Tindie

So many devices these days use SD cards, and often during development (or even day-to-day use), you find yourself moving SD cards back and forth between SD card readers and the devices they belong to. 3D printers are a prime example of this: you create your design, then you have to grab the SD card from the printer, attach it to your computer, copy over the design, and then plug it back into the printer. This is prone to errors as well as potential filesystem issues if not ejected properly. But with the SDWire SD card interface, you can now modify the contents of an SD while it’s still connected to the device that uses it!

The interface connects to a computer via a USB-C cable, and using the software that comes with the device (called sd-mux-ctrl) you can dynamically change which device is able to read the SD card at any moment. Simply switch it from the device to the connected PC, copy files or flash an OS image to the card, and switch it back!

Not only can this be used to copy files to devices like 3D printers, but it can be attached to a single-board computer like a Raspberry Pi, and you can easily flash new OS images or transfer files to and from the board. It’s also useful if you are designing or testing an SD card interface and want to run some automated tests. I’m sure there are even more use cases I’m not thinking of — if you have any ideas, let us or the developers know!

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The Tetris Gym V5 is a custom-created NES cart which stacks (pun intended) lots of features on top of the original Tetris game.

These carts feature a brand new custom-designed PCB so the edge connectors won’t have 30 years plus of wear and tear, meaning you shouldn’t have to blow in the edge of this cartridge for many years to come! The PCB has added save RAM with battery backup meaning you can now keep save states and high scores saved between sessions.

It’s a multi-region clone, which means that whether you have an American NTSC or a European PAL console this cartridge will work on your old NES. It’s also been tested successfully to work on clone consoles and the creator, Ericicx tests each assembled cartridge on their NES and on their RetroN1 clone console.

Wrapped up in a custom plastic shell with a lovely label design we think this cart is worthy of display. It’s amazing that after so many years there is still a dedicated fan base and new releases; not only creating clone consoles but cloned console content. We’ve also written about Ericicx before as they are the creator of the goofy foot controllers which are an awesome alternate input device that can give you an edge in gaming and in particular, competitive Tetris!

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The Flipper Zero has skyrocketed in popularity since its launch. For those not in the know, it’s a small, customizable hacking tool meant for penetration testing, RF sniffing, RFID card spoofing, and just about any hardware hacking you may want to do. The brilliant part is it’s fully extensible, allowing modules to be added through a GPIO port on the device. This CC1101 Mini Extension board increases the RF capabilities of the device in the sub-GHz bands.

This is a popular extension for the Flipper, as it increases the transit and receive range of the device drastically — from 150 feet transmit to 450 feet! Keep in mind, however, that many of these extension modules don’t work with the standard firmware. This isn’t a big deal as there are multiple competing firmware that all have great community support and are constantly adding new features. For this board, you’ll need to flash your Flipper with one of the Unleashed, Roguemaster, or Xtreme firmware packages.

So what’s there to do in the sub-GHz band? People always focus on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which are at 2.4/5GHz. But there’s a lot that happens below 1GHz. The 868/915MHz ISM bands (depending on where you live in the world) are available to play with; you’ll also find all of the common LoRa frequencies down here, too. Most car key dongles transmit and receive on 315MHz, and of course, there’s a lot of other mysterious digital data floating around down there.

So if you want to give your Flipper some more splash, pick up this CC1101 GPIO board and get hacking!

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The RP2040, the beating heart of the Raspberry Pi Pico and Pico W, has become a very popular target for creating development boards, many of which we’ve seen on Tindie shelves or written about here. The pHAT 2040 takes, in essence, the Pico experience, and turns it into a Raspberry Pi Zero, or other Raspberry Pi pHAT add-on board.

You could work directly with the pHAT 2040 programming via the USB-C connector but of course one of the use cases for the pHAT is that you could program the RP2040 directly from a Raspberry Pi without the need for any additional hardware or cables. We’d also imagine that you could potentially replace the role of a Pi Zero and use the pHAT 2040 to drive the rich variety of Pi Zero hats that are available.

We’re pretty sure that the pHAT 2040 is the hardware equivalent to the Pico; there’s no mention in the product listing of the attached flash chip, but a quick search of the IC legend taken from the product photo shows it is a 128Mbit chip so is well up to spec. We like that the pHAT 2040 has both the boot select and the reset buttons on board making flashing, programming and power cycling this board simple and straightforward.

So if you want to create a totally custom Pi Zero hat, or you want to use an existing Pi Hat with the RP2040 — look no further!

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Do you have a friend who you don’t get to see often enough? Maybe you’re in a long-distance relationship or have a parent or grandparent living alone. These Wi-Fi-connected hearts are a cute way to let someone know you are thinking of them! Simply press the button, and the matching heart will glow. It will slowly fade over time, so you can tell how long it’s been since someone pushed the button.

These boards are powered by ESP8266 modules and run off of 5V via USB. Each lamp comes with a lamp code, which is used to connect a pair of hearts together. You can even connect multiple hearts together in a group, where pressing any one heart will light all the others! Setup is done using the captive portal feature of the ESP8266, meaning you simply connect to the WiFi network it broadcasts and then enter the credentials for your home WiFi network. Additionally, you enter the lamp code assigned to you (and anyone you want to be connected to!) and you’re off and running.

If you’ve got someone on your mind, and you want to let them know you’re thinking of them, send them a heart and connect your hearts together! Aww, isn’t that just cheesy and adorable…

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Being able to verify or calibrate multimeters is something that used to be available only to large labs that could afford to send their equipment off to a metrology lab. But in recent years, amateur voltage standards have become more and more accessible. This small, credit-card-sized voltage standard is good for up to 4.5-digit multimeters.

It’s very portable and can run using battery power. The batteries are charged via USB-C. Four different voltages are selectable: 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10V. The unit is designed around the venerable Analog Devices AD584, which offers 15ppm temperature stability from 0 to 70C. This design uses the AD584T, which has a base accuracy of +/-15mV in the 2.5V range. Pretty good for testing your average handheld multimeter!

If you’ve wanted to see how accurate your voltage measuring equipment is, this is a great way to do spot checks. If you have a calibrated multimeter that can characterize the reference in this device, you could even use this device to calibrate 4.5-digit multimeters with very high accuracy! The datasheet for the AD584 goes into quite a bit of detail on how the device works and how to get the best performance out of it — definitely worth reading if you pick up one of these!

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My grandfather was an engineer, and his house had all sorts of neat gadgets in it. One of the things that stood out to me as a child was a lamp you could turn on and dim just by touching a pad that sat on the desk! So since then, I’ve always thought dimmable lamps were cool, especially touch ones. Well, this LED touch controller board from Blinkinlabs features a really cool little chip called the RH6618 that does exactly what I remember my grandfather’s lamp doing!

The RH6618 is essentially a touch controller on a chip. It does capacitive touch sensing and can be configured to respond in one of three modes, depending on how the jumpers on the board are set. This chip perfectly emulates the way my grandfather’s lamp worked — tapping it quickly smoothly fades the lamp up to the last brightness it was set at. Tapping it again quickly fades it off. Holding the pad down while it’s on slowly fades the brightness up, then down, until you reach the brightness you want. It then remembers this level and will turn on at that level the next time it’s used.

My nostalgia for this lamp notwithstanding, this is a well-created board, with input fusing and reverse polarity protection. It can come with terminal blocks pre-installed, which would make adding it to an existing LED lamp a cinch. If I can find a lamp that has a similar shape to the lamp my grandfather had, I might try and re-create it using this board just for nostalgia. The datasheet for the RH6618 is in Chinese, but online translation software does a fairly good job and it has all the detail needed to work with the chip. Blinkinlabs have also released the schematic and design files, which is great! They even explain how to increase the maximum LED current, should you want to. I hope we get to see some cool lamp designs using this board!

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Perhaps in the running for the most pocketable keyboard and trackpad combination, the new BB Q20 from Solderparty is an absolute must if you’re looking to build a tiny cyberdeck, have a keyboard on you at all times, or indeed if you just miss the thumb feel of your old Blackberry phone!

You’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve seen this before as Solder Party created the earlier BBQ10 PMOD keyboard, however, they’ve listened to the community, absorbed the feedback and the BBQ20 is the result. This is now a compliant USB HID device, meaning you can plug it in via USB C to most of your devices — Linux, Windows, MacOS, Android, IOS, and single-board computers. You’ll have a keyboard and trackpad connected immediately. On top of this, the unit now has a Qwiic/Stemma QT connector and I2C meaning it can be built into most projects. There are even Arduino and CircuitPython libraries linked from the product page to get you up and running. You can also hold down the “end call” button while connecting USB to put the onboard RP2040 into bootloader mode so you can tinker with your own firmware.

We love that this product works straight out of the box, but also has huge depth should you want to incorporate it into an embedded project or indeed if you want to use it as a learning and tinkering platform. Kudos to Solder Party for getting OSHW certification. You can check out all the design files, including the step files for the gorgeous injection-moulded enclosure, via the documentation and design file links on the product page.

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To celebrate Arduino Day this weekend we decided to highlight some of the coolest Arduino-compatible boards on Tindie! There’s a lot to pick from, so if we miss your favourite board, hit us up on Twitter or Mastodon to let us know! Make sure to take a look at the over 200 events happening in many communities tomorrow; plus, there will be a day-long live stream on the official Arduino website and their social media channels.

CANduino v3.1

This board from Tindie seller MassiveButDynamic is essentially an Arduino Nano with a dedicated CAN transceiver, for all your automotive hacking needs! As new revisions have come along, upgrades like USB-C, reverse polarity protection, skinnier board layouts and more have made the CANduino better and better! If you’ve ever wanted to get into playing with a CAN bus, this is a great tool to start with.

ATtiny3224 Arduino

Give your next Arduino project some added power with this updated chip! Instead of the standard ATmega328p, this board packs one of the new tinyAVR-2 family chips. Differential 12-bit ADC, custom logic blocks, more SRAM, higher speed — what’s not to love? And with the megaTinyCore bootloader, it’s fully supported in the Arduino environment with library compatibility to boot! You can take your existing projects and give them 4MHz more speed or a higher resolution ADC in seconds.

The Breadboard Arduino

If you find your Arduino is constantly paired with a breadboard, why not make it simpler and attach your Arduino directly to the breadboard? This Arduino UNO-compatible board supplies regulated power to the breadboard power rails, as well as your choice of male or female headers depending on what kind of jumpers you use. Having the Arduino physically connected to the breadboard is nice; everything stays together and plugged in without strain on the jumpers!

The Tiniest Arduino – PicoDuino

Barely the size of a USB port, this miniature Arduino-compatible board manages to pack an RGB LED and I2C breakout pads onto the tiny board. All I/O pins of the ATtiny85 are broken out, and there are positions to add surface mount buttons to the RESET and PB1 pins on the back. It’s able to act as a USB HID device, so it can emulate a mouse or keyboard. For such a small board, it’s capable of big things!

ATMegaZero

This Arduino Leonardo-compatible board takes on the same form factor as the Raspberry Pi Zero. By using this layout, it means you can potentially use many of the Pi Hats designed for the Zero with an Arduino-compatible board! This unlocks a whole new array of sensors, displays, and interface boards of all kinds. It even has an SD card slot and a flat flex connector for connecting displays. Plus the 40-pin header is very nicely colour-coded for quick reference. It even has a connector for adding an ESP8266 board for WiFi capability!

Well, that’s barely scratching the surface of the many Arduino-compatible boards on Tindie, and we didn’t even get a chance to look at the absolute ocean of shields in every conceivable shape, size and purpose. If you’re into Arduino, we bet you’ll find something you’ll love! Celebrate Arduino Day by dropping the hashtag #ArduinoDay2023 and saying hello to the Arduino team online. This is the 10th year of Arduino Day, so make sure to check out all the cool projects and hacks floating around this weekend!

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I am a firm believer in not reinventing the wheel- if there’s already a tool, circuit, or part out there that I can integrate into my projects, I’d much rather buy it than spend the time and material costs to try and arrive at the same solution someone else has already found. Maybe this approach is why the Touch Sensor Light Controller jumped out at me, offering a quick and affordable plug-and-play solution to DIY dimmable lighting.

The Touch Sensor Controller is perfect for adding an odd touch control to your lighting project, letting you turn just about anything conductive into a dimmable input device. The board also includes some safety features such as a 0.75A fuse and reverse polarity protection up to 30V. It is as clean and simple as PCBs come- with clear silkscreening, openly-shared documentation, and quick-connect terminals, integrating this PCB into your lighting projects is fast and easy.

This board comes to us from BlinkinLabs, which is based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. They have a huge shop with many products for LED work, including some incredibly helpful LED strip repair boards. Throw some of these dimming light controllers and some of their other products in your cart and get your next light show on the road!

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