When âSoftware Bugsâ Are Actually Bad Soldering A quick MLX90640 IR camera test turned into a dead-on-I2C mystery. I ran the usual checksâaddresses, pull-ups, voltages, wiringâand even fixed my forgotten UART/I2C jumper, but still nothing. A peek under the microscope revealed sketchy solder on the 3V3 LDO; a quick reflow and the sensor sprang to life. Lesson relearned: donât trust factory soldering, look early with a microscope, and stop blaming software when the hardwareâs silent. 25 January 2026
Train Surgery I took a hilariously loud, 4xAA-hungry toy train and gave it a proper glow-up: dropped an 18650 in the coal car, used a charger/protect/boost board dialed to ~5.5 V, and added a simple series pot as a volume knob. After some careful teardown, polarity sanity checks (center positive!), and an irresponsible amount of hot glue, itâs now rechargeable and actually pleasant to listen to. The motor clatter is the only thing the volume knob canât tameâbut the wheels go round and round, and Iâm calling that a win. 07 January 2026
Minimalist Microcontroller: Building a Bare-Bones Dev Board In a thrilling DIY endeavour, I attempted to build the most minimalist ESP32 dev board possible. Diving deep into the schematic of the ESP32 S3 WROOM module, I chopped out the non-essentials and whittled our needs down to bare bones. The experiment saw me juggling USB data lines and voltage regulators, waving goodbye to an array of capacitors and connectors and boldly embracing the simplicity of direct connections. Despite a few hitches, the miniature Frankenboard came alive, proving that sometimes less is more...at least in the world of microcontrollers. 27 July 2023