Tindie

The CircuitMess Jay-D kit lets you build a fully functional, standalone DIY mixing desk complete with onboard SD card storage and mixing software. With almost all of the features you’d expect from an expensive DJ controller, this affordable kit could be a fantastic way to explore the world of superstar DJing!

These DIY mixing decks move at just the right beat! Use the high-quality BPM faders to gain precise control of your music’s tempo, with added EQ alongside to create some smooth new blends. The third slider in the centre is the essential crossfader, for mixing between sound sources, one track into another. The beautiful black and white design is clean and classy, hiding a secret array of 144 individually addressable RGB LEDs ready for custom light shows. The black plastic knobs were designed specifically for this product, providing a super satisfying way to control the EQ of your tracks.

With its self-programmable, hackable, DIY nature – you can bring some new sounds to the DJ world! Electronic-minded DJs could go ahead and circuit bend the Jay-D, or even add other DIY effects modules to it that will make their sets sound incredibly unique.

This kit is an entertaining opportunity for any electronic music lover, built from scratch with incredibly clear documentation. It’s software makes it easy for beginners to learn to code for this device, and creates many opportunities for expansion!

CircuitMess are an independent electronics manufacturer based out of Karlovac, Croatia – and are well known on our site for their large number of fantastic DIY kits. If you’re looking for a DIY electronics kit that is high quality, well documented, and good fun – look no further!

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Marking PCBs has evolved, it seems, from showing where components go, with a version number and information on the designer, to an art form all in itself. If you’re looking for a great way to celebrate this pursuit and/or retro computing, then look no further than the Retro Computer Circuit Board Charm Set by Happy Hardware.

This happy little trio consists of a 3.5″ floppy PCB, along with a slightly larger than life-sized mouse, and a desktop computer that would look appropriate for 1995 or so. Each item comes in green with a white silk screen, and includes a lobster claw style clasp for easy attachment to your garments or other to-be-adorned items. The largest of these charms is 27mm x 27mm, and are lead-free.

If that doesn’t make you happy enough, Happy Hardware has a variety of other 80s/90s retro computing/electronics jewelry PCBs, so it’s worth poking around on the store. Notably their set of two broken heart charm PCBs are nice, and come in an appropriate red solder mask and white silk screen. While it’s too late for Valentine’s day 2022, you could always order a set now to prepare for 2023!

Of course, while such art is fun and entertaining, there is no actual circuit involved. So are these items truly circuit boards? Does a tree that falls in the woods that no one hears make a sound? Feel free to let us know what you think on Twitter @Tindie!

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We can all agree the Commodore 64 is one of the computing scene’s greatest achievements; be it from the sounds of the iconic SID chip, the power to see your programming genius realized, or the incredible ability to run Sonic the Hedgehog! Making the system even cooler is a tough ask, but this WOPR64 for Commodore 64 may just have unlocked that achievement, with a fantastically slick and flashy C64 expansion port adapter!

This angled adapter mounts to the on-board expansion port of the C64, complete with 32 blinking LEDs which indicate the current data transfer between an attached cart and the home computer. The LEDs are related to the address bus, data bus, and the control bus  – including the EXROM, GAME, I/O ports, IRQ, NMI, RESET and WRITE functions of the C64. Designed with War Games in mind, the maker declares it’s been produced to awaken the inner nerd; being mesmerized by such an array of colorful frenetic flashing lights!

The LEDs will blink even without a cartridge plugged in, displaying what the computer’s CPU is currently processing. Aside from the light show, this acts as a very useful extender for the port, angled for easy access from above. The reset switch is also a handy feature for those using homebrew games and software.

It’s sold by The Dark Forest who are based in Sweden, with a small but perfectly formed array of C64 accessories.Here’s a video of the unit in action:

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Any Tindie synth fan will know that Sismo are one of our most prolific creators, with numerous spots in our gear of the year awards! They’re back, this time with the Sismo Qadrox Function Desktop Synthesizer; a sequenced take on effects in one portable desktop unit. Details are scarce, but we’ll do what we can to decipher the techy tones and give you some idea of what this black box is capable of!

Described as an audio processor and 8-step sequencer, the Quadrox Function will play through 8 effect settings as an inputted signal is processed. The sound is described as oscillating between failure and space, which are two rather intangible and reasonably unrelated descriptions – who knows what it might emit? What we do know is it’s housed in a lovely wooden enclosure, with high quality components for a solid, sleek, and durable design.

It features a sync in and a sync out socket, for tight timings, with one audio input and two audio outputs to split the signals elsewhere. The Qadrox Function Desktop Synthesizer is sold by Sismo who are based in Portugal – with a wealth of sonic toy boxes for you to peruse and pontificate over. Here’s a quick demo video of the unit in action:

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Cyberpunk styles have been around for decades and are an enduring image, loaded with futuristic cityscapes and swarms of flying cars, neon lights, and humanoids sporting ultra cool sunglasses. If you want to join the dystopian party, then the imaginatively-named Cyberpunk Inspired Watch is just the ticket. Prepare to board a hover vehicle headed towards 2050 (or is that 2019, Akira fans?) and embark on a super techno adventure of your own.

The Cyberpunk Inspired Watch comes with a raw and exposed digital display, with two push buttons and vertical diffused red led bar to brighten up any bar or nightclub. The watch itself comes as a PCB (requiring you to source the parts listed in the BOM) or as a fully assembled unit, ready for deployment in a rain-soaked scene. Once it’s attached to your wrist, I’m sure you’ll feel ready to take on anything in the future – with the utmost accurate timekeeping super powers!

It’s a superb looking device which would be a perfect accompaniment for cyberpunk cosplay or any parties with a futuristic theme. It’s the first product from HLCI, who are based in the USA – we’d love to see more digital inspired pieces from them – perhaps an alarm clock, an LED visor, or some kind of navigation radar device!

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Whether it’s the portable gaming on the phone or the multi-core PC powered FPS, gaming is as popular now as it has ever been! The CircuitMess ByteBoi – An Advanced DIY Game Console aims to not only put a miniature games console at your fingertips, but give you the skills to build it yourself and even program your own games! As Mortal Kombat rightly pointed out: “There is no knowledge that is not power.” – it’s time to gain some knowledge points!

The ByteBoi is a completely open-source retro gaming console, which comes with a full-color TFT display, a main board with an integrated ESP32, space for 1GB of SD card storage, and a frankly incredible dual-core CPU! There are a bunch of games pre-loaded onto the device, but the opportunity to learn how to make your own might just be the best bit!

It has connectivity for BlueTooth and Wifi meaning when you’ve made the next big Flappy Bird or Angry Birds inspired gem, it can be shared with the online community! The ByteBoi is made by CircuitMess who are based in Croatia and already have a formidable line up of retro tech!

See the ByteBoi in action below, complete with gorgeous fluid smooth visuals and a quick look at how to put it together!

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We’ve spoken about the heralded Roland drum machines and synthesizers numerous times here on the Tindie blog, with the likes of the 303, 101, 909, 808, 606 and any other combination of numbers with an 0 in the middle! Here we have another 606 module for eurorack: the SD-606 Snare Drum Module putting the power of another element of the underrated analogue drum machine at your fingertips!

This SD-606 module authentically replicates the TR-606 snare drum, taking up only 2HP of rack space. It comes with the original features from the 606 but also provides some added functionality, including two switchable accent modes. The SD-606 has controls for Accent, Tone, Decay, and Level – with a 3.5mm trigger input and mono audio out. Choose from the SMD assembled kit, which provides all you need to construct the snare, with the small and fiddly SMD components pre-soldered onto the board – or the unit completely assembled for you!

Be sure to check out the unit documentation and BOM if you want to know more – you can even preview how it sounds on the sellers Soundcloud Account.

It’s a nicely designed and affordable unit which takes up a minimum of space for a maximum of analogue authenticity. The SD-606 is sold by Drachma, who are based in the USA, selling a neat selection of modular morsels.

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Roasting your own coffee may seem like an exotic affair for those with disposable time and money to spend, however, it’s actually possible to do so with an unmodified popcorn popper. These machines provide heat and can blow beans around in a similar manner to kernels, providing the basics for such an operation. To take control of the popper’s heating profile, however, you’ll need to make some modifications, which can be facilitated by the TC4+ Coffee Roaster Shield by Artisanal Technologies.

This device plugs in the top of an Arduino Uno, and provides a 4-channel thermocouple interface to sense roasting temperatures, and two SSR channels to drive AC heating loads. There’s also a single-channel DC driver for a fan motor, which could also be adapted to work with an AC fan with the help of an appropriate PWM module.

The device can be purchased as a kit or assembled, and you can even order an Arduino display or Bluetooth module to complete your roasting experience. If you’re entirely new to the world of home popcorn popper coffee roasting, this writeup has lots more info on how it can be accomplished.

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The Proto-Toast is the hottest new prototyping breadboard, the perfect place to spread your components! This PCB is better than any PB&J, and its tasty design brings the heat to any project. With its classy gold on white design, the PCB is instantly recognisable as toasted bread whilst being incredibly useful in your projects. Equal parts beautiful and amusing, a lot of effort has been put into the clean artwork – even the pads are miniature toast slices!

The toast-slice shaped pads are spaced 100mm apart, the same as a breadboard, which follows the standard for most DIP (drop in place) chips. DIP chips are used regularly in common prototyping tools such as Arduino or Raspberry Pi – making this toasty breadboard applicable to all sorts of projects!

It’s great to use a prototyping board like this because it enables you to ‘toast’ your ‘bread’ board idea without changing the layout or components. Just copy the design you’ve created on your breadboard, and solder it down to the proto-toast! This saves a considerable amount of time and confusion, as you can reference your original prototype at any time.

Breadstick Innovations is an independent electronics company on Tindie that are making a name for themselves with brilliant custom PCBs. Based out of Edmonton, Canada, these makers are engineering technologists with a passion for expression – the best thing since sliced bread!

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Candles have lit our world for millennia, but with the proliferation of easily accessible USB ports, perhaps we might reconsider our lighting options. The ATtiny Candle kits by Sonocotta doesn’t use fire or generate smoke, but instead plug into a USB port as a compact ATiny development board.

These boards come in three distinct flavors: one with an ATitiny13 and 4 RGB LEDs; a second with an ATtiny85 and 6 RGB LEDs; and a third with an ’85, an OLED screen, and an RTC clock module. Onboard buttons are available for user interface, and the ATtiny85 versions can be programmed over USB. They’re even compatible with programs written for the Digistump Digispark board. The ATtiny13 version will require a programmer, as it’s using a slightly less capable microcontroller.

Each of these devices could work nicely plugged into a portable USB power supply, or even semi-permanently attached to a USB-capable outlet. The OLED version could be especially useful as a clock, but given their USB stick-like form factor, the possibilities of what could be made with them are endless! More info on the devices, along with example code, is available on GitHub. And yes, there is an actual candle example for you to try out!

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