Tindie

The badgelife phenomenon has produced some truly incredible creations, but perhaps it is the ones that offer interactions with the real world that are the most memorable. Since cats are always popular on the internet, an interactive cat badge makes complete sense.

Enter the Mr. Whiskers Kit. This cat-shaped circuit board includes yellow LEDs that shine from the backside of the board, and it even plays a PWM sound sample when stroked. There are touch-sensitive switches in the head that recognize when someone is petting the cat. These trigger a quiet meowing noise from the piezo speaker.

Building the kit is pretty self-explanatory for the most part as it uses through-hole components. The seller calls it a “pseudo SMD” as it’s easier to solder than a surface-mount design, but harder than your typical through-hole kit.

The end result of this design is an outward facing side of the board that is free from solder joints and thus looks cleaner overall. A clip and pin are also included with the kit if you want to attach the finished badge to clothing or your backpack.

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Until you’ve used a dial controller, it’s hard to imagine how much use you would get out of it. Adjusting the volume, adjusting zoom, these are easy to think about, but what if it could go further? The Ahmsville dial is a new kit that allows you to make your own dial controller modeled after Microsoft’s surface dial.

This Arduino-based controller is great for creatives who want to customize their software and elevate their process by streamlining things and setting shortcuts with the dial. Since it’s based on Arduino, there’s a lot of room for customization as well.

With 4 mappable capacitive touch inputs, you can also connect programmable leds and the included vibration motor.

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An unreliable power grid can be the bane of any software project. I recall plenty of times when I was younger, before the days of Google Drive, where I would forget to save documents and lose progress when the power went out or fluctuated unexpectedly.

Situations like this can result in data loss, corruption, and plenty of lost time. In the case of the Raspberry Pi, shutting down the OS incorrectly can also cause issues. Thankfully, this Raspberry UPS shield offers a solution to both of these problems in one convenient package.

This uninterruptable power supply is powered by a rechargeable LiPo battery and protect your Raspberry Pi running during power outages. It also shuts down the OS if the power is off for more than seconds. It can even restart the Pi when power comes back.

The controlled shutdown will ensure that your SD card file system avoids corruption. A power-down switch also gives you an easy way to shut down the Pi without logging in via ssh or GUI. A simple button press will do the trick.

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The onset of wireless gaming controllers was a big moment for me. For years I lost good gaming sessions to people, dogs, or other animals running by the TV and pulling the system down by the controller cord that snaked its way across the living room.

The NES was long before the time of wireless controllers, but through the magic of hacking we can change that. This Drop-in TX Board and receiver lets you turn your generic NES controllers into wireless variations.

Since the controllers aren’t very big, the seller recommends a 200mAh 3MM thick LiPo from AlliExpress to ensure everything fits. This should get you about 13 hours of game time on a single charge.

Installation instructions will help you modify the controller and solder the leads from the LiPo battery to the board. Once that’s finished, you’re ready to bring the NES into the wireless world.

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In your travels on Hackaday, you may have stumbled upon this project detailing the process of building a vacuum tube experience on a solderless breadboard. Since then, the project has expanded into something larger.

Taking the same approach, this Vacuum Tube Radio Kit allows people everywhere to experiment with this vintage technology. The kit includes a specialized power supply PCB that generates, 30V from a NiMH battery, removing some of the headache commonly associated with these tubes.

It also includes an on-board battery charger that you can connect to a USB cable to quickly recharge the NiMH battery. Some moderate soldering is required, but when you’re finished you’ll have a working radio that can actually receive stations.

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At first glance, the PocketAdmin looks like any other USB flash drive, but this is actually a source keystroke injection device. It was inspired by a well-known USB rubber ducky made by hak5.

The device acts as a keyboard that delivers a programmed payload once plugged into a USB port. This type of functionality is useful for automating sysadmin tasks or performing penetration testing.

PocketAdmin is made from inexpensive off-the-shelf parts, and includes a built-in interpreter which will take text files directly. This removes the need for installing encoder software and converting the .txt to .bin files. Other quality of life features include OS detection that allows you to store multiple payloads and automatically choose the correct one to run. It also acts as both keyboard and a USB thumbdrive, with an integrated memory chip.

The combination of affordable pricing and feature-rich options make this a great way to automate some of your tasks or support pen-testing applications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLGKwaxWykfnYdiQ5hh9QUHoWg9KweIjgR&v=3DPjJ1dWt4I

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Creating a controller for your robotics projects is a lot like managing the remotes in your living room. Things can get out of hand pretty quickly, which is why a more universal solution is very welcome.

Enter PICBOT, a single card that offers easy to develop applications, less setup time, and fewer wires to deal with. It’s powered by the PIC18f5420 Microcontroller. The DC motor in your project lets you drive Step motors with the L298N motor driver, while the HC05 bluetooth module and 2×8 LCD display offers information and simplified controls.

The controller comes fully assembled as you see in the picture. Take a look and see if it’s a good fit for your next robotics project!

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Having lived most of my life in the south part of the world, fireflies have never really been a thing for me until recently. You may have seen some creative designs lately where people create a jar that looks like it houses a firefly, but now there’s a chance to a build your own!

This Firefly Jar solder learning set includes a 10mm LED and tilt switch, along with the necessary components and a small jar. When you finish soldering everything, you can use the jar as a night light and turn it off simply by turning the jar upside down.

Take a look at the video below to see how it looks when everything is finished.

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Portable amplification is a useful way of getting a really great sound out of household devices, and this vacuum tube headphone amp delivers vintage audio warmth with a built-in rechargeable battery – with no need for external power or a power pack. Plug in you iPod, handheld games console or (dare I say it) cassette player for hi-fidelity amplification which looks great and has true 1950s retro sizzle.

This superb amplifier came from a customer request and sounded so good, it  had to be released and available to the world. There are 3.5mm sockets for input and output, with an on-board USB socket to charge the LiPo battery, which can also be done with by AC/DC adapter. The circuitry uses 3.7 volts boosted to 30V required to run the twin triode vaccum tube (or valve) and make any audio input sound gorgeous – with fully stereo sound running through a single tube.

Step away from the digital audio converters for a moment and appreciate the style and sound of vintage electronics – and enjoy re-living your music through it, on the move. This audio box comes fully assembled and tested and ships from Japan by microwavemont see the video below for a quick taster.

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Some of the best ideas happen in the midst of working on a project. This was true for Jason at Evil Genius Labs when he was hand-wiring a layout of addressable RGB LEDs and realized that there was a better and more professional way to accomplish the task.

Thus the Nano RGB LED Race Gate Controller was born. This shield/breakout for Arduino Nano v3 makes it far easier to control addressable RGB LEDs. These include models like the WS2811, WS2812, and the SK6812.

Once you have the board in hand, you’ll need the Arduino nano, an LED strip, 470 ohm resistors, tactile button switches, a 3D printed case, a white PEX pipe, and white floral foam. Everything is listed on the store page that you’ll need to assemble the finished project.

The video below shows everything working when it’s all set up.

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