Harry | Sept. 19, 2015

Tymkrs Amplify Me (LM386 Amplifier Kit)

For Tymkrs Amplify Me (LM386 Amplifier Kit)

Thank you for your survey. I have yet to get the amp working; there were no directions with the parts. Harry Byron

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | Sept. 19, 2015

Hi Harry,

Please look to http://tymkrs.com/products.html. There is also a direct link to documentation on the page where we sell the item. Thanks!

Addie

Nathan | June 8, 2015

Great kit, puts out a surprisingly good sound

For Tymkrs Amplify Me (LM386 Amplifier Kit)

For someone who had never wielded a soldering iron before, this kit was a great starter - managed to assemble a working circuit with no foul language. Kit is now stuffed into a cigar box and sounds sweet.

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | June 8, 2015

Rockin! Glad you were able to make a cigar box amplifier!!

Dan | March 2, 2015

A nice little product that fits a need

For Tymkrs Midi In Me

I do a lot of DIY midi circuits and midi design. There's really no product that I could find that fits neatly on a breadboard. Sparkfun has a nice combo Midi In/out/thru but it's not breadboard friendly. Price on the Tymkrs unit is reasonable too. I bought 2 actually...one for the breadboard and one for incorporating into a product. The pcb is about as small as one can make it with thru-hole components and is ideal for my application where space is a premium. Good job guys!

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | March 2, 2015

Hi Dan,

Thanks so much for your kind review and glad you were able to make use of this product! Please let us know if there are any other MIDI needs that we can help with. Thanks again!

Addie of Tymkrs

Dan | March 2, 2015

Eric | Feb. 2, 2015

Great little amp kit!

For Tymkrs Amplify Me (LM386 Amplifier Kit)

This kit is fantastic and a ton of fun! Everything required is included except the speaker and those are easy to find from online sources or in discarded or unused radios and stereo equipment around the house.

While the circuit is simple enough that I am sure most with a little bit of knowledge and experience could put it together without the kit, the kit is so convenient and so well priced there is little reason to do so. I have purchased and assembled several of these to use as guitar and mp3 player amplifiers both for my own use and to give as gifts. My grade school age son even learned to solder using this kit and enjoys that he can make use of the end product.

It is worth noting that no documentation is included with the shipment but it is all available online. The documentation is clear and sufficient to successfully and easily assemble the kit.

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | Feb. 2, 2015

Hi Eric,

Thanks so much for your kind review - we're so glad your son was also able to learn how to solder using the kit. We love to hear stories like that! We'll take your comment on documentation into consideration, hopefully within the next year we'll come out with something a bit more user friendly!

Kindest Regards,
Addie

Shawn | Jan. 8, 2015

great product

For Tymkrs Amplify Me (LM386 Amplifier Kit)

Easy to assemble. Sounds good

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | Jan. 8, 2015

Perfect :) Glad it worked out for you!

Charles | Jan. 2, 2015

Yves | Nov. 6, 2014

Doug | Oct. 30, 2014

A fun easy project.

For LED Candle Simulator

I like the project so well I am buying a second one and modifying it ti better suit my needs. The red LEDs detracted from the effect I wanted and I am going to try amber and white mixed with higher output LEDs. I placed the module in the bottom of a new Kerosene lamp after removing the wick. The LEDs are in the slot where the wick would be. I used tissue paper to diffuse the light. I want to change to 3 AA batteries so they can be charged by a nano-hydro waterwheel (http://tigermountainsprings.net/) on one of our creeks. I may add a light sensor so it is only on at night. I will also add some 1 Watt LEDs separate from the module that will activate on movement.

Charles | Oct. 15, 2014

Charles | Oct. 11, 2014

Fabio | Oct. 1, 2014

Beer can amp

For Tymkrs Amplify Me (LM386 Amplifier Kit)

Hi everyone
I made a nice beer can amp for my iPod and also for guitar!
It sounds great!!
Thanks :)
Fabio

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | Oct. 1, 2014

Awesome Fabio! Glad it worked out!! Let me know if you have a link to the project/pictures and I can put them up as examples :)

Adam | Aug. 22, 2014

Exactly what I was hoping for!

For LED Candle Simulator

I love the cheap led tea lights you can buy everywhere else, but they're not bright enough to produce the light you'd expect from a candle. This simulator does the trick! Not only was it fun to build, but it worked exactly as shown in the videos with no tweaking. I'm using mine in a scarecrow with a jack-o-lantern head for Halloween, and even though the head is larger than an average pumpkin, it fills the whole thing with fire light! I ground the rounded lens off the LEDs with a dremel so they'd be less focused, and it really helped spread the light around. The only thing I might change is swapping out the red LEDs for a more realistic candle flame color, but I do like the subtle change between the two colors that helps sell the flicker effect. I will be back for more! :)

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | Aug. 28, 2014

Awesome! Glad you liked it :D

Alessandro | July 22, 2014

Excellent work, great assembly, well done!

For Tymkrs Heart Me v3

Excellent work, great assembly, well done!

For hobbies I made a 12-lead electrocardiograph, now I want to try to connect it to this trinket to synchronize the analysis of the path with the Heart Me like a funny display ..

It may be that I will need to ask you some more details or source codes: P

At the moment just many thanks!

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | July 22, 2014

Thank you very much - I'm glad you like it! You may like our second iteration which we are currently prototyping which includes auscultation and palpation :D

James | June 18, 2014

Charles | April 8, 2014

MIDI Out Interfect

For Tymkrs Midi Out Me

When I saw the Tymkrs put out the MIDI Out board I immediately purchased a board. I was looking for one and I know the product line the tymkrs put out is quality and I've never had any issues with any of their products. The kit came and the board came with some nice mounting holes; another winner for sure.

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | April 8, 2014

Thanks Chas ^_^ Glad you liked it! Let us know when you have a project with it and we can post it up as additional documentation!

Charles | March 8, 2014

quick way to ditch the last stage of your audio project.

For Tymkrs Amplify Me (LM386 Amplifier Kit)

I have built a weather radio and instead of building my own protoboard with LM386 and speaker, etc... I decided to pick up two of these. One for the project and an extra just in case I liked it! ;) Note: they have directions on their website but I didn't follow them so my notes may have already been covered?

The board went together fine, I flipped my potentiometer to other side of the board (compared to their photo) from this photo because it fit better with the LM386 +8pin socket.. this worked out great. I also ditched the 1/4 jack and secretly hope they come out with a 1/8th (3.5mm) version of this board. I wired my circuit in directly to board. Finally, I noticed that if I used this amp on a 5V circuit that was powered by grounded mains (testing through a number of power supplies) the audio was scratchy; with the 9V battery *INCLUDED* (who does that anymore!?) the project worked great and sounded as you'd expect. I'll be adding these to my wishlist of project "helpers". Great product tymkrs!

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | March 9, 2014

Good idea re: 3.5mm - I'll see what I can do :) Thanks for your review and hope it helps with your project!!

Emile | Dec. 17, 2013

Have an electrical guitar? Want a fun little amp? Get this

For Tymkrs Amplify Me (LM386 Amplifier Kit)

I've needed an amp for far too long, and that is when I found this little kit. It's pretty cool. Got it set up in a few minutes, connected a little speaker I had lying around from a kit bought who knows how long ago. Popped in the battery and it came right to life. Grabbed the guitar, and bam neat little amp. For a kids project, this is one of the best. Super easy to assemble, instructions are on the documentation link. Overall a fun project - the next step is getting a solid speaker to connect it to. Really want to hear this baby sing!

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | Dec. 18, 2013

Awesome! Glad assembly went well for you! Let us know when you have a recording of your guitar solo :D

Kevin | Nov. 18, 2013

Cool little amp project.

For Tymkrs Amplify Me (LM386 Amplifier Kit)

Very easy to assemble and has a very crunchy sound when put through the proper speaker. Thanks for the great customer service.

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | Dec. 9, 2013

Awesome :) Glad you like it!!

Charles | Nov. 16, 2013

PIC ASM Code Example

For Tymkrs Turn Me v1 (Rotary Encoder Kit)

I got this yesterday, works great and it's very noisy on transition. The only "wish list" item I would ask is that they made this .1"longer from header pins to header pins so it would fit across my dual 3M breadboard but it works fine with the support terminal dumped into one of the power buses.

I wrote some assembly code for the PIC 16F1509 (using TAUTIC's 20 pin development board). It dumps a 8 bit counter to PORTC ... you could easily drop this onto a DAC if you were looking for rotary encoder to voltage.. you'd have to stop the code at 0x00 and 0xFF so it doesn't roll over/under though.

The code is found at: http://iradan.com/?p=341

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | Nov. 16, 2013

We'll check on why it's noisy, but glad you were able to write some PIC ASM for the kit! We'll add it to the kit site :)

Brooke | Oct. 3, 2013

Simple to solder up and use

For Tymkrs Turn Me v1 (Rotary Encoder Kit)

This was very simple to put together. It took make 15 minutes from opening the bag to completed assemble.

I wrote up a quick tutorial on using it with Arduino as well. http://www.millamilla.com/?p=129

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | Oct. 4, 2013

Great! Glad it came together well! I'll be sure to include your tutorial and information on our site - thanks!

Laurence | Aug. 23, 2013

A fun project

For Tymkrs Heart Me v3

I'm a medical educator. I'm using it to give people a sense of the chaos associated with fib patterns as well as the beautiful synchronization of normal function.

On next revision it needs an on/off switch. The current button is so easily pushed that it is always getting activated inadvertently. I've kludged one with a small tab of plastic that I push between the battery and its contact when I want it to stay off.

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | Aug. 23, 2013

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah I've gotten in the habit of just taking out the battery, but a proper on off switch would probably be a good idea. Hopefully it's helped your patients understand what's going on a bit more!

Brian | July 25, 2013

Lacked documentation

For 7 Segment 4 digit White LED Display: Common Anode (0.36in)

I bought this item, but got it with no documentation. No datasheet, not even a pinout. Contacted the seller to get the missing info, turns out they don't have any info. This item may not be suitable for anyone below an advanced skill level.

Response from Tymkrs (The Toymakers) | July 26, 2013

This issue has been addressed - please let us know if you have any other questions!