gear, while the LFO, sweep and releases settings ensure each sound has its own unique character.

The DM77 has inputs for CV and Trigger, with a handy jumper setting for using it as a VCO. It’s 10HP wide and comes with a 2mm deep front panel in Matte Black with white silver silkscreen finish. It’s made in France by Electronic Things…and Stuff who have a whole range of sonic wizardary, particularly if you’re a eurorack owner.

See the development blog here and check out some of the sounds it makes in the demo below:

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