Since I appear to have a lot of altoids tins kicking around I wondered what other musical toys could be housed in 'em. The mention of The Voice Of Saturn on the Make blog a few weeks back got me onto the 'atari punk console' so I put one of 'em + power and a clock into one tin and a simple analogue sequencer in another tin and I've got the heart of a modular synth set-up up and running :) My sequencer was inspired also by the voice of Saturn sequencer but I simplified and modified it so it can run in series or parallel so you can have as many sequential steps as you like. Going to add an LFO next and maybe a solar power supply + whatever other nonsense I can think of.

A little more about Pocket Synths by James Watt

A link to this was posted in the comments to yesterday's cigar box guitar post, but I thought it was cool enough to get its own item. Be sure to check out the builder's Flickr sets for his cookie tin banjo and his cigar box guitar.

Lunch Box Guitar

Tiny "boom" box, built from a Lucky Strikes tin, an old MP3 player, an LM1877n-9 amp chip, and some garage sale speaks. It's dubbed the "Mobile Oppression Unit." Can it really be THAT loud? Or maybe it's the likely lo-fidelity when cranked that makes it oppressive.

Mobile Oppression Unit

Read more about a Solar Theremin in an Altoids tin

Related:

An amazing Solar dragonfly

The YBox2 is a DIY networked set-top box. Connect it to your TV and you can design customized content to be delivered direct from the Internet.

This project is great for people who want a new platform to experiment with. The video and Internet cores are ready to go and easy to work with. We have some example widgets that demonstrate the YBox2's capability, and the whole project is open source so you can start hacking your own. If you've ever been curious about the Parallax Propeller chip, the YBox2 is a perky little platform with tons of accessories.

The YBox was first invented by Uncommon Projects, as part of Yahoo Hack day. Robert Quattlebaum is the main designer behind the YBox2.

• Built using the new Parallax Propeller chip - 8 cores, 32KB of RAM running at 80MHz!
• Works with any NTSC or PAL TV that has composite (RCA) input
• Works with any network router that supports DHCP, just plug in an Ethernet cable and you're ready to go
• Kit comes with an Internet-enabled bootloader, so you can upload new programs directly from your computer, without a special cable or prop-plug (Propeller chip programmer)
• IR receiver for using a TV remote control
• Full color status LED
• Piezo Buzzer for generating beeps, alarms, and tones
• Pushbutton for input
• Lots of examples programs to try out
• Fits in an altoids tin!

TriggerDog has been doing the projects in Making Things Talk, and came up with a great way to take the Arduino on the go:

Small easy, and awfully unorigional. But, useful and free. Now I can bring my arduino with me in my laptop bag and goof around with it at lunch time at work or wherever. I am thinking I would put a breadboard in another tin of some sort and put a battery pack inside to run any projects I might feel inclined to proto.

Arduino + Altoids Tin

Related:

• Arduino guide @ MAKE
• Arduino archives @ MAKE
• "Making Things Talk" the best book on Arduino!
• Arduino in the Maker store

Parts you need:

(1) 7812 - Voltage regulator
(1) Candy tin
(1) Switch
(1) 40 mm case fan
(2) 9-Volt batteries
(2) "Cheap" 9V battery connectors (see step 2 & 3)
(2) Pieces of screen
(1) Piece of activated carbon filter
Some heat shrink tubing
A few inches of Wire
Rosin core solder
Miscellaneous screws and washers
Paint (optional)

Tools you need:

Soldering iron
Dremel with cutoff wheel
Drill & small drill-bits
Fine tip marker
Various Screwdrivers
Wire cutters
Safety glasses

Step 1 : Build the circuit

I decided that that a quick mock-up might be a good idea. I am glad I did. At first, I thought that running the case fan off of just (1) 9-Volt would provide adequate power. In the end I decided that 12 volts "sucked" better, and in this case it's a good thing.

The final circuit uses a simple switch, (2) 9 volt batteries, a 40mm case fan, and a 7812 voltage regulator. The 7812 takes voltage from the (2) 9-Volts that are wired in series and steps the voltage down from 18-Volts to 12-Volts, which is what the fan requires.

Step 2 : Solder components

Notice the battery connectors; they are the flexible vinyl version, not the hard plastic type. This allows them to easily fit in the case.

This is a very simple circuit. Solder it according to the diagram, making sure to attach the component leads to the 7812 properly. Don't forget to use heat shrink tubing on the connections, this is in a metal box.....metal conducts electricity!

Step 3 : Make sure it all fits

Everything can be stuffed into the tin, but make sure you use the cheap kind of 9 volt connectors. The cheap ones are the kind made of vinyl, not rigid plastic. The difference in thickness is minimal, but it is enough to stop you from putting both 9 volts in the case.

The things you need:

• MintyBoost kit - available at the MAKE store
• Soldering Iron
• Rosin core solder
• Altoids tin or any other small tin - available in the MAKE store

• Arms of Assistance - Make you own
• Helping hands for holding your parts
• Fume extractor

Step 1 : Take inventory

Spread out all the parts and make sure everything is there, and familiarize yourself with the parts. You can compare them to the parts list on the LadyAda website.

Step 2 : Parts placement

I chose to place, and solder, a lot of the components all at once. If you are new to soldering, or a bit rusty, you may want to only tackle a few parts at a time. I put everything, except the resistors and the IC holder, in and bent the wires so they would stay in place while soldering. Make sure you follow the polarity of the electrolytic capacitors (C2) and (C3) and the diode (D1).

Jean-Pierre Martineau made an instructable for making a pocket-sized watercolor set from an Altoids tin and some Fimo clay. Portable and practical!

Altoids Tin Guitar

Related:

Matchbox Synthesizer - Link

I put whiteboard marker on my fingers and pressed them on a piece of paper to get this footprint. The idea of sculpting them from PCB material came to me when I was trying to sleep. Ha ha. Next time I'll use thicker copper with a thicker substrate.

Nice work on the whole project. The labels and green metalflake are swanky.

Touchkeyer Ergometrics - Link

Hello friends and YBox enthusiasts! We have some exciting news to share. There is a new YBox on the block--the YBox 2!

The YBox made its debut as a quick and dirty prototype for Yahoo's first public Hackday. Then it reappeared as a kit, a series of workshops and a giveaway at last year's SF Maker's Faire. We had a great time sharing the project with folks, and so it's with real glee that we announce the YBox 2.

It was developed by Robert Quattlebaum a developer and classmate from the SF sessions. He's made a number of smart refinements to the project, including getting the cost down by replacing the Xport. Our secret (and admittedly improbable) goal was always to get this thing down to $10, and he managed to shave $50 off the cost with version 2! But there's more than just cost, including a speaker, a status light and countless tweaks. All in all a really exciting evolution. Congrats Robert.

Some of you have written to ask about new kits or to wonder why the wiki has been terrorized with spam. The kits are gone and we don't have time to make more. The good news is that the project continues and you can contact Robert if you'd like to purchase a new board or to download the board files and create your own Ybox 2. We'll work on getting the wiki cleaned up and we send a special thanks to all the folks who have put in countless hours scouring it.

OK that's it for now, happy hacking!

Related:

YBox in 60 Seconds - Link.

YBOX - turns a TV into a simple, web configurable ... - Link.

We built a beeping flashing toothbrush timer like the one on the Philips SoniCare toothbrush for just a few dollars and plenty of experience and fun.

It seems that everyone and their mother is cramming various projects into mint tins these days. Well, that's a bandwagon that I just couldn't resist jumping onto. The only question was what project to build?

I ordered a MiniPOV3 kit from the Makezine Store, a while back. After building it and playing with it, and letting my kids play with it, and repairing it a couple times after the kids played with it, I decided it needed a case to live in. Realization struck. The first thing I did was check Google to find out if it had been done before. As far as I could tell, it hadn't, so I started gathering parts.

Rather than mess up my original kit, I decided to scratch build the circuit on perfboard. I used LEDs that I had harvested from a string of LED christmas lights, resistors and other bits from various sources, and the requisite mint (Wintergreen flavor) tin.

Related:
MiniPOV- An Inexpensive Persistence of Vision - Link.

The joy of making stuff - Link

Yet another Altoids tin inspired project. This time the "MintyMic" case includes a powered microphone and preamp with line-level outputs and adjustable gain control. Best of all the whole project comes as a kit, or you can get your own parts and follow the instructions on the site, or it can even be shipped pre-assembled for the lazy maker.

Subatomicglue - mintymic work log - Link

This tutorial will show you how to make a very simple robot that will avoid obstacles on the ground. It uses no microcontrollers, no servos, and there is no need to program. The simple design make its an ideal project for those wanting to tryout robotics and also makes a great weekend project. After building one you can probably make a second one in less than 10 minutes.

This amateur radio club provides kits uniquely packaged in tuna tins. When you build the kit, the tuna tin also serves as a chassis for your new project, complete with a nice label for the tin. Although most of the kits are geared towards QRP (low power ham radio) operators, Make readers might enjoy the "AXEme Picaxe Construction Kit". This is a Picaxe development board built into one of the famous tuna tins. It's a very unique and eye-catching way to work with microcontrollers.

Coolest Altoids/Tin mod I've seen. This guy (Greg Sanders) made a portable game box that plays a rogue like game. He uses a Genesis controller to control the actual game, but I'd bet with a little work the entire unit could be entirely self-contained (by using a tipping-disk for directional control and one button for action). See here too (a pretty cool site itself) for useful controller schematics.

The Problem:
I recently installed a StarCom system for an upcoming tour of the Oregon/Washington coast. My girlfriend tours with me, and thus far we've used our own iPods with in-ear monitors for entertainment, and hand signals for communication. On this tour a buddy is coming along who wanted bike-to-bike communications; thus the StarCom. My girlfriend wanted to be able to listen to the radio conversations, as well as talk to me, but I realized that if I didn't do something, she was going to wind up running the iPod. We have different musical tastes, and while we both listen to audiobooks we're usually into different books at any given time. This meant I was going to have to listen to her stuff the whole time. Unacceptable!!!

The Solution:
We use in-ear monitors, so I got the StarCom headsets that allow the use of your own headphones. I quickly realized this would make it possible to rig up some kind of switch or patch cable system that would allow her to listen to her own iPod if she didn't want to listen to whatever I had running on mine, but switch over to the intercom if I needed to talk to her. I scoured the internet looking for solutions, as well as all my local electronics stores, to no avail. No one makes a switchable audio input for personal headset use. However, I DID find a switch at RadioShack that lets you switch between computer audio input and an auxilliary audio, as well as switching output between computer speakers and headsets (clicky. And for only $2!! I figured if it were small enough, she could stick this in her pocket and switch between the intercom and her iPod at will.

All in an Altoids tin of course!

Have you ever seen a couple sharing a single pair of ipod buds, each listening with only one ear? That was the problem I wanted to solve when I started building dual channel headphone amplifiers while I was back in grad school. After a long day of soldering krytrons and high voltage capacitors in the plasma physics lab I would come home and...solder some more.

From the pages of MAKE:

Mint-Tin Amp. Pocket amplifier punches up headphones. MAKE 04 - page 141. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition or get MAKE 04 @ the Maker store.

Related:

Phonograph turntable strobe zootrope - Link.

HOW TO - Make a small portable strobe light - Link.

HOW TO - Make a "Slave Strobe" - Link.

HOW TO - Make a Strobe Out of a Monitor... - Link.
DIY Lightning strobe for Halloween projects - Link.

From the pages of MAKE:

Homemade Strobe Photography. Take pictures of popping balloons, breaking glass, and water droplets. MAKE 04 - Page 102. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition or get MAKE 04 @ the Maker store or the kit!

This instructable will show you how to create a multifunction platform with a thermometer, chronograph (count up timer), count down timer, and light display. It is also intended to be a platform for other analog sensors or any other functions you can think of.

instructables : Multifunction Digital Thermometer - Link.

Related mint tin projects:

Pintoids - Pinhole cameras made from Altoid tins - Link.

AVR ISP programmer in a mint tin... - Link.

My Little Pony musical Altoids keychain - Link.

Copper plating and etching Altoids tins - Link.

Nintendo mint case - Link.

HOW TO - Make an Altoids tin morse code oscillator - Link.

Guide to Field Soldering - Link.

Disposable metal boxes make excellent shielded enclosures - Link.

More! - Link.

Yes, you read that project title right; this simple circuit will enable you to generate 5V DC from a single 1.5V DC AA battery. How can you pump 1.5V up to 5V, you ask? It's simple with a little piece of electronic steroids from MAXIM IC.

The MAX1674 IC is a DC-to-DC step-up converter that can take in voltages as low as .7V and crank out a digital circuit enriching 5V. Or, for more finicky projects, the MAX1674 can also output 3.3V. A simple pin-selectable preset determines the output voltage.

There is one small caveat with this project, however. Whether a blessing or a curse, the MAX1674 generates a steady-state output current ranging between 180-420 mA. Therefore, high current projects involving motors won't be able to benefit from this voltage amplifying circuit.

On the other hand, powering lightweight projects involving TTL/LS circuitry or LEDs are ideal applications for Voltoids. In fact, with such a low operating current, the MAX1674 is able to drive a 3.3V LED without the ubiquitous power-limiting resistor. All from a single 1.5V AA battery.

If this project seems beyond your talents, but the benefits of powering a digital circuit from a single 1.5V DC power source sounds enticing, you can opt to purchase a similar circuit from Spark Fun Electronics. Costing less than $10, this clever little device which is designed by Bodhilabs.com is housed discretely on the back of an AA battery holder.

Unfortunately, with this commercial product you are limited to a fixed 5V output and it isn't housed in a cool Altoids tin. Enter Voltoids.

instructables : Weekly Project: Voltoids; or, How to Make 5V from 1.5V - Link.

Pintoids are pinhole cameras made from Altoid containers. A piece of pop culture transformed into something useful. An instrument to view the world with a dry, distorted, sense of humor. They tend to create curiously strong images.

The Great Pintoid Adventure is a continuing journey. This first series represents a trip I took with my dog across the northern plains to the north shore of Lake Superior. Imperfections in the negative come from loading film at a campsite each night using a dark bag. Both hands in a dark bag, loading cameras ... and it was mosquito season.

Related:

• HOW TO - Make your own - Link.
• Altoid camera kit - Link.

My simple inexpensive Parallel ISP programmer has done the job since I started working with AVR's, but it definitely has its problems. It doesn't work with some computers, it is slow, it is unreliable and it requires a parallel port which is getting less common. USB seemed the natural progression. I selected the AVR Doper project by Objective Development as the base for the new programmer. Below is a 3D model of the streamlined AVR Doper created in POV-Ray using Eagle3D. I only wanted to build an ISP so I was able to lose many of the components. I rounded the edges and scaled the board to fit in an Altoids tin.

Rototron - Thanks David! Link.

Nicrosin writes -

My girlfriend loves My Little Pony stuff. She got a Balloon flyer for Christmas but didn't care for it, however she loved the music. So an idea clicked and I made a musical keychain from an Altoids tin. I gave this to her for Valentines Day.

My Little Pony Musical Altoids Keychain - a photoset on Flickr - Link.

"Using a car battery, blue vitriol solution (an archaic name for copper sulfate) and printed circuit board making techniques, I etched and copper plated some Altoids containers this past weekend."

Copper plating and etching Altoids tins- Link.

"I just picked one of these up tonight at the Nintendo store in Rockefeller Center. The mints aren't that great but I'm thinking that this would make a great project box for something -- maybe an mp3 case or an uber minty boost. " - Link.