ESP32 Rainbow QA - A tale of three boards We’ve shipped a few hundred ESP32 Rainbow boards-most are perfect - but a few failed QA. Here’s how we tracked down and fixed three real-world faults: no sound from lifted headphone jack pads, USB not enumerating due to a mis-seated ESD IC pin, and a flaky touch keyboard from poor ESP32 module joints. A bit of microscope work and reflow brought two boards back to life (one’s now a donor), and it’s a great reminder why we do final assembly and full QA here in Scotland. 02 January 2026
Thats a wrap It's that festive time of year when goodies arrive from PCBWay, and what a delightful surprise to receive the Partner of the Year award! A huge thanks to PCBWay, my Patreons, and GitHub sponsors for the amazing support. This year has been thrilling, starting with ESP32 projects and diving into nickel plating experiments. I'm particularly excited about the ESP32 Rainbow project, now fully funded and gearing up for a 2025 release. With lots planned for the coming year, here's to a Merry Christmas and an exciting New Year ahead! 23 December 2024
Esp32 s3 zx spectrum In a bid to quench my nostalgia and flex my ESP32 chops, I managed to get a ZX Spectrum emulator running on my ESP32-TV board! Then, spurred on by PCBWay's new full color silk screen service, I pursuit the audacious task of recreating the ZX Spectrum's iconic keyboard. It's been quite the joyride - wrangling touch pins, shrinking screens and creating a thing of beauty on PCB. It's not quite ready for the spotlight, but keep an eye on my newsletter for more eagerly-awaited updates. It's like the Spectrum is reborn! 14 June 2024
The PCBs are in production - what have I messed up? After some stress and trepidation, I finally took the plunge and sent my PCB design off for manufacturing. My design centers around building a large seven-segment clock with LED filaments. Jumping hurdles such as voltages, pin usage, and limiting the load on my power supply, I've settled on the ESP32 as the system's heart and come up with a final circuit design. While doing this, I've quickly realized I could improve my layout and fixed a small mistake. Also, I've prepared for either types of LED filaments - the high-voltage ones or the larger, 3v ones. However, I did bungle... 06 February 2022