iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 04/08/2026

Pink, cyan, white. I should have used cool white instead of warm white, I'll do that on the next one. Please let me know if you find a source of pink 0402 LEDs, because I could only find 0603s.

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 04/08/2026

I missed my monthly "don't buy a resin printer" meeting with @jumperless.org because I was hand-soldering a 3×2mm WS2811 IC to a flex PCB. If you want a Neopixel with colors other than RGB, turns out you can just make your own by having a long enough manic episode.

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 28/04/2026

I made a box to keep my lead-tin solder isolated from the other gear in my traveling electronics kit, and uh,

A small white box with heavy-duty-looking latches and text that reads "PROP 65 WARNING WARNING: this product contains lead, which is known to the state of California to cause Prop 65 Warnings"

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 17/11/2025

Ok but seriously, what am I going to do with a nearly 4-foot-tall (114 cm) Cool S, I've run out of wall space for such a thing. Do I let it into the blank wall space I keep for professional video calls? Do I mount it on the ceiling over my bed??

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 13/11/2025

I caved and moved my nice Hakko again onto my living room floor where the Cool S is happening. Back in business. These angle connectors are great!

A photo of a connector PCB joining two strips cleanly at a 135° angle

A photo of a connector PCB joining two strips cleanly at a 120° angle

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 12/11/2025

I remember these being easier to lay out in elementary school 😅 Anyway, good thing I didn't solder any more joints because I realize now I should have the data flowing in the opposite direction. Got to reverse all the strips now.

A poster board with a meter-long cool S marked out with blue tape and addressable LED strips

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 11/11/2025

Oops, I gave my strips a pitch of 2.54mm and these LED strips are 3mm pitch. It's manageable, but I need a quick way to adjust that in the KiCad model. Reminding myself to quadruple-check the polarity of these strips before turning on the iron.....

One 90° connector PCB soldered cleanly to two LED strips

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 11/11/2025

This project brought to you by the Hakko B2300 Heat Resistant Pad I love you, Hakko B2300 Heat Resistant Pad

One end of an LED strip and a 90° corner bracket on a Hakko B2300 Heat Resistant Pad

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 11/11/2025

Putting on a hard hat and steel toed boots, consulting the cyanotype blueprints for this elaborate construction project

A hand holding a printed out diagram of the Cool S shape, with distances and angles dimensioned. It is not a cyanotype blueprint despite what the post says.

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 08/09/2025

A silly idea that turned out well! Most flex PCBs are cut by laser, not milled, so you can make perforations by adding incomplete edge cuts. These disks are for cleanly joining LED strips at different angles and different radii, and they break apart with just my fingers, no other tools.

A flex PCB with concentric copper rings and perforations so it can be torn into smaller arcs and wedges.

The same flex PCB with one quarter of it torn out and turned into three curved connector pieces of different radii. The remaining board has a silkscreen that says "Do it [...] coward" in Jokerman font.

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 26/02/2025

Taking a break here. One of the black-red-purple convex hexagons and one of the burnt-white concave hexagons had to be filed down a wee bit before I could slot them in. I love the 5' continuous glue stick 🎵

The canvas from the previous post, now fully tiled on the top half. A hot glue gun is lying on the empty bottom half. A 5-foot-long continuous coil of hot glue stick is spooling out the back of the glue gun.

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 26/02/2025

I have enough pieces to fill an 11×14" shadowbox now. It's all coming together 😁 I'm still a bit worried about fit and precision (or lack thereof) on these tiles, but gosh they fit nicely so far. Need to get more hot glue though.... So that's *two* things I had to buy in order to complete this.

A stretched canvas with some of the homemade melted plastic zellij tiles nestled in place, starting at the center and progressing to the top left.

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 24/02/2025

Here I'm re-melting a failed shirt button from my previous "what can I melt all this scrap PLA into" project. I'm "baking" each tile multiple times to make sure every corner of the moulds get filled in. If I did this again, I'd make another piece to help with that step.

A hand holding a brick-red rubber mould filled with irregular chunks of plastic, one of which looks like a grey shirt button.

A photo of the same mould after all the pieces have been melted and fused together.

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 20/02/2025

The pattern is adapted from this one at the Bouanania Madrasa in Meknes, Morocco: patterninislamicart.com/single-id/1468 More details about the geometry here: tilingsearch.mit.edu/HTML/data173...

A computer graphic of the tiling pattern in question, with certain shapes highlighted in green or blue to add contrast and definition.

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 20/02/2025

I made some high-temp silicone molds out of Mold Max 60 and have begun casting Moroccan-style zellij tiles out of my years of accumulated PLA scrap. They are very fun to play with.

A photo of a hand holding two brick-red rubber molds, about 5mm deep and 40mm across, in two geometric shapes common to Moroccan zellij tiles. In the background are more rubber molds, still encased in the black plastic forms that they were poured in.

A photo of a canvas board partly covered in zellij tiles. The 8-pointed star pieces are solid blue or solid orange color, and the rest of the tiles are messy tie-dye colors. More tiles sit on a piece of paper next to the canvas, waiting to be placed.

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 20/01/2025

I was wandering around HQB with only a burner phone, so I couldn't do graphic design on-the-spot. Extra-special thanks @architeuthisflux.bsky.social who saw my DMs well past midnight & threw together some PNGs so I could WeChat them to the printer operator. Whole process was about 35 minutes.

A Discord screenshot of settinger (me) saying "Thank you for moving at Shenzhen speed lmao" and then Kevin replying "Shenzhen almost moves at Kevin speed"

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 20/01/2025

It wasn't till after the event that inspiration struck and I made this spool holder. It's got a post in the middle to hold the Pathé-Baby center alignment holes and lets you tear the sheet at the right spot.

A side view of the sticker spool holder showing a very full reel of the "Do it you Coward" stickers waiting to be dispensed.

A close-up of the center alignment post on the dispenser that the sticker sheet lines up with.

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 20/01/2025

Our #makergiftexchange happened on Wednesday, another moment where I'm bowled over by just how creative my friends and colleagues can be. My contribution was an inside joke. Did you know that, in Shenzhen, they'll let you print whatever you want on those shiny holographic security stickers?

A roll of stickers in a black plastic dispenser. Each sticker is a silver holographic circle, about 1 inch diameter, with "Do it you Coward" written in the Jokerman typeface.

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 18/09/2023

I almost called this model "oh look at the time, it's gender o'clock" but I went with a more clinical title in the end. But check it out, it's a fun print! www.printables.com/model/585949...

Two side by side images of a person wearing a white-and-violet pendant made of gears. In the left photo, the dials on the gears form the male/Mars astrological symbol; in the right photo, the dials have been turned and the gears shifted to form the female/Venus astrological symbol.

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Sam Ettinger @settinger.net · 28/07/2023

NOOOOOO my favorite 8-bit microcontroller, the ATtiny20-UUR, is officially Not Recommended For New Designs 😭 1.4×1.6 mm of perfect adorable computation

A 5mm LED held in a pair of tweezers. Under the lens is a tiny, tiny PCB with a tiny microcontroller and a programmable shunt IC.

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