#techdiy

[adafruit]

Rooooound display prototype testing 🌀✨

Okay, we've got our 1.3" round TFT prototype ready for testing - and here's a cute GIF of a dial turning back and forth. It's a great way to test the display, backlight, and SD card interface. We're using a QT Py ESP32 since we need quite a bit of oomph to decode GIFs and display them in real-time. With EYESPI, no wiring is required! This is good to go - it's time to book the PCB panel!

[sludge-friend]

Progress on my arcade cabinet. It's nearing completion.

[adafruit]

Festival of Lights… A 'USB Stick' Sparkle Motion WLED driver ✨💡🔌🌟

To wrap up this year, we're doing 8 days (maybe!) of light-filled designs. We started with the Sparkle Motion Mini

adafruit (@adafruit.com)

mini Sparkle Motion prototype - a tiny, fully-featured WLED board ✨🔌📏💡🌈

which can drive thousands of shimmering RGB LEDs. Next, we were going through some of our NeoPixel samples today and found some "LED Christmas light kit" with star LEDs, its basically these stars

Attaching NeoPixel strips to your costume can be a struggle as the flexible PCBs can crack when bent too much. So how to add little shooting

with a little USB plug that has IR, a crummy mic, a tactile switch to cycle modes manually, and a tiny microcontroller that turns the LED selections to different patterns - kinda like this:

The idea is cute - but the implementation could be improved with a lil sparkle motion

Adafruit Sparkle Motion - All-In-One WLED and xLights Board

Coming soon! We're designing a board for using WLED - and we want to make like the bestest board in the wholeworld. Our resident me

! we made a PCB that would fit into the same plastic enclosure but with an ESP32 instead. it's got an IR receiver, ICS-43434 I2S digital microphone

https://www.digikey.com/short/mmv3tthz

gpio 0 button in the 'right' place, 5V 2A fuse, USB-serial converter for uploading/debugging, and two level-shifted outputs. We can probably get the case in quantity or have this be a 'DIY replacement' that folks can use to make their existing setups WLED/xLights friendly.

[adafruit]

Simple SIM breakout 📱🛠️

It's a new year! Time to take on moooore projects! Maybe we'll replace the FONA family with LTE modules this year. The First thing we need to do is get a good SIM card holder. We don't have a breakout for one already, so we're just going to whip this one up so we have it ready for when we need to prototype. We can put it in the shop, too.

[adafruit]

USB2422 configurable USB Hub chip

The Microchip USB2422 is kinda neat, its a low cost USB hub with EEPROM you can connect to I2C to configure. We thought it would make a nice little breakout for whenever you have a USB port but you sorta wish you had two! Maybe even embed in some hardware! We just made a couple USB hub breakouts with the CH334F ...

Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits : Search Results - Tools Gift Certificates Arduino Cables Sensors LEDs Books

but this board might be nice if you want more configurability & control: the stemma QT connector on the end is what you can plug into to program it. we designed rev A of this board in 2021 and then it got slammed by part shortages, now its back in stock so we can revisit this design!

[adafruit]

Mini USB hub proto is a universal USB port expander 🔌💡🖥️📲🔄💻🎛️🧩

Sometimes you've got something with USB host, like a embedded linux board, and you want to connect more than one thing. or maybe you want to turn something like a keyboard into a multi-device USB peripheral. this usb hub board will do that for you! it features an SL2.1 USB 2.1 hub chip which converts one port into four. we have either 0.1" header or USB C for the upstream, and then 4 x 4-pin ports for peripheral connections. to test it out we're using our 'simple' USB-breakout cables https://www.adafruit.com/product/4449 that just give the 5V/D+/D-/GND pins on wires for quick testing. all is good, this is ready to order!

[vipulbaibhav]

Daily Tech Articles-Tech news | Tech News Updates: DIY Smartphone Projector: Complete Guide to Build a Mini Projector at Home

Learn how to build a DIY smartphone projector at home with simple materials, costs, and step-by-step instructions.

[panstag]

Choosing the Right Wi-Fi Board for Flipper Zero (2026)

Flipper Zero becomes a very different tool once you add a Wi-Fi board — but picking the right one matters more than most people think.

I broke down the most commonly used options like ESP32, ESP8266, and ESP32-S3, focusing on:

What each board is actually good at

Real-world use cases (not just specs)

Compatibility issues beginners often miss

Which board makes sense depending on how you use Flipper Zero

If you’re into hardware hacking, tinkering, or just learning how these tools work under the hood, this guide should save you time.

📖 Full guide here: https://www.panstag.com/2026/01/best-wi-fi-board-for-flipper-zero.html