Alpenglow Industries
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Irreverent Electronics
​& Frivolous Circuits

Let us brighten your day - whether it's with a stupid funny desk toy, a handy breadboarding or PCB layout tool, or a quick soldering kit, we've got just the breath of fresh air you need.  We're a woman-owned business that supports other women and marginalized folks in tech - whether you've been in the trenches for years, or are just starting out.  Join us @alpenglowind on Twitter and Instagram, and keep in touch with our newsletter.

Looking for our specialty yarn-slinging tools?  Head on over to Alpenglow Yarn.

NEW! Foxy Pride Badge

​Foxy Pride Badge is Available for Pre Order. Shipping starts early July!

Foxy Pride Badge

$14.95 - $29.95
BUY ME!

The Alpenglow Shop

Whether you're just dipping your toes into electronics & soldering, or have been swimming the PNP seas for ages, we've got something you'll light up about.  Shop our soldering kits, tools, and arduino-compatible boards!

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TO THE SHOP!
Latest Livestream
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Solder Sesh #43: Raspberry Pi Pico​

Carrie shows us the beginnings of Raspberry Pi Pico code for her Making Embedded Systems class (taught by Elecia White on Classpert) final project, using VSCode and Platformio and a 3rd party platform called Wizio. We look at the IDE setup, the process for sending a program to the Pico, getting serial data out of the Pico, and wiggle some encoder knobs. She talks about what she wants to build for the final project - of course it involves LEDs! Watch and subscribe now!
From the Blog
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BIGNUMS I2C

We recently had a comment on our original BigNums2x2 blog post about using the library, which is designed for parallel interface Hitachi HD44780-based 16x2 LCDs, with an I2C-equipped LCD. We immediately set to work adding I2C compatibility to our library, with the goal of enabling 16x2 LCDs of all kinds to have big numbers. But then things got complicated – complicated enough that we ultimately decided not to incorporate I2C support into our library. Here’s what we learned – hopefully it will help you implement BigNums with whatever I2C LCD you are using!
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The FUnicorn!

Show everyone you're a classy bitch by telling them off in the most majestic way possible - with a rearing unicorn and elegant cursive script!  It's also fully arduino-compatible, so you can make it your own by adding any kind of sensor for activation, or hooking it up to a Raspberry Pi for voice control.
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The SwitchTrick
​

A super-handy tricked-out step-down switching power supply that's breadboard-compatible and comes with support standoffs!  You can power it from a barrel plug, USB cable, or battery, it's output current is 1.0A, and the output voltage is jumper-selectable between: 1.8, 2.5, 3.0, 3.3, 3.7, 4.2, 5.0, 6.0, and an adjustable that you can set with a resistor.
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PCB Rulers

Who the heck can keep track of all the different names that transistor and diode footprints are called?  These rulers can!  What the SOT?! lists every common (and a few uncommon) 3 to 8-pin transistor footprints with associated SOT, JEDEC, and EIA-J names.  For the Love of SOD does the same for 2-pin diode and passive footprints.  Super handy for sourcing alternate parts!
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Soldering Kits

Whether you're new to soldering or just want to put together a quick project, our kits are sure to make you smile.  We make new ones when it strikes our fancy, be sure to follow us in the places below to see when we release new ones!  The Rain and Storm Clouds are great for beginners, and the others feature interest circuits that control the blinking (and those come with a switch to be solid on as well).

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Wholesale inquiries welcome!  Please contact us and tell us about your organization.
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  • follow Alpenglow Industries projects on Hackaday.io

W H A T ' S    T H A T    Y O U    S A Y ?

Irreverent Electronics?  I'm in!

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A B O U T    U S

We firmly believe that electronics is for everyone, and we have two main goals:
  • make the acquisition of basic electronics skills possible for anyone who wants to learn
  • show that people who are into electronics are way more diverse than just a bunch of nerdy white guys
The image of the electronics hacker in pop culture is almost always "that guy" who's been building robots since birth, and seems to have some innate mystical god-like knowledge of how hardware works.  That doesn't describe us at all, nor does it describe the kind of culture we want to see and help create in this world.  So we're working on shattering this stereotype. 

​We've heard so many women say that they wish they had taken science and engineering courses in college.  We've also heard women say they took a few, but left the field because they felt like outsiders in a nerd bro culture, were constantly fighting to be taken seriously, and were constantly judged for what they didn't already know instead of their capacity to learn.  Because of crap like this, there are disproportionately few women who pursue electronics hardware and design as a career, and out of those who do start in the field, even fewer are retained.  This imbalance is a serious issue, and it's not limited to women, it's also true for people of color, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, and people who grew up with economic hardships.  The whole space of technology suffers in both culture and innovation when diversity is lacking.  
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We're working on creating a space where it's OK to be a beginner, it's OK to ask questions, and it's OK - scratch that - it's actively encouraged to get stupidly excited about blinking lights.  We want everyone to know that it's never too late to learn new skills.
​
Alpenglow Industries is founded by Carrie Sundra.  Carrie grew up on the island of St. John in the US Virgin Islands, then attended Harvey Mudd College where she proudly scored a 19 on her first electrical engineering exam.  Electronics felt esoteric and unrelatable, so she subsequently chose to pursue more mechanical and manufacturing courses.  But shortly after starting her first job, she got thrown into fine-pitch SMT soldering and sensor research for a 6” micro air vehicle (and this was in 1999, this stuff didn’t exist yet).  Suddenly, faced with a super cool application and concrete “thing” to build and make work, electronics got a lot more interesting. Ever since, she’s designed custom PCBs and helped develop products for a variety of applications - from avionics for 
small UAVs that are now in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, to livestock thermometers, to waterproof power scrubbers, to assistive devices for freezing-of-gait Parkinson's symptoms, to her own yarn-winding and twisting devices. ​She now lives in San Luis Obispo, a coastal California town which is home to a burgeoning tech and maker community.  She climbs, snowboards, knits, makes stuff, and teaches soldering to anyone who wants to learn.

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2018-2021 Alpenglow Industries
About Us
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  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Store
    • Through-Hole Soldering Kits
    • SMT Soldering Kits
    • Tools and Accessories
    • Seasonal Blinkies
    • Programmable Kits for Makers
    • Textile and Yarn Tools
    • All Alpenglow Products
    • Bright Wearables
    • Makerbytes Soldering Kits
  • Instructions
    • FUnicorn
    • Krampus
    • SwitchTrick
    • ISP Pogo
    • ISP w Power
    • Build A Blob