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Episode 30 - Spin the Black Circle

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Published: March 2, 2026

Tod and Paul chat about an open source record player, a new operating system for MicroPython, you won't believe who's going to Eurovision, and more.

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Show Notes

00:19 Statimatic STM-01 Automatic Turntable (Paul #1)

Patrick Nelson started this project about 4 years ago and then got stuck - but now he’s back and he’s documenting all of his progress to build an open source turntable.

His project goals included:

  • Only 7” records at 33 1/3 rpm or 45 rpm
  • Full sized LP expansion
  • Expansion port
  • Record changer
  • Alarm clock
  • Remote control from a Commodore 64
  • Automatic capabilities - the tonearm plays and stops on its own
  • Easily sourced or made parts
  • Open source design and PCB files
  • Anti-skate, speed control, track lightly
  • Treat records nicely

From there, Patrick shares additional videos on the design, how he redesigned the tonearm and a another video for its lift mechanism, and more.

5:00 MicropythonOS and WaveShare ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-2 (Tod #1)

My new favorite WiFi dev board is the ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-2 by Waveshare. And it runs this fun new "OS" called MicropythonOS.

The ESP32-S3-Touch-LED-2 (what a mouthful) is about the size of a candy bar, has a 2" 320x240 captouch screen bonded on top of an ESP32-S3 devboard with 8MB PSRAM, 16MB flash, an SD card reader and a 5MP camera. It's also got an onboard accelerometer and lithium battery management. All for $22. It comes with header pins so you can plug it into a breadboard (but you can't have the camera plugged in while it's on a breadboard, unless you have it straddling two breadbards) I think most uses will see the module placed into a (3d printed) enclosure and used without much extra hooked up to it.

Unlike one of my previous favorite ESP32 boards, this one's display is only via SPI, not parallel bus, so you can't do those blistering fast animations, but it's servicable. Also, the display and SD card share the same SPI bus, so I don't think you'll be recording much video with the camera, but it's great for timelapse or stills.

And there's a basic CircuitPython firmware for it! It just sets up the display, not any of the other peripherals (including the touchscreen), but there is a separately downloadable touch library that works.

But what's really neat about this particular Waveshare module is that it's the main target platform for MicropythonOS. MicropythonOS is attempting to provide an Android-like experience for ESP32-sized devices that have touchscreens: a complete UI system with touch gestures, an app store, over-the-air (OTA) updates, and a set of APIs like BatteryManager, AppManager, InputManager, and so on, to make writing apps in Micropython pretty nice.

When I first started following MicropythonOS a month ago, it only supported this board, but now it fully supports six different boards with six more coming soon. Two of these coming soon devices are smartwatch stytle ESP32-S3 gizmos from Lilygo. Very cool that we'll have a full Micropython OS smartwatch soon!

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10:16 3D Printing News Roundup (Paul #2)

  • Tool Trace AI is a site that allows you to upload a picture of your tools and it will create foam shadowboxes or grifinity inserts you can 3D print to hold your tools.
  • 3D printing uses AI to fix prints in real time - using multiple LLMs, researchers have created a way for AI to monitor, correct, and fix your 3D prints in real time.
  • Creality Filament maker - Creality has introduced a filmament shredder for your old filament and a filament maker to use from the shredded filament. It can create up to 1 kilo of filament per hour.

14:37 Teenage Engineering Ting EP-2350 (Micropython-based product) (Tod #2)

The clever folks at Teenage Engineering have released an interesting little musical microphone toy. And it's the first commercial product for normies I've seen that is running Micropython under the hood, and let's you get at the Micropython it runs. It's called the Ting EP-2350.

The Ting EP-2350 costs about $60 and looks like the handset of a CB radio. But it's got three extra buttons on the side in addition to the talk switch. You plug its curly cable into your mixer or audio input and when you press the talk switch, your voice can be altered by four different audio effects, selected with one of those extra buttons. Four small LEDs tell you which of the four audio effects you've selected. Another button lets you trigger four different sound samples, which can also be effected. The position of the talk handle and shaking the unit can change how the effect alters your sound. Again, another four small LEDs show which sample is currently ready to be triggered.

The list of audio effects is pretty extensive: echo delay with adjustable EQ, feedback, & wet level; distortion with gain & EQ, harmonizer for repitching, reverb with EQ & spring emulation, ring-modulation, and single-side-band (SSB) for that sci-fi/ham-radio squawky audio sound. If you notice, the list of sound effects and their parameters are greater than the number of slots available. How do you reconcile this?

If you plug the Ting into your computer, it shows up like a thumbdrive (just like CircuitPython) and you can edit a "config.json" file that specifies which effect should be in which slot, how its settings should be, and how the handle and shaking inputs should map to those settings. Oh and you can also chain effects! So for a single slot you can feed the EQ into the delay, then into the harmonizer, and then into the reverb. So it's sort of like a virtual guitar pedalboard in a little microphone. Pretty cool!

With the Ting plugged into your computer, you can also connect to its Micropython REPL and see the code it's running. You'll see that they've created a custom build of Micropython (version ????) that has a handful of custom built-in modules like fx that manages the audio effects chains, ui to manage the LEDs, accelerometer, and buttons, and spl to handle loading samples and triggering them to play. The entirety of the main.py is just taking that "config.json" file and setting up these modules, there's not much logic in them, as you just configure the fx module to use the shake from ui to adjust a paramter, rather than having Python code do it. But it's really incredible that Teenage Engineering gives this amount of control.

If you've played around with CircuitPython, the ability to chain audio effects is very similar to what we've been able to do for the last year with the built-in audioeffects module. And the type of effects CirPy has is very similar too. The CircuitPython approach is more configurable and exposes much more of the ability to drive the effects in creative ways than what the Ting can do. It's sort of like, the Ting's effects are a small guitar pedalboard but CircuitPython's audioeffects are an entire modular synthesizer acting like a guitar pedal board.

As you might've noticed by the name, the Ting EP-2350 is running an RP-2350 under the hood. I've taken my Ting apart and verified it's got a 2MB flash (leaving 1MB for samples) and shows up almost as a standard RP2350 UF2 boot device. I've not checked yet, but I think they've used some of the new RP2350's security features to only allow signed firmware because a vanilla Pico2 CircuitPython image did not work.

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20:48 Game Controllers (Paul #3)

  • The OpenSplitDeck is a home built gamepad controller inspired by Valve's Steam Controller. It features two trackpads, joysticks, and more and can also split into two halves to make it more ergonomic. Linus Tech Tips YouTube video

  • Joypad OS (Adafruit coverage) allows you to build a dongle to connect your game controller to other platforms. The dongle is powered by the rp2040 and you can buy a dev kit for $50 at Joypad.AI.

24:46 LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER is going to Eurovision 2026 (Tod #3)

My favorite nutty synth professor Sam Bartle, aka LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER on Youtube, is the UK's surprise entry for Eurovision 2026. Eurovision is a yearly bonkers musical contest and Sam's particular flavor of insanity will fit right in. His performances on his homemade animatronic synths are incredible in their wackyness and his deep musicality. I hope he wins.

I've been following Sam's Youtube channel for about 9 years. He originally hooked me by showing simple synth circuits he turns into proper modules for his homemade modular rig. One of the best for me was the "Simplest DIY Audio Oscillator" that uses a single transistor, capacitor, resistor and LED to make a nice sounding square wave oscillator that's suprisingly musical. For less than $10 he made a 5-voice drone synth that sounds amazing. His online delivery is almost the exact opposite to previously-mentioned Moritz Klein's very calm and considered synth design approach. Every circuit Sam makes as he hand-drills the panels, Sharpies knob labels, and solders over live circuits makes you almost expect a disaster to happen. But it never does. Sam is a professional and exceedingly fun to watch.

Other great videos of his are his Furby Organ where he takes 45 Furbies and hacks them into a nice wood-enclosed organ. Or the 1000 oscillator megadrone that takes that simple oscillator circuit and multiplies it by literally a thousand. The final result takes up a whole wall. He's built a tonne of other gear and he his builds are explicitly for him to perform with because he's also a professional musician, often on tour

With all these huge builds though, Sam needed a place to put them all. So he created This Museum is Not Obsolete, a real physical museum of experimental and old technology in Kent, UK. You can go there an play on some of this gear. And see other amazing artifacts like old test gear and ancient telephone switching equipment, all of it hooked up and able to make cool noises.

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