Tindie Is Growing Up

September 4, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 14 Comments

Tindie, the etsy for electronics and DIY projects is growing up. After growing 300% in August, the creator of Tindie, [emile], is now working full-time as the head of Tindie, LLC.

Intended to be a place to connect makers with homebrew project connoisseurs, Tindie is seeing new projects and builds added every day. [emile] figures since some Tindie contributors are using the platform as the source of their livelihood, the least he could do would be to focus his energies into turning Tindie into a profitable and sustainable enterprise.

From the humble beginnings of an empty storefront, Tindie has grown large enough to feature some very cool projects such as a GoPro time lapse control board, a CNC router control board, a LiPo charger the size of a USB plug, a Raspi case milled out of a billet of aluminum, and a gag gift we wouldn’t want to take through airport security. Not bad for a web site that only launched a few months ago.

Hackaday Links: August 3, 2012

August 3, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 24 Comments

Oh cool we’re famous

Last weekend, the Tech Team Radio Show over in Stoke-on-Trent interviewed our boss man [Caleb]. It’s a really wonderful interview, and I’m not saying that because [Caleb] signs my check. The entire show is up on Mixcloud and you can listen to the interview beginning at about 20 minutes. By the way, the guy who interviewed [Caleb] is now writing for us. Please welcome [Richard] to our motley crew.

Group buys are an awesome idea

We’ve seen Tindie, an Etsy for your electronics projects, a few times before. [emile] put up a blog post showing the impressive stats for the first month: $646 went to makers and nearly 29,000 unique pageviews. [emile] is working on a new project called Starter. This feature allows makers to gauge interest in their project and organize group buys for rare and esoteric components. We can’t wait to see this feature go live, and of course we’ll plug it when it does.

First Tindie, now fixie

[Adam] needed a way to store his bike, so he made a swinging wall mount for his fixie. The mount is bolted to a door frame and since it swings it’s never in the way.

The latest advances in blanket technology

During the opening ceremony for the Olympics, [schobi] saw some really cool light-up blankets. From this picture it really looks like these blankets are emitting light, but we have no idea how this was done. Does anyone have an idea on how this effect was produced?

coughRaspberryPicough

[Craig] needed a way to mount PCBs that didn’t have any mounting holes. He came up with a laser cut Delrin clip and put the file up on Thingiverse.

An Etsy For Electronics

June 27, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 29 Comments

A few months ago we caught wind of Tindie, a site that gives builders, tinkerers, makers, and hackers a place to sell their projects. Well, Tindie has gone live and it looks to be cooler than we expected.

Already there are some pretty awesome projects available on Tindie such as a truly awesome MIDI keyboard, an Arduino synthesizer, and even a robot that plays Angry Birds.

In addition to giving makers a place to sell their wares, Tindie also offers a place to post want ads. If you have an idea for a project but don’t have the skills or tools to pull it off, Tindie is just the place for you. Any builder is free to make a bid for jobs that include a sonic screwdriver TV-b-gone or a Pip boy

Hopefully, Tindie will pick up some steam and fill the role of a much geekier Etsy. For now, though, we eagerly await the eventual Tindie/regretsy mashup showcasing perpetual motion machines and alien overlord detectors.

Tindie: An Etsy For Electronics

April 30, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 39 Comments

If you have a finished project you’re now bored with, here’s Tindie. It’s a one-man operation headed b [emile] that hopes to connect makers with people who think DIY projects are really cool and have money.

There are already a few websites that cater to the builder who wants to sell projects: Kickstarter for one, but this is based on the concept of campaigns. Tindie aims to be a techie etsy, according to [emile]’s market research post on reddit; a places for makers with a soldering iron to sell stuff, but who are baffled by the concept of knitting.

Right now there’s nothing to buy on Tindie – [emile] is looking for hackers to sell their projects so the store doesn’t launch with an empty stockroom. If you’ve got an old project sitting on your shelf that you’d like to sell, put it up. [emile] is only taking 5% of the sales – just enough to pay for the hosting. Hopefully it will be popular enough for the eventual Tindie/regretsy blog.