Tindie

Every electronic musician needs a secret weapon, to stand out from the crowd and give their equipment the edge. The Super Double Smash Button is an extraordinarily simple yet effective device for gating audio or CV signals – putting some stutter in your sinewaves and sporadic glitches in your guitar. This new version (the successor to the Super Smash Button) comes with multiple options which literally double the features of the original and add one new element.

Plug a stereo lead into the Super Double Smash Button to have the signal split between the inputs and outputs – with authentic, high quality arcade buttons provided by a real arcade machine manufacturer. Process any incoming signal and choose when it plays; great for chopping vocals, cutting sustained pads and adding rhythm to your melodies!

There are a choice of toggle switches for the buttons, having independent toggles for each channel or one dual gang switch to control both sides. You can also choose from having double mono sockets or a single stereo switch – with each channel being triggered independently by the two arcade buttons. The original was featured on Music Tech website SonicState’s prestigious SonicTalk which you can view here.

Find more musical oddities from midierror’s Tindie store, and check out what the predecessor to the Super Double Smash Button does:

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E-ink display technology has slowly come down in price since its introduction to the market in the early 2000s. For a long time, only manufacturers of ebook readers could buy enough of them in bulk to make the price worthwhile. However, it’s now possible to get decently-sized epaper displays for under $20. So, Joey of Oddly Specific Projects decided to create a DIY ebook reader with all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a commercial product. Just to be clear up front: this is not a kit. The listing is for the (absolutely gorgeous) PCBs, a printed BOM, excellent documentation, and instructions on how to source the parts and build one yourself.

A big key to this project is the availability of e-ink displays for a reasonable price. The recommended display is from GoodDisplay, but is also available from WaveShare for a little bit more. They also have multi-coloured e-ink displays, which are super neat.

Making e-readers available for hackers to play with is a huge step forward in the adoption of the display technology for smaller projects. The OpenBook has a lot more than just the e-reader parts — it has an Adafruit Feather header ready to be populated, as well as debug access to the main SAMD51 ARM microcontroller. This allows it to be hacked to do just about anything you can imagine with an e-ink display. By default, the SAM is running CircuitPython, but also has a powerful C++ library to handle all the interfacing with the e-ink display.

Various different cases are possible. The incredibly detailed documentation has a section devoted to enclosures. The above photo shows a beautiful basswood frame that was laser-cut and assembled as a basic case. Of course, it still allows access to the PCB for hacking, meaning it’s not fully protected. A complete enclosure wouldn’t be too hard to make, based off of the measurements and 3D print data included in the documentation.

Another important part of this project is the ability to display text in almost any language. One of the on-board flash chips (appropriately named the Babel Chip) simply contains the Unifont glyphs for the entire basic multilingual plane of Unicode. Unifont is a GNU project that aims to create a standard font with a glyph for every code point that is a written letter, diacritic, or accent. This project alone is a huge undertaking, and is worth taking a look at. The inclusion of this font allows books to be viewed in hundreds of different languages, which is a really nice touch.

There is a simpler version of this project, also by the same designer, that is called the E-Book Wing PCB. That version is powered entirely by an Adafruit Feather M4 Express. It has a simpler Bill of Materials, and is generally easier to assemble.

I hope that assembled boards will eventually be available to purchase. In the meantime, this author is going to set some time aside this fall to build one!

The OpenBook PCB next to its younger sibling, the E-Book Wing PCB

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Finding specific controllers to work with your retro system can often rack up expensive bills and mean trawling second hand markets for that one-off special edition joystick. The snappily titled OpenC64MegaDrivePadAdapter is a neat solution for both Amiga computers and Commodore64s, which allows you to safely plug in your Sega Genesis/Megadrive controllers and get gaming!

The differences between the two types of controllers is subtle; at a physical level they use the same DB-9 connectors but both operate at a different electrical level – meaning they don’t ordinarily plug and play. The OpenC64MegaDrivePadAdapter is the saving grace to this problem, ensuring that your control pad operates normally, is responsive, and doesn’t harm the on-board CIA chip.

The Genesis/Megadrive controller is a design classic, with a d-pad for controlling direction of movement, three fire buttons, and one start button. The adapter allows you to customise the buttons configuration too, for more comfortable button bashing!

The OpenC64MegaDrivePadAdapter available to make yourself as a kit, with PCB only or full-kit options. There’s even a Telegram Group to discuss this adapter and other works by the seller. It’s made by SukkoPera’s Retro Works and is available at a very reasonable price, certainly cheaper than sourcing original controllers for the late 1980s!

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Glitchy rhythmic loops are the underpinning backbeat of many an electronic noodling session, and the Tapbum is a neat example of an accessible way to create such abstract electronic percussion. It’s housed in a small tabletop box measuring just under 11cm in size, and comes with a host of features to hone and vary your tempo track.

The Tapbum is a monophonic percussion synth which is powered by 9-12V DC and provides plenty of percussive electronic sounds to jam along to. It creates sounds ranging from sharp metallic glitches to soft rounded tones – with an adjustable 4-step sequencer to create on-beat bleeps as well as wonky polyrhythms. There’s a choice of kick drum, woodblock and noise sounds to choose from – with 3 inputs and 3 outputs along the top of the unit, 2 audio outs, 2 CV inputs and clock in /out.

It features a button to clear the sequencer, a knob to choose the number of steps and a record button for sequencer playback – everything you need to make percussive polyrhythms!

The Tapbum is designed and created by Sismo Synths who are based in Portugal – selling a fine range of tabletop sound surprises. Check out the video below to hear it in action:

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Like its predecessor the ESP8266, the ESP32 has been growing in popularity and making waves as it goes. Lua was made popular for embedded prototyping via the NodeMCU project, and now other languages like Python, JavaScript and ClojureScript are entering the embedded sphere too. This extremely well-designed and beautifully laid-out dev board is specifically designed for use with Esprit (a fork of Espruino specifically for ClojureScript), although any ESP32-WROVER can be used. You could also use this board for general ESP32 development.

Clojure is a language that has been growing in popularity over time. It’s still relatively uncommon, as it’s a variant of LISP that runs on the Java runtime (which are words I didn’t think could go together in a sentence). ClojureScript is a source code compiler which converts Clojure into JavaScript. Like many LISPs, Clojure uses a REPL (a read-evaluate-print loop) for development and interaction — if you’ve used NodeMCU or Python, this is the same thing as running in interactive mode. Anything you type is evaluated and executed as soon as you hit return.

This can make prototyping very easy, especially for newcomers who can immediately see results without having to worry about including header files, getting a compiler working, etc. For embedded development, it means you can flash an LED with just a couple quick lines of code. This makes the learning curve much more gradual, and motivates users to keep learning and exploring.

The developer of this board, Mike Fikes, recently gave a talk about it at Clojure/north 2020:

Because Espruino is a JavaScript interpreter, it needed the ClojureScript runtime library added in order to be used with ClojureScript. Squeezing this into the ESP32 was a challenge, until he realized that the ESP32 comes in two variants — the ESP32-WROOM and the ESP32-WROVER. The ROVER has a lot more RAM and made it possible to use with a ClojureScript REPL. All that was needed was tweaks to the size of the heap and changes to the partitioning of the ESP32’s flash storage. The result was a fork of Espruino called Esprit, which you can find on GitHub here. This is what is running on this board by default when powered up.

This is a really neat, unique approach to development on the ESP32, and it shows how powerful the dual-core Tensilica processor inside the ESP32 is. Languages like MicroPython and JavaScript are making their way into embedded development, and Esprit now brings another neat option to the table! If you’ve ever used Clojure, or are interested in learning it, make sure to check the product page out for more details!

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If you’re into retro gaming, one of the best ways to play the games of your youth is on a Raspberry Pi, the mini computer which has sold over 30 million units! Here we have a superb 3D Printed SNES Case for Raspberry Pi which lovingly reimagines the Super Nintendo in miniature form and keeps your Raspberry pi safe, compact, and cool with its on-board fan.

The Raspberry Pi is capable of hosting all manner of projects, from smile recognizing marshmallow shooters to entire WiFi advertising blockers and everything you can imagine in between! This case will house Raspberry Pi B+, Pi2 and Pi3 models, and has an option for a cooling fan and LED to keep it cool and make it look the part. The three colour 3D printed housing provides access to the main ports for HDMI, USB, audio and power sockets, as well as the all important SD card!

For gamers the main appeal of Raspberry Pis is the superb RetroPie, which puts the entirety your gaming memories in one convenient place – provided you own the originals.

The 3D Printed SNES case is made by 3DPStuff who are based in Houston Texas, who sell a whole host of expertly printed products.

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Adapters are one of those things you can’t live with, but also can’t live without. It seems like you need an adapter for just about everything, which is frustrating when the lack of one becomes a roadblock in your project. No, I’m not speaking from experience, why do you ask?

Thankfully, the Binho Nova Multi-Protocol USB Host Adapter aims to be the last one you’ll ever need by offering a variety of protocols in a single package. That pitch alone got my attention. With this adapter, you can connect your computer to any I2C, SPI,1-WIRE, and SWI via USB.

Uses include everything from toggling an LED, to sending UART commands to DUT in a test fixture or even talking to an I2C IMU sensor breakout. Seriously, it does a lot. The design also features 5 signal pins that can be used for Digital Input, Output, PWM Output, Digital Interrupt, and Analog variations as well.

The host adapter can also use these pin to communicate across several digital buses, including I2C, SPI, UART, 1-wire, and Single-Wire interfaces. In this mode, other pins can be assigned to other purposes.

This kind of adapter makes manual testing easier during firmware development and debugging. It’s also a great way to automate your hardware testing and validation efforts. Finally, a common use case also includes EEPROM/Flash Memory testing and other functional testings in a product in a production type of environment.

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Drone synths are an ambient producer’s dream, generating slowly-evolving textures, tones and melodies for a dream-like glacial atmosphere, especially when used with reverb. The Elmyra is a new tabletop drone synth which you can build to immerse yourself in a lurid electronic soundscape with a gritty edge, thanks to its on-board analog distortion!

The Elmyra is based on the Adafruit ItsyBitsy M0 Express microcontroller, and has a 10-bit audio resolution which gives it a gritty sound. It features three oscillators which can be mixed using the front panel controls, which also include controls for feedback, delay, modulation, shape, filter, envelope and individual oscillator tuning. You may notice shades of the Lyra-8 in its design and sound, this was one of its main influences.

Choose to buy the Elmyra fully constructed or as a DIY unit, for which you’ll need a soldering iron, solder and a screwdriver – everything else is included. You can find more information, photos and videos on the Elmyra website. Hear what the Elmyra sounds like in the videos below:

Here is version 1.2 of the firmware, which features a chromatic mode and polyphonic playback.

The Elmyra is available from Neutral Labs who are based in Germany, and this is their first product – what a great start!

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Something interesting I noticed recently in the technology space was the way people reacted to the announcement of a media remote accessory for the upcoming PS5 game console. It caused way more of a reaction than you would expect from a remote, but the truth is that Sony-made remotes tend to be very useful and very high quality.

Unfortunately, the older versions of these devices don’t support modern electronics, so they’ve become obsolete. Thankfully, Remote Mods has managed to come up with a solution that doesn’t send these high-quality devices to the landfill.

The Sony RM-Y901 Programmable Remote with Atmega328PB retains everything you love about the build, buttons, and responsiveness of a Sony remote, but replaces the interior electronics with something more modern, namely an Atmega328PB. A castellated board replaces the sock microcontroller inside of this remote. You can program it using a Pogo pin adapter, which is included with every purchase while quantities last. If you already have one of these remotes, you can also purchase the replacement board separately.

Using the included source code, you can program codes, protocols, and devices into this remote, which features 50 buttons and lightweight design. We all dream of a universal remote that replaces multiple devices with a single one. That time, it seems, has finally arrived.

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When you want to catch a train in a subway system, there are normally a variety of apps, as well as displays in the stations themselves. In fact, if you’re not familiar with the system, figuring out which train to take can be a bit of a challenge.

If you step back from the hustle of actually trying to cram into a car, however, such a system’s movement is quite beautiful, almost organic. The Traintrackr illustrates this quite nicely, as it tracks trains arriving at stations in the London Underground, using addressable LEDs on a rather large PCB.

Given its “pixely” nature, and its lack of specifics, you wouldn’t want to use it to actually catch a train. Instead, it’s a brilliant display of human movement as a sort of luminescent art piece. As such, it includes a wooden stand on which to show it off.

The device connects to tracking servers over WiFi, using what appears to be an onboard ESP module. Presumably you could use the device worldwide, though it would certainly be more meaningful if you had some experience with the system, or have to catch a train from time to time!

More UK-themed tracking devices can be found on Traintrackr’s Tindie store.

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