Our New Forum, PCB Revisions, Case Improvements, Firmware Features, and Other Developments
Our current priority is completing a pilot production run of about 50 units. This will give us confidence in our suppliers and manufacturing partners, and help us identify any early issues with how we're intending to produce our larger batches. Much of our time over the last month has been spent preparing for that run. This update covers ongoing work related to Tangara's PCB, case, and firmware, among other developments. Read the full update.
Your Device, Your Way
We're in the last day of the campaign now, and we're all so thankful for your support. We're very excited to begin production and start getting Tangaras into your hands. This week we'll be talking about how you can customize your Tangara, which is, if you ask me, one of the best parts of open hardware. I'll be talking about the professionally manufactured cases that Tangara will be shipping with, then guest writer Erin will talk about the absolutely incredible work she's been doing to make the case easy to machine or 3D print (even at a hobbyist level). Finally, I'll be showing off Tangara's CSS-inspired UI themes. Read the full update.
Pre-production Progress
Our campaign crossed 500 backers this week! Thank you so much to everyone for your kind support! All of us in the Cool Tech Zone feel so lucky to have this opportunity to share our little music player with so many people. This week we were intending to talk about the design of Tangara's case, but some illnesses in the team have left us without time to do a proper write-up. So instead we'll tell you about the case design next week, while this week I'll be giving you a short update on how things are going with our pre-production work. Read the full update.
Lua Support
This week's update is about Tangara's support for the Lua scripting language. I'll talk a bit about what Lua is, describe what it can do, and share some fun examples of how you can control Tangara from a Lua console. Then Hailey will show off the desktop companion app she's been working on, which uses Lua to do some really cool things as well. Read the full update.
Creating a Custom Faceplate
This time, we take an in-depth look at making large-scale custom changes like swapping in a physical rotary encoder. Read the full update.
Measuring (Tangara's) Audio Quality
In this week's update, I'll be talking about the thing you have to talk about if you've made an audio device: the design and quality of Tangara's audio output. I don't like just throwing out a bunch of very technical measurements and hoping people trust they're good, so I will also give a very brief introduction to audio quality measurement in general. I'll then go through a neat little hack you can do to Tangara's audio chain to improve compatibility with cheap, sensitive IEMs. Read the full update.
A Deep Dive Into the Design of Our Touchwheel
In this update, we'll go through the history of why we chose a capacitive touchwheel for Tangara, how the current design works, and what it can do, as well as some resources and tips for incorporating this kind of touchwheel into your own projects. Read the full update.
Our Campaign Is Live!
Tangara is a cool, hackable, ESP32-powered music player. It provides high-quality audio output, long battery life, and a design that's easy to customize, repair, and upgrade. Read the full update.