First of all, I would like to thank you for the nice Japanese origami . Overall the product is good . I found few issues and I think it needs few improvements or enhancements .
1) Volume goes to high if I switch it OFF to ON with the on-board switch while Radio is ON . 2) Radio doesn't store last tuned station . 3) There is no option for fine tuning . It should have another rotary encoder (or thru software) to change frequency by 1khz or so . 4) I can hear lot of noise in AM mode while listening local AM radio stations . 5) There should be an IO extension header connector for unused MCU GPIO pins so that, those pins can be utilized for enhancements .
Could you please share high resolution board schematic diagram in pdf / jpg format ? My email ID - ajs.sur@gmail.com . I want to do some enhancements .

Response from microwavemont | Feb. 10, 2020

Thank you for very productive comment!! As pointed out, single rotary encoder is not enough for wide band tuning for a fixed frequency step (5kHz). Also I've noticed 1kHz step is required for some application. Also onboard I/O out is very nice suggestion. By the way, as a premier news, I will make "version 5" in a few months, with SSB reception support. In the next version, I will try to include lots of improvement!! Thank you!!

Gregory | Aug. 16, 2019

Far exceeded my expectations

For Lipo battery driven 3A5 vacuum tube headphone amp

I ordered the Tube Headphone Amplifier because I've always heard there's a warmth to the sound output through tube amps. The price was reasonable and so I gave it a shot. Unfortunately my local post office couldn't find the package after trying to deliver it when I wasn't home because a signature was required. USPS shipped it back to Japan. Toshiro contacted me and he arranged to have it shipped again. Here I am about 6 weeks later and it was worth the wait! The sound is rich, warm and actually sounds like I'm in the room with the band. You'll hear subtleties of instruments that you didn't recall in the songs. I'm shocked at the difference. The quality is excellent and aesthetically pleasing. Get yours now!

With respect to Documentation - It's quite simple:
1. Carefully remove the tube from the box (be careful not to drop it as the tube is glass)
2. Insert it into the tube holder
3. Charge the battery - You'll need a USB Mini-B cable
4. Insert one cable in to the input jack
5. Insert your headphones or output line to the output jack
6. Turn on the power
7. Adjust the volume

Adam | Aug. 1, 2019

better than expected very good at shortwave with simple ant

For DSP radio version 4

Thank you for fast shipement , project and soldering job.
I use and will use this receiver mainly in shortwave in the morning for English transmitions. In Poland with antenna it receives NHK Radio Japan serwice in English (5-5.30n UTC) at 9860kHz
BBC at 13660 kHz (6-7 UTC), BBC 9915kHz (5-6 UTC) in English ( signal for cental Africa according to antroid Skywave Shedules)
Voice of America 12070 (7-7.30 UTC)in Hausa to West Africa . Numerous strong Radio China International services , Radio Romania International
I connect mass of SW jack 3.5 socket to window cortuin aluminium bar by wire inside the concret building.
I use it with 2W Selecline audio amplifier with stereo/mono adapter and sound is perfect with ideal sensitivity and selectivity.
As a poer source I use 3.7/5V power bank.
AM is deaf in my location no Warsaw 225kHz no others
In FM it receives many Polish stations with wire antenna just lying along radio (not electricaly connected)

Adam Paliwoda

Response from microwavemont | Aug. 7, 2019

Thank you so much for very detailed report, including shortwave reception report!!! I am so happy to read your satisfaction!! Thank you!

Jhon | June 11, 2019

Todo muy bien excelente vendedor,producto hermoso.

For DSP radio version 4

Excelente producto todo muy bien funcionamiento perfecto y bien terminado tal cual lo describe el vendedor.

Response from microwavemont | Aug. 7, 2019

Thank you so much! I hope you are enjoying radio!!

Forest | April 25, 2019

Fantastic sound and well crafted

For Ultra Nutube headphone amplifier

I find the sound clear with noticeable tube impact.
I had no trouble using this on Linux (latest Ubuntu) with no install of drivers required.

The USB requirements seem to be the only potential issue. It would not play audio when connected to a USB 2.0 hub even though it showed as connected and the computer sends a stream. This is no problem for my use, I moved it to a direct USB port and have had no further issues.

Overall a novel and pleasing audio device. Thank you for creating and sharing this.

Matthew | March 6, 2019

An excellent and warm little amp

For Nutube headphone amplifier/NEX HR

This is the second NuTube-based headphone amp I've put together, and it's another nice one. Assembly was quick and simple with no surprises. The sound is warm and characteristic of single-ended tube amps, which is exactly what you're after if you buy something like this! USB power and a tiny portable size makes this a great one to bring between home and work.

Two very small criticisms, easily overcome at home:
- There's no documentation of the function of the two trim pots, and as shipped the amp produces some fairly startling noises. My recommendation is before powering up, to turn them fully counter-clockwise (no sound), then slowly turn them up until you start to get artifacts, and back off. Tuning them within that range seems to have some small effect on tonality, but mostly volume.
- The case is a pretty tight fit, and microphonics from the NuTube can be noticeable, for example, when I drop a pen on my desk. The addition of some rubber feet essentially eliminated them except for the sharpest tapping on the desk.

Response from microwavemont | March 14, 2019

Thank you for very detailed review for the product. As is pointed out, I need to make some more detail instruction for kit assembly. Initially I intended to release this item as "full assembled" version and I did not catch up to the situation to sell it as "full kit". I will try to make more detailed instruction sheet later. As for "body-phonic effect of Nutube", it is a characteristic of Nutube (because it is a vacuum tube, where "raw" electron is flying in free space.) But also I will try to fix (total reduction is impossble, but I will try to improve) this issue. I am very happy to see you are enjoying wonderful Nutube! Thank you!!!

Caj | Jan. 25, 2019

Great portable DAC and amp for the office

For Nutube headphone amplifier/NEX type D

I find the audio quality and ease of use excellent, it very easily drives my Sennheiser HD 25-1 cans but they are easy to drive.

The build time was very fast and enjoyable, however I found that the component layout included was missing R7. Since it was the only thing missing there was no great mystery but that should be fixed.

The only issues I have is that the rigid mounting in the steel casing transfers vibrations that causes very noticeable ringing. Considering the sensitivity of the nutubes microphonics I have to consider this a design flaw. The fixes would probably be to have the main PCB mounted onto rubber and a separate PCB for contacts.

Or just put it on something soft on the desk like I do.

All in all excellent product and I highly recommend it.

Response from microwavemont | Jan. 28, 2019

Thank you so much for the first review !
So sorry and thank you for notifying R7, 33kOhm issue. I will fix the paper right now.
As for the microphonic of Nutube, At the side of Nutube it has a double-side adhesive tape and peeling thing tape, Nutube can be fixed on the metal case and it can be improved to some extent (not perfectly, due to its nature..)
Thank you!

Anton | Dec. 30, 2018

Nice board to experiment with 4809

For 4809 Explorer board

Amazing fast shipment, with a nice origami bird inside. I use an old duemilanova arduino board as programmer, with stack from https://github.com/ElTangas/jtag2updi.git. Works very nice.
The reset pin was not enabled in the fuses, that was a bit puzzling. Would be nice if default the reset pin was enabled.
Meanwhile the board is working: uarts, io, and spi (oled display).
Nice board for experienced developers!

Response from microwavemont | Dec. 30, 2018

This board is exactly the one for high ability user like you!!! I am very happy to read your success with duemilanova!!! Great! Thank you!

Ingmar | Aug. 10, 2018

Works like a charm

For ESP32 simple Alexa_bis

This nice little board provides everything you need to get Alexa going (and other stuff too, as several unused pins have been broken out to the side.

At first I was a bit at loss. I thought this would fire up and start working. Nope, you have to install the software. Not only install, also build it. And to install the software, you need the Espressif toolchain and development environment. I already had that, but this was a chance to update everything to the latest version.

Anyway, because I had no clue where to start, I contacted Microwavemont, who responded within a few hours AND adjusted this page to include steps to set this baby up. After everything was set up and uploaded, Alexa came alive. Yes!!

Great job by the boardmaker, and of course also by the original writer of the software, MrBuddyCasino.

Henk | Aug. 2, 2018

Nice little board!

For ESP32-PICO-ADB

Amazing amount of functionality for such a small board, and the smallest display I've use so far! Shipped quickly and included a nice printout of the pinout description and it worked right out of the box! Pity mini usb is used. Thanks for the nice little origami!

Robert | July 21, 2018

Excellent product and i ❤️ the origami in the package!!!

For DSP radio chip based LW-MW-SW-FM receiver

Just advertised -- thanks! I'm looking forward to experimenting with the code and making some changes -- want to see if I can store frequencies and select channels.

Response from microwavemont | July 31, 2018

Thank for wonderful report. YES ATmega1284 has a very high potential for application implementation. Please try to make your own wonderful radio!!

Richard | May 8, 2018

Great build and quality device. Excellent service.

For OLED with 2/4-port USB HUB cape for PocketBeagle

The PocketBeagle cape is a beautifully designed and manufactured little board that no-one else has on the market. The example code on Github helps a lot and the origami crane included in the envelope was a charming surprise! It's great to know that there are makers out there with such high quality projects that they share so much.

Yi | April 27, 2018

A preciselly made quality amp with tedious problems

For Nutube amp kit, a vacuum tube in new century REV2

When I first found out that the Nutube was developed and on the market, I tried to find a haedphone amp that uses Nutube for curiosity. However, it seems that only guitar and bass amps was only Nutube amp available in the market. Then, I found out that microwavemont was building one for headphones!! Without hesistation, I bought one to hear and feel the sound. Still I was a bit worried about the sound quality, but right after hearing with my high fidelity headphones, the worries were gone. It’s sound quality was similar to other warm sounding vacuum tube headphone amps!! I still need some time for aging but I think it will be much more better after that. Only problem is that since its a vacuum tube, it tends to catch some high frequency sounds from other electronics and the power source, but I’ll figure that out anyway. It was a pleasure to get this amp and I will always cheer for the maker of this product for the high quality built.
P.S. thank you for the origami crane made out of ROK national flag!! That suprise gift you gave me was a big pleasure. :) Keep up the excellent work!

Aaron | April 20, 2018

Wonderful and unique little amplifier kit!

For Nutube based 15Wx2 amplifier KIT with Class-D amp

Fantastic kit, the Nutube is very unique. My order was shipped very promptly in excellent packaging (as was a previous order from microwavemont) the parts were well packaged and includes everything as per the description. The kit is of high quality, very good parts and quality pcb with mounting accessories terminals, sockets and a plug pack. With only basic through hole parts requiring soldering the kit would even be suitable for a novice to assemble. The kit includes a component layout sheet, however it does not show the pcb tracks or circuit diagram, but a circuit diagram image is on the description page, it's not required, but i like to see the circuit to better understand and learn.
The amplifier sounds very nice, and i love the little green glow of the VFD, the fusion of modern parts like the class-D amp and the Nutube to make a amplifier that has the 'valve' sound harmonics is a unique and cleaver design. The amplifiers small size and visual appeal makes it perfect to sit on a desk, or somewhere to be appreciated.
I plan on paring mine with a Wide ePaper plus ESP32 ADB from microwavemont, to make a wireless streaming music player. It's a great little product and i would buy again.

Javier | Feb. 23, 2018

Awesome product

For Wide ePaper plus ESP32 ADB

It works for me but after a little work
Alexa: after following the instructions installing https://github.com/MrBuddyCasino/ESP32_Alexa you need to change two things:
Audio_render.c -> comment line 102 and uncomment line 103 After that Alexa speaks at normal velocity in another case she speaks fast
Audio_recorder.c -> in line 33 change GPIO_NUM_17 to GPIO_NUM_19 After that you can use the microphone

The radio on the internet is the best thing I try.

Heinrich Josef | Nov. 12, 2017

Example or docs of the CAN Bus missing

For GRANDE ESP32 Monster board

Altogether this is a high end esp32 dev environment.
I am very happy to have this board. One important thing for me is: everything on one side, wired LAN, a small display AND the power switch.
As a goodie I wanted to play with the CAN bus (probably for tasks at my workplace) but I am not getting the rare examples on the net to work with this board (played with a lot of examples, pin numbers, termination, and switching high/low cables).
I also have the OLIMEX ESP32-EVB board and there the CAN bus works out of the box. The RX pin of these two boards are different, but the rest, concerning the CAN bus, should be the same.
Could you provide your working proof of concept codes during developing this board - Arduino IDE style or esp-idf style - Arduino style would be nice for comparison reasons...?
This would be awesome :D
Thanks a lot for your good work!

Mukunda | Oct. 28, 2017

Wow this thing is tiny

For ESP32-PICO-ADB

Amazing amount of functionality for such a tiny board. It's barely bigger than a basic ESP32 devkit. Shipped promptly from Japan and it included a printout of the board with pinout description, and a nice little origami. Thanks!

Jackie | Sept. 11, 2017

how to get started with esp32-adb

For ESP32 Audio developing board (ESP32-ADB)

Hi I just bought the esp32-adb board (REV.2) couple of days ago. AFAIK, there is no need of a lipo charger. But I could not sketch a simple app like "hello world" to the board. The following error has occurred:

"A fatal error occurred: Failed to connect to ESP32: Timed out waiting for packet header"

Do you have any idea how can I fix it?

By the way, it was really fast shipping. Thanks for great product.

PS: I made it working by changing usb cable. Thanks a lot for your help.

Jackie

Response from microwavemont | Sept. 14, 2017

Sorry for overlooking your review.
Can I ask you to give me more details about your problem (which environment, ESP-IDF or Arduino IDE) and also what kind of program, "hello world"? All of ESP32-ADB are tested before shipping and correctly writing Bluetooth speaker mode example so I would ask you try
(1) change USB connector of your computer
(2) change USB cable (sometimes works)
and also switch off-on before uploading your new binary. The test firmware (bluetooth) might avoid your new binary uploading (in rare case it happens).
Here in the review column we cannot make conversation so please let me know the result in Tindie's messaging system ( you can send me in tindie's system). Thank you

Ken | Sept. 5, 2017

Nice low-cost started board with all you need to get going.

For VHDL training board by FPGA!

I am quite happy with this little FPGA starter board. The built-in JTAG worked perfectly with the free Lattice Diamond IDE (the board was auto-detected). The buttons, LEDs, 2 digit seven segment display, piezo sounder and 12Mhz clock give you something to play with right away. The possibility for easy I2C and SPI is nice too. The MachXO2 has enough LUT space and embedded RAM to implement some interesting designs (here is a version of Ben Eater's breadboard CPU that I implemented in VHDL to help get you started https://github.com/XarkLabs/BenEaterVHDL). Nice job!

Response from microwavemont | Sept. 6, 2017

I am also so happy to read your wonderful exploring FPGA board and enjoying CPU implementation!!! Your achievement is indeed beyond my expectation and thank you so much for sharing your VHDL code. I would like to try your CPU, thank you!!!

Jean-Pierre | Aug. 21, 2017

Good product

For ESP32 Audio developing board (ESP32-ADB)

I like it, but it is a bit less sensitive on wifi due to the implementation of the antenna.
Much less sensitive than other esp8266. No other experience with an esp32.

Response from microwavemont | Aug. 21, 2017

Hello and thank you for review. The PIFA antenna part of ESP32 should be ideally "hanged from main PCB" but I did not take this configuration for better stiffness of the unit. But thank you for suggestion and I may reflect it on the next items!

Per-Olov | July 20, 2017

Excellent for prototyping!

For ESP32 Audio developing board (ESP32-ADB)

I needed a board that had an ESP32 and a DAC of any sort on it, this did it all, including a display and the possibility to run off a battery (with charging circuit and all)

It did take a few minutes to understand why it didn't start or program the first time, but that was because i totally missed the fact that there was a power switch on the board :)

Response from microwavemont | July 21, 2017

Thank you so much for reviewing and I am very happy to see your satisfaction. The main switch is added for Lipo battery operation and I may need to change the circuit in the case of USB-bus power, main switch can be by-passed (in the case of bus power operation, the board can be always on.) Anyway Thank you so much!

Felipe | May 25, 2017

Received in a very good shape!

For Nutube amp kit, a vacuum tube in new century REV2

Yesterday received the item after 1.5 months traveling, I was little afraid about the NUtube that could be broken but everything came very well packed, clear instructions, quality components on small zipped bags, very nice PCB like a Pro, NUtube and IC SO8 with static sensitive spounges and the strauberry of the cake was a very nice Origami gift . Thanks!

Response from microwavemont | May 27, 2017

Thank you so much for ordering from opposite point on the globe! I am very happy to hear your satisfaction! Please enjoy wonderful Nutube sound! Thank you again!

Richard | April 4, 2017

Product works as expected. Display is a nice feature

For ESP32 dev board with OLED and LiPo charger circuit

I give 3 stars on the documentation, not due to the seller,
just the ESP32 is new and not well documented.

I am developing on it using the Arduino software drivers.

One note, The lipo battery must be installed and the switch on for the ESP32 to receive power.
It will be recognized by the USB, but will not upload until the power switch is turned on.
The usb connector does not power the ESP32.

Response from microwavemont | May 9, 2017

Hello and thank you for review!! I am very happy to hear your satisfaction. As commented, SW should be turn-on for ESP32 activation and it is not written in the explanation. I would like to add this instruction for the item! Thank you!!

Pete | Sept. 6, 2016

Neat! Miniature Arduino Powered Receiver

For AM-SW-FM radio by DSP radio chip version 2

Miniature 2"x2" AM/FM/SW Receiver is fun kit that actually works! The kit it is not difficult to build. The Arduino, Radio ICs and miniature OLED display all come pre-installed. However, I don't suggest this kit for someone inexperienced with soldering SMD components as the resistors, capacitors and LEDs are size 603. That's very, very small and without care they can get lost on your desk or floor with a slip of the tweezers or a sneeze! But, there are only about 20 to solder along with the volume and tuning controls, antenna, on/off switch, battery and stereo headphone jack(yes it's stereo!). An experienced builder can construct this radio in less than an hour since it uses so few parts. The buyer will be required to provide a re-chargable 3.7 battery, which by the way, can be charged with radio's built-in charger by just plugging it into a USB jack. An LED will tell you it's charging and when complete.

The OLED display is very small but very readable and large enough to display the mode, frequency, stereo(FM only) and signal strength.
It's easy to tune just rotating the tuning control and adjusting the volume control with plenty of power for headphones or a powered speaker.
The FM is great but the AM and SW will require a decent antenna.

It a neat little radio and fun little project.

Response from microwavemont | Sept. 6, 2016

Thank you for wonderful review of AM/FM/SW receiver kit!! I am very happy to see your satisfaction for the receiver and review surely encourages me of creating kit on tindie. Again thank you so much!