Tindie

Although there are mountains of useful and interesting products on Tindie, there are a few you instinctively know that you need as soon as you see them. OK, perhaps you don’t really need a GPS cube that is just over an inch cubed with a nice OLED display on the side, but this OLEDiUNO device is the kind of gadget that feels like The Future™ and begs you to make up an excuse to get one.

As seen in the video, the cube has a screen to tell you your current speed and elevation, as well as the number of satellites it’s receiving and the time/date. It can also display the distance you’ve traveled, and if you mark a target, tell you how far you’ve wandered away from your starting point.

While it doesn’t record position data for later use, if you need that functionality, this device’s creator, Pheonix Cnc, Oleduino, also offers a GPS tracker that can save data to a micro SD card, though without a display. Then again, adding your own data logging seems a great challenge and might end up being that “reason” you find to pull the trigger on an order.

So what’s so exciting about this cube? Well, first of all, it’s tiny, and just looks like fun to mount on any sort of moving vehicle. Personally, I could see this as an excellent bicycle speedometer/odometer, as it does have a simple trip counter that stays in memory when turned off. With this in use in that application, you wouldn’t need to hook up a magnet and sensor on your wheel/fork, and no calibration would be required. Also, wondering how far it is to get back home/to the trailhead? Now you can at least know how far it is in a straight line!

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We’ve all seen people playing with fidget spinners, and Tindie has quite a few available, including those outlined in this post from May 2017. On the other hand, I’ve noticed a disturbing lack of flying fidget spinners. Actually, what I noticed is that after perusing a few YouTube videos claiming to have a flying spinner and/or spinner drones, none of them were actual spinners that could be flown like a drone. After some experimentation, I came up with what I call the SpinnerDrone, seen in the video below:

Yes, that’s right, it flies, spins, and was actually pretty easy to make with an 1/8″ piece of polycarbonate and a CNC router. In fact, something similar could likely be 3D printed, however — accurately or not — I tend to trust polycarbonate more in this situation. Also, I don’t own a 3D printer, so perhaps this contributes to my bias. Regardless, these new frames are available here, and when combined with parts from a Hubsan H107C, and the requisite central bearing — along with zip ties, hot glue, and a little wiring work — you can produce your own flying fidget spinner drone for hours of entertainment!

Of note is that the body can be used with the bearing only as a clear spinner, or the parts from a Hubsan H107C drone could be attached to the center without even using a bearing. The polycarbonate frame weighs in at 4.5 grams without zip tie landing gear, where the Hubsan’s frame H107C weighs in at 10 grams not even including the camera. Though this is yet to be tested, it would make a great high-performance frame, shedding a relatively enormous amount of weight, while forgoing the protection of a “conventional” frame!

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For those of you reading this that are generally quite clumsy, favoring electronics that use screw terminals over everything else, then perhaps you should stop reading here. Yes, today I’ll be talking about surface mount devices, commonly known as SMDs. According to the Collin’s Lab video seen below, “The process is pretty straightforward once you get used to the scale,” and “It’s actually quite relaxing.”

Though you may be skeptical about this claim, Collin does give an excellent introduction to the process. He notes that you’ll need a good soldering iron with a fine point pen, tweezers, and a magnifying device, as well as a solder wick and/or solder sucker to do this well. Relaxing or not, using these components does have some important benefits, such as allowing you to use devices that aren’t available as through-hole components, as well as letting you save space on your board.

If you are ready to give this technique a try, the I Can Surface Mount Solder board from Makersbox is meant as a “gentle introduction” to this technique. It comes with a board in the shape of a heart, as well as several components to solder on. It also comes with a small section of solder wick which should be helpful. If that seems too easy for you, check out the SMD Challenge, which is designed to “punish the Hack-a-day folks who love such frustration.” It comes with more components, and no solder wick, presumably because you already have one if you’re going to attempt to take this board on.

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Though you qualitatively know that when you look at the sky it’s (normally) blue, dirt is brown, and grass is green, the way we normally describe these things is actually quite vague. To precisely describe what you’re seeing, you’d want to describe what intensity of each wavelength of light that combines into our environment’s brilliant array of colors using a device called a spectrometer.

Besides obvious uses such as matching paint or tuning RGB LEDs, this specific color data can be used in physics, chemistry, and even astronomy to analyze the chemical composition of stars and planets. So how do you integrate this kind of versatile sensor into your equipment? The C12880MA MEMS u-Spectrometer and Breakout Board is one interesting solution. As seen in the video below, it’s designed to plug directly into an Arduino Uno’s female headers.

The video shows it viewing the world around it through a Processing-based interface on a computer, as well as the response when a conventional and infrared (IR) light source is shined directly on the sensor. Of note is that it is able to sense light within the 340-850 nanometer wavelength, which mostly falls in the visible light range, but extends into the unseen IR spectrum as well.

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Wooden Bits clock fitting in nicely with kitchen decor

Depending on your level of hacking expertise, when you look at a binary sequence of ones and zeros, at some point you’ll need to do a little bit of math in order to convert those digits into the decimal numbers that “normal” people use. 0000 (0) through 1001 (9) shouldn’t be too hard with a little practice though, meaning reading a binary clock should be very attainable for most of us, and using one would be a great way to practice your skills.

In order to implement this unique device, while keeping it normal enough to blend in with everyday decor, John Wittington made the Wooden Bits – Wall Binary Clock, seen in the video below. The outside is made with laser-cut wood, with a kerf-cutting technique to snake the horizontal wood around the edges for a very interesting look. Time display is accomplished with a custom Arduino-compatible board with a real-time clock module, and lighting is via WS2812 programmable RGB LEDs.

The video explains and shows off the build nicely. Of especial note if you’re only vaguely familiar with this tech, is that he gives a nice outline of how this type of clock works starting at around 1:25. As he explains, the digits are actually four binary representations of the decimal hour and minute digits. So this type of clock could be classified as a sort of binary-decimal hybrid. On the other hand, few people can count to 59 in binary at a glance, so this representation is much more user-friendly than a fully binary device!

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If you’ve been following this blog for around a year, you may remember the tiny USB hub PCB called the NanoHub that was discussed here. It was likely useful in many situations, you may notice that there aren’t any actual connectors — the user will need to solder them on as needed.

This gives it a huge amount of versatility, however if you simply want a single micro USB connector to “magically” become two standard A connnector sockets without any extra work, then this Microhub device by the same Tindie seller, Muxtronics, is pretty much the smallest thing that you’ll be able to find.

Looking at this, it’s interesting to note that this device is very close to the smallest USB hub that would be possible to make. While there has been a lot of physical innovation on the “B” connector that plugs into your device, the A side has physically stayed the same. There have been important upgrades, though these aren’t physically obvious, and physically each remains compatible.

In this case, since space on the A side isn’t generally at a premium, this is a very good thing. You can assume that if you have a USB hub and plug, you can connect them (perhaps after reversing the direction several times) and transfer data. That being said, reversible USB C connectors on the other side are a huge improvement over their predecessors, but given the multi-stage evolution to this point, this form factor means you may need to keep several plugs around.

As technology changes, this type of issue often presents itself. Do you keep things standard or innovate? Sure, compatibility issues are no fun, but on the other hand, things must sometimes be left behind to move forward. It’s not fun in the short term, but would you like to go back to DOS, Windows 3.0, or serial ports? I’d have to guess the answer is a resounding “no!”

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Whether you love, hate, or don’t quite understand fidget spinners, they are extremely popular right now. Perhaps you think they’re neat, but have been waiting on something to really push them over the edge in your mind. Well here’s an interesting idea, a Programmable POV (persistence of vision) fidget spinner.

You may have seen different POV displays on bicycle spokes or the like that light up LEDs in sequence in order to trick your eyes into thinking there is a consistent shape in the circular area. This fidget spinner works in exactly the same way, and can display words or even stats like spin time or how fast it’s going in RPM. It comes as a kit, so it’d be possible to swap out LEDs for another color if you like.

Of course, this isn’t the only POV spinner in town. You can see Sean Hodgins assembling and explaining his own 3-lobed spinner in the second video below, with more details on Hackaday.io. He even notes that he may have these available on his store eventually, which would be a welcome addition to this site. Cleverly, he uses two magnets inside the bearing cap to detect how fast the device is spinning, and in which direction.

Of course, these aren’t the only spinners on Tindie, check out this list of normal spinners, or even the flying SpinnerDrone for more interesting options!

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If you’re just getting started with electronics, perhaps you will pick up an Arduino Uno or other prototyping board with which to experiment. These can be really excellent learning tools, as you can plug it in, program it to blink its built-in LED, then add all kinds of accessories for sensing and control. On the other hand, that can be somewhat inconvenient if you don’t have a library of parts built up over years of tinkering, and you want to expand things right now.

A new alternative to waiting, going to a local electronics store (if you can find one), or simply ordering interesting components at random, would be 2016 Hackaday prize entry, evive. The heart of this device is an Arduino Mega board, however, it adds such useful accessories as a battery, TFT screen (which can be used as a mini oscilloscope), real-time clock, a tiny breadboard, and accommodations for several different wireless modules. Of course, that’s just a fraction of what this platform offers—check out a list of its features here.

The device has been in development for some time, and we’re excited to see it available on Tindie by itself or as a starter kit. Both look like great options for experimentation and making, and we wish the evive team lots of success with their new venture!

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As evidenced by Tindie’s extensive sound section, coming up with new and interesting electronic audio devices is a widespread hacking pursuit. There are lots of interesting concepts out there, but here’s a new one, the T. Chordstrum pocked-sized chord strummer.

With this instrument, you simply select which chord you’d like to play via a series of buttons, then run your fingers across a series of eight pads to play notes electronically, like a guitar. The device can be powered by a Teensy 3.2 for line level audio output or a Teensy LC for MIDI capability only. As seen in the video below, it’s capable of making some very pleasant music:

If this seems a little familiar, the same concept is used in the — entirely mechanical — autoharp. As explained by Andrew Huang in the second video, autoharps use a series of pads to mute certain strings as you play, forming the desired chords. Though this should be easy to play in theory, they contain 36 strings, all of which need to be in tune. Contrast that with, say, a ukelele’s 4 strings, and you’re talking about a massive amount of prep time for a performance!

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If you want to make your open source credentials official, a great way is to get an Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) Certification. The process to get your Open Source Hardware Certificate allows you to self-certify that you meet the OSHWA definition of open source.

When browsing electronic products like those found here, you undoubtedly see the words “open source” pop up. On the surface, this implies that the designs for the device are available somewhere, and that (in theory) you could build it yourself. If you’re the one selling this product, perhaps you have some vague sense that you qualify, but aren’t quite sure what that means in practice. The goal of the Open Source Hardware Certificate is to lessening confusion, and specify exactly what it means to call a product open source hardware.

The nice thing is that you don’t need to be a lawyer to understand the definition and certification process. There’s a great FAQ, but if you’d like a more “interactive” introduction to this standard, and the open source hardware concept in general, consider attending the 2017 Open Source Hardware Summit on October 5th in Denver, Colorado.

Tindie is a sponsor of this year’s Summit, along with several other organizations in our unique niche, so you’ll be in good company! You can buy tickets to the event here.

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