Tindie

Do you remember having walkie talkies as a child? The fun of communicating between friends from a distance (a poultry 20 meters with the ones I remember) was incomparable but we’ve moved on since then! The CircuitMess Chatter – A DIY Wireless Communicator is a modern device to communicate via text, using it’s own encrypted wireless network –  and best of all you can learn how it works by building it yourself!

The CircuitMess Chatter will be a definite hit with the kids and the big kids – given it’s on board ‘LoRa’ low-power wide-area network technology, giving you the ability to send text messages, emojis, memes, and GIFs – get ready to meme the planet! The primary function (aside from exchanging the latest memes) of these wonderful devices is education – teaching you about encryption, LoRa devices, how to code and much much more.

They’ll create their own encrypted wireless network to communicate on safely – illustrating how privacy functions in the modern wireless world.

The Chatter DIY Wireless Communicator is sold by CircuitMess who are well known as one of the slickest and most professional sellers on Tindie! Their store is full of wonderful devices for education as well as being modern tech gadgets full of fun!

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The Macropod Variable Bandwidth VCF can sit alongside Eurorack’s most popular filter modules and not only replicate their functionality, but exceed it! Decked out and fully-featured, this multi-faceted Voltage Controlled Filter (VCF) could become a crucial part of your modular setup.

A variable bandwidth VCF uses a band-pass filter control that can adjust the width of the frequency spectrum coming through. If you need to tighten a rumbling bass sound, or take the harshness out of some hi-hats, a VCF such as this is just what you need. Find the exact tone and timbre that you are looking for, or use the filters controls as tools to modulate textures using CV!

The beautiful black, white, and gold faceplate will look gorgeous in your rack, with its neat design giving a distinctive and sleek appearance. A lot of research and design work has gone into this module – the faceplate design, the layout of the interface components, and even the way the circuit manipulates your sounds.

Where the Macropod truly shines is in its unique additional features. This space-saving solution packs in not only a variable band filter; but resonance, onboard notch output, and a ‘squared-off’ distortion output. These additions make the Macropod a bit of a modular powerhouse, able to fill many roles in your system in a single module.

SetonixSynth are one of Tindie’s newer makers, and they have arrived here with a storefront full of innovative eurorack and 4u modular kits just like this one. They are based out of Westport, USA, but ship their superb products worldwide.

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When driving your computer, a keyboard and mouse work well, and can be greatly enhanced by memorizing a few shortcut keys combinations. If you’d like to take things to the next level, a third input device, like a macropad or stream deck, can speed things up even further. To help with your workflow, adding buttons and a rotary input knob, plus broken out GPIO pins for experimentation, I present the JC Pro Macro 2 rotary input device.

This device, a greatly enhanced version of the original JC Pro Macro, features 8 mechanical key switches, with addressable LEDs underneath each one to provide lighting. A rotary encoder knob “rounds” out the pad, which works very well for volume adjustment, and scrolling through frames while video editing. 4 lights underneath the PCB provide additional illumination, and a laser-cut base with rubber pads keeps the setup in place.

Beyond being a normal macropad, the JCPM2 is designed for experimentation. It features 5 GPIO pins, which are broken out from its swappable Pro Micro ATmega32U4 microcontroller board, plus 5V and GND. These can be used to transmit I2C data for a small OLED screen, or for other uses, and can even power a small fan if you need a bit of keystroke-enabled breeze.

As explained here, the JCPM2 was first funded on Kickstarter, before being put up for sale on Tindie. If you’re thinking about crowdfunding a project, you may want to also consider how you can continue to put your success (or even not-quite-success) to work on Tindie after it’s finished!

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Raspberry Pi single board computers have long taken advantage of HAT (Hardware Attached on Top), and smaller pHAT (partial HAT) modules to expand their capabilities. These work well in a wide variety of situations, but what if you’d like your HAT turned at 90 degrees? If so, then PlasmaDan has a great solution in the form of the pHAT FLIP: Black Edition.

The board hooks up to a Raspberry Pi via a 40-pin female header, and turns the connections into two breakout sections. A full-sized HAT can be attached, or two pHATs can be used instead if that format is preferred. The board is reversible before headers are soldered on, meaning your HATs can actually be arranged at ±90 degrees with a bit of forethought.

As for why you might want to use such a board, consider if you had a screen application where you’d prefer the Pi’s wiring to emerge in a different direction than by a normal orientation. With this board it’s no problem, and there are certainly a wide variety of other applications where such capabilities could be convenient.

The board, as you might suspect, comes in a brilliant black color, and if you prefer green Dan has you covered with the standard pHAT FLIP! Both devices conveniently label the BCM pin numbers to facilitate making the proper connections.

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Whether you’ve tried building a project with a Raspberry Pi or not, we’ve all heard about the huge range of amazing things which can be done with these incredible micro computers! The Robotistan Raspberry Pi Pico Super Starter Kit is an ideal entry point for anyone new to the RPi scene, complete with a Raspberry Pi Pico and a host of accessories to build all sorts of cool devices and gadgets!

Included in the kit are all sorts of project peripherals including a breadboard, jumper cables. transistors, resistors, potentiometers, LEDs, a relay, a speaker, a motor, a sound sensor and more! So, what can be made with this starter kit? Well, off the bat, there’s a Weather Monitor, Button Controlled LED, Burglar Alarm and a Distance Detection – all explained and demonstrated in the handy manual which comes with the kit. See the picture below for some of the kits contents:

It’ll not only teach you about the physical electronic elements, but the coding too. The Raspberry Pi Pico can be programmed using both MicroPython and C/C++; MicroPython being the language of choice for those getting started. MicroPython is coded using using Thonny IDE, which is a Python IDE environment for beginners – great!

The Raspberry Pi Pico Super Starter Kit is sold by Robotistan who are based in Wilmington in the USA, who started selling their techy wares in February of this year. Here’s a short and lively overview of what the kit can do:

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Powerful and inexpensive, the Raspberry Pi Zero is an ideal embedded control board. However, there are are a few limitations for real-world usage which are addressed by open industry’s Raspberry Pi PiIO DIO HZ digital IO device.

First, this PCB directly interfaces with 4 digital inputs and 8 digital outputs. These are linked to the Pi’s GPIO pins, and allow them to work with an impressive range of 2-24V. The outputs are capable of supplying .5A each, making them much more robust than the Pi’s standard output in the 10 mA range. Boards can be purchased with an onboard 1A DCDC power supply, allowing it to run directly off of a 24V input, or a 12V battery.

The device features screw terminals for easy wiring, and there’s even a DIN rail option on the horizon if that fits into your setup. Standard mounting hardware is included, and spacers are available that give it 8mm extra vertical clearance. In this configuration, it sits 20mm on top of the Pi Zero. More info and setup instructions are linked on the product page.

For another Raspberry Pi screw terminal option, we featured the Pi-EzConnect here, or if the Arduino Nano is more your style, the Grounduino might be of interest.

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What’s more satisfying to the eye than seeing sound reactive visuals bubbling along to the beat of your favorite new techno masterpiece?! Well the ESP8266 Sound Reactive RGB LED Lamp Kit offers just that, as well as the opportunity to see the fruits of your labors in full RGB LED glory, having constructed it yourself!

Using the onboard WiFi, this technicolor illumination tower can be connected to your home network and controlled from a dedicated app. It’s main section is made up of two 8×8 neopixel matrix LED arrays – with four surrounding acrylic sheets to diffuse and display the emitted colors in unique shades, gradients, and patterns! It’ll take you roughly 20 minutes to put together, meaning you’ll be ready to let the light shine before you need to flip over your vinyl album to the other side! Other (less cool) formats are also available.

There are numerous links for the assembly guide, software configuration and information on WLED – which is completely open source, as well as being well documented. Here’s what you can expect to see with the unit in action – though we imagine seeing it move may be slightly more enticing!

This superb light will add atmosphere and glow to all your home music listening experiences – for those wild Saturday night raves to an ambient Wednesday morning yoga session. It’s sold by elekitsorparts who are based in China, and offer all manner of electronic goodies for your house and home.

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Some say that the video game industry was born from the emphatic success of pinball machines – intricate technical wonders emblazoned with iconic film characters, emitting sound effects to match the frantically unfolding action! These machines are often prized possessions for owners, but have you ever wanted to build your own? Now is the time, because the DIY Pinball Machine Kits – Kit 1 Servo Targets can make it so!

This first kit is part one of a fourteen part series in making one of three types of ball hitting target; this one being the sub-assembly for a servo-powered moving target. Each kit comes with free access to online tutorials and assembly guides and has no cutting required – the parts are precision laser-cut, so they’ll fit together perfectly. A little bit of soldering is required to put the kits together, but there are no tiny SMD components required, so these kits shouldn’t pose too much of a problem.

In all the fourthcoming subassembly kits, there are five making activity types – wooden, electro-mechanical, electronic, microcontroller coding, and graphic design. Get ready to diversify your skills, and finally create that Star-Trek inspired pinball machine you’ve always wanted!

This ingenious development is sold by Engineering Project Kits who are based in Australia. Look out for more in their series of pinball kits soon!

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These retro-inspired Happy Cassette Tape Circuit Board Earrings are sure to complete any nerdy outfit or vintage cosplay you put together! Printed on an actual green PCB and featuring a pixellated representation of the iconic cassette tape, these vibrant jewelery pieces will look wonderful however you wear them.

Make your friends green with envy with their bold stylings – providing simultaneous throwbacks to old school computer screens and cassette tapes on a colorful and robust PCB. At approximately 3.5cm x 2cm, these statement pieces will stand out against the rest of your look (unless you’re dressed only in neon green cassette tape themed clothing, in which case, I’m impressed!). The symmetrically mirrored designs mean that they will frame your face perfectly without creating any awkward angles.

These are not only super-stylish, but also hardwearing and lightweight. Happy Hardwear is an independent electronics manufacturer based out of Essex, NY, in the United States. They have spent a lot of time creating multiple pieces of PCB jewelery, and therefore you know that this product is built to last.

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This RGB LED Ring turns any standard rotary encoder into a light show for your projects! Just mount it behind the encoder to make your projects a little more enlightened. Direct feedback is prized in UI, and this reactive design allows you to share information almost instantly between the computer and the user to create some really fun hardware.

Well-designed and subtly presented, the RGB LED ring is ready to be incorporated into your next project. Maybe you could use it to create a visual volume meter for specific channels on a DIY mixer, or create a color selection dial that allows you to visualize the color of your stage lights before changing them – a world of RGB LED possibilities await you!

This 4cm wide LED ring contains a total of 24 individually-addressable LEDs arranged in a circle, with a 9mm hole in the center to insert a rotary encoder dial. You can choose to link these rings together or control up to 16 of them individually through the i2c bus. Including precisely 24 LEDs makes it easy to create coding effects without a loss of resolution due to it being a factor of 256.

With 24 bits of resolution in every single light and 256 Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) steps, you can emulate almost any color in the spectrum for all kinds of visualization needs. This large ring is bright and accurate, featuring incredibly durable LEDs usually used in outdoor signage or displays.

DUPPA are an independent electronics manufacturer based out of Turin, Italy. This pair of electronic engineers have a passion for microcontrollers and PCBs, and have been selling here on Tindie for almost five years!

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