Tindie

Modular CV signals can be used for all kinds of musical applications, from setting the volume of a sound to controlling the pitch and its subsequent movement. Being such a pivotal feature, it’s important to be accurate, so the 3to1 – Precision adder seeks to bring you exactly that, as a two-channel CV mixer or adder for your eurorack setup.

The 3in1 has, remarkably, three inputs and 1 output to combine CV signals in either an additive or subtractive way – with two channels which can be used independently, as stereo pair, or as a dual-mono audio mixer. You’ll find good reason to want precision mixing, with 1 volt being the difference between two octaves – meaning 12 divisions within that make up the semitones we’re accustomed to in traditional western music.

Subsequently, if incoming voltages are combined inaccurately, the result is an unintentionally out-of-tune sound which will have a subtle but significant affect on the mix. Luckily, this precision mixer mitigates the problem for precisely pitched playback!

More detailed information and schematics are  available on the seller’s blog which also features a bill of materials. The 3in1 Precision adder is sold by Electronic things… and stuff who are based in France, and share a whole world of electronics goodies!

Keep Reading ›

This fabulous Don’t Panic badge has a fascinating back story of how it came into being. Maker Suicidebattery chanced across a conversation on Twitter where a group of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy fans where trying to identify the origin of a similar vintage badge. The group tracked it back to a small run of merchandise for a 1980’s stage show production of Hitchhikers, which on researching was a less than favourable version that didn’t run for very long.

If you don’t know, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “Don’t Panic” is emblazoned on the front of the guide. In the novel it’s explained as being there partly as the guide itself looks “Insanely complicated to operate”!

With some subtle changes this badge is in homage to that older merchandise. It’s a beautiful PCB with a single blinking LED. The badge is supplied fully assembled with a coin cell on the reverse for power. Perfect for a Hitchhikers fan and a good motto to live by!

Keep Reading ›

On your latest project you decided to use an Arduino breakout board, which seemed like a good choice at the time. A few lines of code, and your LEDs were happily blinking away. Of course your were thrilled to be featured on Hackaday, but after several choice comments, you realized that you really should have used a 555 timer.

To remind yourself and others that you should have really used a 555 timer, you really should have worn this NE555 Classic Timer shirt from HobbyElectro. It comes in black, with a diagram of this classic component emblazoned in white on the front.

One could wear it as a constant reminder to use this device instead of an Arduino, or as a sort of loyalty statement to this classic component. Alternatively, it could be given as a “gift” to others to point out their supposed mistake.

Of course we love Arduino boards and the like here at Tindie, but can certainly appreciate the appeal of this venerable component. For more 555 goodness, you might check out this extremely tiny 555 dev board, or this larger kit with variable resistors to help you explore how the 555 works. In the end, if you’re stuck on the Arduino Uno form factor, you could always implement a Trollduino for control.

Keep Reading ›

The NES is an iconic games console, known for its simplicity, beauty and being the standard to which difficult video games are rated – if a game is labelled ‘Nintendo Hard‘ that refers to typically unforgiving games for NES! The incredible new NESessity v1.3 Replacement PCB for NES Console is a great solution to aging consoles, which are known to break or malfunction – being originally produced in 1983, it’s as old as this writer… ancient!

The NESessity is a replacement PCB set for your front-loading Nintendo Entertainment System, adding new features and customisations options to a completely reverse-engineered board! Three PCBs are included in the set; a motherboard, a power/AV board, and an RGB/S-Video Output board. Short of a couple of SOIC chips, the boards use entirely through-hole components, making it a relatively easy build project – given time, a steady hand, and a desire to blast incoming enemy spaceships out of the sky with lasers!

The seller has three purchase options, offering PCBs only, PCBs and dual wipe sockets, and PCB with precision sockets. They’ve provided an assembly guide (.rtf download) alongside a bill of materials which you can follow and check out before buying.

The NESessity is made by Low Budget, who are based in the USA. It’s a glorious project to make sure we have Nintendo hard games for a long time to come!

Keep Reading ›

Bobricius working on a Raspberry Pi Pico powered tiny computer should come as no surprise. Their previous work on tiny pocket LoRa messengers and other diminutive qwerty keyboarded projects made the Pico a prime target for their development.

Supplied as bare PCB’s, these boards can receive a few different varieties of small IPS displays. There is USB C for power and an internal buck/boost converter and power and reset switches. Footprints are placed for a micro SD card and there is an experimental untested option of a Hope RFM95 radio module. Development is the key word here, this product is definitely a development board for those interested in exploring what can be done with a Pico in this form factor and not a complete project. There’s even a slight error documented with a delete key pad needing a small patch with a jumper wire!

It’s available with options of just the main board or main board plus the cover, with a choice of silver or gold, we are really interested to see what people do with these and how the project progresses.

Keep Reading ›

Whether deployed in their thousands in an industrial greenhouse or just one in your plant pot growing experiment, soil moisture sensors can increase the chance of your plants thriving.

This soil moisture probe  connects to a power supply and a GPIO pin to supply moisture data to a microcontroller. It’s aimed primarily for use with the Raspberry Pi and integrates well with the opensource Hydrosys4 automated irrigation and environmental control system.

With the supplied documentation and the neat example python script it should be relatively straightforward to use this sensor with numerous microcontroller platforms as part of your system. Supplied assembled, there are options for just the sensor or a “water repellent” version with a cable attached and some weatherproofing applied to the upper section of the sensor.

If you are interested in automated growing systems and environmental control we have written numerous related posts. From a simple standalone sensor that chirps when your plant is thirsty to self powered wireless sensors that monitor moisture and soil nutrients We’ve even covered a plant containing robotic rover that automatically seeks out the optimal position for your plant!

Keep Reading ›

For a brilliant way to show off your name in lights, check out this luminescent nametag from Electronics corner. It features LEDs arranged on a 24×5 LED array, which can be powered constantly, or enabled with the press of a button.

This name tag can be ordered as a kit, or assembled with LEDs attached per your request. It comes with a brooch pin to allow it to attach to a backpack or clothing, and runs on a single 3V coin cell battery.

Interestingly, Electronics Corner notes that this board was from a failed project, meant to be controlled by an ATtiny–thus the blank “IC1” on the PCB. In its current iteration, it’s a neat little badge, and a good way to reuse a PCB that would otherwise go in the junk drawer, and/or in the trash!

If this little LED matrix isn’t quite your style, you could also check out the LED Sewing Kit featured here, by none other than Becky Stern!

Keep Reading ›

We love the efficient use of power and no project shows it better than the InfiniLED V2.

The InfiniLED V2 from BelgianEngineer is a tiny PCB barely bigger than the CR2032 battery that acts as a power supply. With a robust design using only discrete components the InfiniLED V2 will light the onboard LED whilst only consuming around 5uA! At that rate of power consumption, and if set up with a box fresh CR2032, you should see a battery lifespan of around 5 years.

Supplied assembled and with a clear acrylic case the InfiniLED V2 has strong neodymium magnets on board making it firmly mount to ferrous metal surfaces. BelgianEngineer suggests a night light for a young person or a fridge beacon guiding you to the fridge for that night time snack! Our first thought was placed next to a lock to save the inevitable poking around with a key in the dark!

Keep Reading ›

Sometimes less is more they say! Indeed in this age of microcontrollers with more pins and busses than you can shake a stick at, it’s easy to overlook smaller offerings like the ATtiny1614. This development board makes the ATtiny1614 easy to integrate into your next project.

The ATtiny1614 chip features 12KB of flash, 2kB of SRAM, and 128B of EEPROM. It’s I2C and SPI compatible and has 1x UART. With 11 general purpose IO pins and 6 PWM pins it’s a pretty well rounded microcontroller for smaller projects and general tinkering. It’s happy across a range of voltages and can be clocked at up to 20 Mhz at 5 V and 10 Mhz at 3.3 V.

It’s Arduino compatible meaning that it can be programmed using the Arduino IDE but also indicates that there are plenty of libraries and examples online. The development board has the pins broken out to 2.54 mm standard header spacing so this can be used on a breadboard or dropped into a perfboard project as a module easily. The board is powered via the micro USB but to program the device you’ll need an FTDI or equivalent to connect to the broken out UPDI pins. There’s options to order with or without the header pins installed and Sharva’s Projects has done a good job providing documentation via a QR code on the back of the board.

Keep Reading ›

Creators all over the world bring their awesome ideas to sell on Tindie, unifying the far flung corners of the planet together into one unique tech space! We’re here to travel the globe looking at the designers, inventors and creators who deliver top audio products, exciting instruments and musical machines direct to your home!

Put away the Lonely Planet, the jungle mix and that giant backpack, this will be a sightseeing adventure from the comfort of your home (or mobile device). Prepare for an environmentally responsible journey, on a range of transport methods. Let start with a canoe; we’re setting sail for Mexico!

Mexico – Oficina de Sonido’s Hanan Cumbria

That was some great paddling… we’ve arrived in central American where we’re visiting Oficina de Sonido who make the gorgeous Hanan Cumbria – a collaboration between a graphic designer, a screen printer and a hardware designer. It’s a fantastic eye-catching drum machine with 4 elements capable of sequencing 32 steps for each sound. It’s a vivid and bold design full of life and colour, resonating the stylish sunshine-packed vibes of Mexico.The Hanan Cumbria can be synced with other gear and can be powered via Micro USB or conventional a guitar pedal socket.

Spain – Kasser Synths DFAM

Keeping in the latin spirit, we’ve hired a dingy to head over to Spain to look at Kasser Synths and their amazing DFAM Arcade YM2151 Megadrive/Genesis synth module! This little beauty is capable of producing the sounds we know and love from the early Sound Blaster audio cards, video game consoles, and arcade machines. It features a sleek design, with rotary knobs and high contrast screens for visual feedback. Add MIDI compatibility and the ability to load sounds from your favourite games, and you have a magic box of chipmusic tricks! The DFAM comes as a kit and a fully made product with a range of classic sound chips to choose from.

France – Val Power’s ARP Sync Pro MIDI

Now for a relatively short walk to France, where ValPower and the ARP Sync Pro MIDI reside. This unassuming box has the power to sync your classic vintage analogue synths to a modern setup – mimicking the Roland TR-808 and 909’s rim shot sound to send a tempo signal to the synth. This means that timed elements like sequencers (in the SH101) and on-board Arpeggiators (for the Juno Series) play at exactly the right time, guided by the MIDI clock signal you send. Valpower have a range of similar devices for a number of applications – it’s a low key device which has big implications for modern music studios!

Belgium – Atonal Circuits Brick Sequencer

Okay, that was quite a long walk… I’ll give you a piggy back over to Belgium to see the Brick Sequencer made by Atonal Circuits. This modular device uses the small coloured bricks we most likely remember from childhood (or parenthood!) to make musical sequences to output to other eurorack modules! It’s got four channels to make sequences for, each with their own output, as well as mute buttons and 16 memories to store patterns. As you’ll see in the product page “No Lego bricks were harmed to build the brick sequencer”, which is weirdly reassuring!

Scotland – MadLab’s Noise-X

A short swim across the frosty North Sea where we arrive in Scotland at MadLab, who create the mysterious Noise-X synthesizer and effects unit! It appears to have been designed by a being from an alternate dimension and has the sounds to prove it. Controlled with a unique combination of knobs, buttons, and faders – it’s absolutely packed with features: 4 DCOs (digitally controlled oscillators – things which make sounds), LFOs, (low frequency oscillators – things which make it wobble), 7 waveforms (types of sound), reverb, MIDI, and more! If there is any unit which could allow ET to phone home out of the box, it would be the Noise-X.

Poland – beat bars MIDI Expression Pedal

We’re on the overnight train via the channel tunnel, heading eastward to Poland, so we can check out the MIDI Expression Pedal made by beat bars! This expression pedal adds depth and expression to your played instruments – be them synths, keyboards or software VSTs by sending MIDI messages each time your foot moves the pedal. It’s a feature like this which composers look out for to make their music breathe with life and a  more organic movement. These guys know their pedals too, with a few on offer including eco-friendly and affordable cardboard pedals and foot switches for iOS apps.

Australia – Rare Beasts MUFON

This next trip is a big one. A hot air balloon flight across the planet to rare beasts in Australia to look at the intergalactic MUFON experimental synth instrument! It’s another object which was seemingly beamed in from another world; a dual oscillator synth drone machine which reacts to light! It’s powered by USB and has a 3.5mm jack socket to plug in headphones or an amplifier. MUFON is an adorable mini synth which requires no prior musical knowledge or experience to play! Batteries not included.

USA – p0k3t0’s Sync Splitter for Pocket Operators

A quick row across the Pacific ocean to the USA where we find the Sync Splitter for Pocket Operators – 5 Way made by pok3t0. This unique and highly useful device unifies the connections between up to 5 Teenage Engineering Pocket Operators – wonderfully affordable and playful music devices. This snazzy little module carries the timing signal between your devices, while outputting each of their audio outputs individually for mixing and processing elsewhere. The beauty of this device is the ability to separate the audio, which is normally carried through all the modules to only one mono output – now you can have 5 separated out! High five!

There we are! What an adventure, you’ve got a lovely tan! We’re back on terra firma, safe and sound; at home with a collection of superb gadgets and gizmos to make our music even better. Time to feed the pets, check the mail, water the plants and maybe have a bath! We hope you’ve enjoyed our eco-friendly tour of some of the wide ranging sellers we’re proud to have here on Tindie. Here’s to more amazing musical devices, imagined and realised from all corners of the globe.

Keep Reading ›