Tindie

If you’ve ever worked with USB as either a designer or during a reverse-engineering effort, you know that it can be difficult to capture USB packets and analyze them. There are some protocol decoders built into oscilloscopes that can decode USB, but often getting the captured packets into an analysis tool like Wireshark is ideal. The tinySniffer USB Packet Capture device can simultaneously capture and pass USB packets, allowing transparent capture and analysis of a USB connection.

The device runs a custom, stripped-down version of Debian called tinyDebian, which is a project originally developed for their ARM single-board computer. After you receive the device, you can set it up for remote usage using Wi-Fi. It’s unclear from the description whether this is required to use the device, or whether it shows up locally as a USB capture interface in Wireshark or as a simple USB to serial device allowing access to the tinyDebian shell. We hope users have the option to not use the remote control software, as this requires registration with their website.

The built-in sniff command seems to be very powerful, allowing automatic detection of endpoint configurations, plus the ability to simulate unplugging and replugging of USB devices. Additionally, it captures all USB traffic, which can then be easily filtered with Wireshark to focus on particular devices, endpoints or packet types. This could be an invaluable tool for any developers who are building a custom USB stack or integrating an existing stack into a project. Issues with USB can sometimes be difficult to track down, and just like with other serial protocols, seeing what’s really happening on the wire can be a powerful debugging tool!

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At Tindie, we applaud makers of all types for creating cool things. We think the creative and intricate is just as awesome as the functional and straightforward. We also applaud makers who attempt to decrease the cost of their projects, as this can enable hackers and makers from all over the world to access tools they otherwise might not have been able to. The jankdek is a great example of some of these principles – a 4×4 macropad with 4(!) rotary encoders, all running on the Vial fork of QMK on an RP2040.

To lower the cost, the case is 3D printed and left mostly unfinished. The keycaps are blank as well, though the rotary encoder knobs are metal which is a nice touch. You can easily remove the case, give it some gentle sanding, and then prep and paint it in whatever custom colour or pattern you want, making it uniquely yours. The keycaps can be customized as well, with stickers or colour coding.

The inspiration behind the project was to create a low-cost entry point into using OBS, instead of purchasing something like the StreamDeck which is famously quite an expensive piece of equipment! The 4 rotary encoders are actually an upgrade over many much more expensive macropads, which usually only have one or two at most. Customization of the jankdek only needs to be done once on a single computer, and then afterward no software needs to be running on the host machine, which is another nice benefit. The included documentation makes getting set up a breeze, and overall we think jank enterprises did a fabulous job!

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Tindie has a lot of really cool synth makers, and we love seeing cool, new designs with all sorts of crazy sounds coming out of them! This FM synth is controllable via MIDI, but you can also do all sorts of modulation effects with the built-in photocells. This gives theremin-like control over various parameters. Audio output is on a standard 1/4″ jack, which makes it easy to get up and running quickly.

It acts somewhat like an analog synth, with the light-based modulation giving almost infinite control over different parameters. The idea was to create a synth module with inputs not commercially available, to allow new avenues of musical exploration and improvisation. You can experiment by using different light sources, like incandescent bulbs, LEDs, lasers, strobe lights, EL wire, etc. All sorts of wild sounds can be made!

Add a 2.1mm centre-positive 9V power supply, or alternatively hook up a 9V battery, and you’re up and running in minutes. Standard MIDI note control is received on channel 0. You can hook it up to a sequencer, MIDI keyboard, digital audio workstation, or any other MIDI device you enjoy using. Make sure to check out the video below to hear the awesome sounds this board makes. Designer Tronicraft recently finished a move into a new lab, and it sounds like we’ll be seeing even more synths coming from them soon!

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Amateur rocketry is such a cool hobby. Anyone interested in space travel dreams of lifting off of the face of the earth, strapped to a huge rocket, going places no human ever has before. For the majority of us average humans, though, we probably won’t get that chance. So the closest thing is launching small rockets into the atmosphere and gathering data and images! concreted0g has been into rocketry for a while and wanted to create a rocket body kit that would be easier to ship than typical tube-body rockets, which can often get damaged in shipping. Thus, the HEXA was born! It is a flatpak kit that is printed out of PETG and PLA, pre-scored and easy to assemble. You can then easily attach your rocket motor, parachute, and controller systems!

The flatpack kit as received

Testing has shown the rocket performs very well and is just as easy to assemble and ship as imagined. It uses 18mm Estes style motors, though because the project is open source (and undergoing OSHWA certification!) you can easily re-print any part if you want to modify it for different motors or fins. Assembly is done with superglue and PVA glue, which leads to a very tough — essentially plastic-welded — rocket body. The tested B6-4 motors are good for up to 113 grams, and the rocket with the motor attached comes in at 65 grams, leaving some capacity for you to add small sensors or wireless telemetry.

So, if you want to get into amateur rocketry, this is a great place to start! concreted0g has some excellent documentation that goes along with the source files, and I know from personal experience that he would be more than willing to help you out if you have any issues – he’s excited about rocketry and I know would welcome more hackers into the hobby!

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I realise I’ve been writing here on the Tindie blog for a while now! So much so that I now look forward to new products from specific makers, none more so than Bradán Lane. Bradán has for numerous years produced the eChallengeCoin series, which has been a spectacular set of coin-sized boards which have contained quite astonishing puzzles, games and text adventures featuring the excellent Sara Cladlow character, a social contractor with a penchant for security investigations. This year it’s the Explorer Badge and it’s slightly different

You’ll notice that this year’s badge isn’t called an “eChallengeCoin” over on the product page Bradán describes that they wanted to create a device which could function as this year’s challenge but also be a platform for STEM/STEAM learning with a more advanced feature set and hardware options. The Explorer badge has a text-based Sara Cladlow game, “Sara and the Dark Labyrinth” onboard, but is a Python and CircuitPython development board in its own right with heaps of additional hardware. Behind the glorious ePaper display, there are Neopixels, touch sensors, IR receive and transmit, a speaker driver and more.

LiPo is charging on board, but you need to supply your own LiPo cell. The fully assembled Explorer Badge also comes with a smart branded lanyard which also doubles as a USB C – USB A and lightening connector all in one. We look forward to seeing people playing with these out in the wild.

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I have a special love for small battery-powered amps! An odd thing to admit, perhaps, but they are intertwined in my DIY journey due to an extensive period of playing around with circuit bending. For those not familiar with the term, circuit bending is the manipulation of and tinkering with battery-powered noise-making toys and objects with little to no theory. Simply adding capacitance with fingers or creative short-circuiting is very much the circuit bending way. As such, you must ensure you are only connected to battery-powered amps for your physical well-being. This LM386 audio amplifier could be the perfect desk amp for your sonic experiments!

Supplied as just the PCB, this small board once populated will output up to 700mW into a 8-ohm speaker. Small 8-ohm speakers are pretty easy to find, even salvaged from a toy. It should be noted the LM386 audio amplifier circuit can drive quite large speakers, although without huge amounts of volume. There is an excellent video on the product page with this circuit built into a vintage guitar practice amp which shows what the little amp can do. Of course, being a small board, you could also mount the device inside your noise-making project for portable electronic noise-making fun.

The documentation link has a list of the common components you’ll need to source to complete this design and you’ll need to also add a 9V battery to get this up and running. The LM386 is a flexible amplifier and can be used for a lot of different projects, not just audio. Its internal schematic is a great starting place if you want to learn about amplifiers inside integrated circuits!

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If, like me, you’ve tinkered in electronics for a while and slowly moved from through hole and protoboard towards creating SMD boards and assemblies, you might find these SMD-DIP adaptors useful. I increasingly notice that my SMD collection of resistors, capacitors and chips for breadboard experiments outweighs my somewhat neglected through-hole stash. Having the option to quickly convert an SMD component to a breadboard-friendly format can be handy!

Each board is double-sided and can host two different component sizes. The size pairings are 0201 and 0402, 0603 and 0805, 1206 and 1210, and 2010 and 2512. Each board side has footprints for 4 sets of 2 components laid out in series with a centre terminal on each line broken out to a separate pin. This is perfect if you need to quickly make a voltage divider circuit but also useful for putting components in series. It also means you could lay out simple LED panels with a current-limiting resistor and LED, which is super handy for breadboard prototyping.

Sold as a large pack there are 5 of each size giving 20 boards in total. Also included is a pack of 6 40-pin header pins, enough to populate every board. With a clear silkscreen and nice visible traces, we think these could be super handy in your prototyping box!

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If you haven’t played with LED filament (sometimes called LED noodles) it is a fascinating LED material. It’s often used industrially in the manufacture of retro or vintage-looking incandescent-style LED lamps, but it is also now available from maker suppliers in numerous colours and lengths. It offers a massive advantage over things like EL wire in that it’s comparatively bright and easily visible in daylight. Using small 18.5mm 3V LED filaments the InfiDig is an assembled board aiming to make 7-segment displays more visually interesting and give your projects some flair!

The InfiDig on offer is listed as a Beta. It has a couple of bodge wires added to the pre-assembled PCB to make it operational. That said, it’s a budget price and comes completely assembled. The LED filaments are addressed by simple shift registers so it’s pretty trivial to animate and also easy to chain modules together. It’s capable of displaying values between -199 and +199.  You’ll need a 3.3-5V supply capable of delivering up to 350mA per InfiDig module. There is a simple PWM control for brightness on board and a custom PlatfromIO library. This makes it a breeze to set up an SPI interface for your microcontroller of choice.

It might be worth looking into a diffuser to place in front of the displays. This can often paradoxically make diffuse light sources easier to read, a tip we picked up from Mike Harrison of mikeselectricstuff!

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LoRa and LoRaWAN are constantly growing in both usage and network size. With active networks like The Things Network, OpenChirp, CableLabs and more, it’s easier to take advantage of pre-existing LoRa networks or build your own private network. Getting started is easy — take, for example, this RP2040-powered LoRaWAN development board.

With the benefits of low-power, long-distance communication, encryption and wide library support, it’s a great way to network together groups of sensors which pass data between themselves or to a central node, which can optionally forward the data onto the Internet. Combining LoRaWAN, TCP/IP, 5G, and protocols like MQTT can make for a robust and reliable full-stack solution that can be quickly set up and prototyped.

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The Raspberry Pi Pico has seen real success with it becoming a mainstay in microcontroller projects. It’s easy to see why: a large community of users sharing excellent projects, affordability and decent specifications. Increasingly it’s common to see the Pico being built into complex devices, often requiring a display of some kind. The Pico Display Base Board makes it trivial to add a TFT screen to a Pico project but also opens up a heap more options.

In essence, this is a PCB that makes it easy to connect a TFT to a Pico. Neither are supplied, but there’s a set of headers for the Pico and a 40-pin connector designed to interface with any SSD1963-driven LCD screen. This driver chip is pretty common and comes in a wide range of displays and sizes. In the picture above, we see the board with a 5″ 800×480 display.

Beyond the display connectivity, it’s worth checking out the documentation links as the board can also be connected to and host numerous add-ons including RTC devices and environmental sensors. The board has in part been designed to work with PicoMite/WebMite, a BASIC interpreter for Raspberry Pi Pico. WebMite is a part of that project that enables PicoMite projects to serve web pages and more.

The Pico Display Base Board isn’t supplied with the display or the Pico, but it does seem like a veritable Swiss Army Knife of capability for those looking to add displays and sensor inputs for creating IoT or home automation projects!

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