I Asked AI to Design 12 ESP32 Dev Boards. It Said No. I got bored of making one ESP32 dev board at a time, so I scripted the whole lot. After my favourite AI monkey told me to automate the repetitive bits, I built a pipeline that generates fully laid-out USB-native ESP32 dev boards for a dozen modulesâschematics, placement, routing, silkscreen, and Gerbersâautomatically. It uses a module database to choose safe pins, LED and boot pins, lays everything out in a standard USB-C two-layer format with differential USB pairs and ground pours, and publishes releases via GitHub Actions. You can fab them right away (thanks PCBWay), but treat them like open hardware:... 19 August 2026
Did I Ruin These Night Lights? I cracked open some cheap night lights and thought Iâd improved them with a radar sensorâturns out, maybe not. With the Nordic Power Profiler, the stock board sips ~72 ÂľA in ultra-sleep (~0.8 mA while monitoring, 80 mA with LEDs), but my radar mod idles around 2.8â3 mA and the LDR only gates the output, not the IC. That means ~12 days on an 820â850 mAh cell or ~30 days with 2000 mAh, while the original could hit ~200 days on 350 mAh if it would just trigger properlyâso Iâm going to investigate that. 19 August 2026
My Wi-Fi Was Faster Than Ethernet⌠So I Fixed It My WiâFi was somehow faster than my wired connection, which set off alarm bells. After testing around the house, I traced the slowdown to a crusty Cat5 patch lead lurking in a messy patch panel that forced a 100 Mbps link. Swapped in new Cat6 cables, tidied everything up, and boomâproper gigabit speeds everywhere and a much faster internet. Moral: Ethernet is only as good as its weakest link. 19 August 2026
ESP-IDF 6 Setup in VS Code: Blink & Debug an ESP32-S3 Time to get with the program and jump to ESP-IDF v6.0.1 in VS Code. I show you how to install the prerequisites (Iâm on a Mac with Homebrew), run the ESP-IDF Installation Manager, spin up a Blink example for an ESP32-S3, tweak menuconfig (GPIO21, 500 ms), then build and flashâswitching from stubborn USB JTAG to trusty UART when things fail. We check the monitor, bump CPU to 240 MHz, fix flash to 16 MB, peek at PSRAM, and give PCBWay a quick shout-out. 19 August 2026
AliExpress Unbagging: ESP32 PCBs, I²C Sensors, COB LED Strips & More Another massive AliExpress bagging, plus fresh PCBs from PCBWay! Iâve got an ESP32-C3 dev board, an S3 board with a BLDC controller, and matching stencils ready for when the LCSC parts land. Then itâs a pile of fun bits: a laser level, shrimp peeler and kitchen temp probe, a USB boost converter, USBâtoâUART, I2C current sensor, woodâpenetrating touch sensor, ToF and ultrasonic rangefinders (perfect for a headâtoâhead), I/O expanders, DC motor controller, magnetic stickers, USB sockets, an IRâcontrolled RGB plate (tested!), syringes for paste, a sketchy touch dimmer to tear down, a color sensor, and ultraâthin COB LED strips (lit... 19 August 2026
Making this CR*P Night Light GOOD I've been picking up cheap motion night lightsâperformance meh, battery life definitely not 'four charges a year'. So I cracked one open for a Big Clive-style reverse-engineer: TP4054 charger at ~300 mA into a tiny 350 mAh cell, an 8-pin mystery PIR/LED driver taking the PIR and LDR directly and sinking the LED cathodes. No visible current limiting on the board, but measured ~68 mA on the bench so it's baked into the chip. Then I gutted the brains, dropped in an RC-WL0516 radar sensor, added an LDR and a timing cap to stretch the ~3 s timeout, and drove... 19 August 2026
Why This ESP32 Reset Button Didnât Work Had a slightly annoying issue: one ESP32 dev boardâs reset button did nothing while the LED kept happily blinking. Schematic and PCB layout were fine, EN net buzzed out, but there was no continuity across the reset switch. Reflowing didnât help; under the microscope the joints looked good. The culprit? The tactile switch was gunked up with flux. A soak in IPA brought it back to lifeâcontinuity restored, reset works, programming mode good. Moral of the story: sometimes itâs not the designâjust clean it. Use more alcohol. 19 August 2026
The Devilâs Package - SOT666 I tracked some QA failures on my ESP32 rainbow boards down to the USBLC6 ESD IC in a SOT666 packageâunder the microscope the part wasnât actually landing on the pads. Reflowing fixed it, but that shouldnât be necessary, so I compared KiCadâs SOT666 footprint to the ST datasheet and found big mismatches. Turns out âSOT666â isnât consistent across vendors (KiCad/Nexperia/Diodes/EasyEDA all differ), so the only safe move is to follow the exact datasheet for the specific part. I built a new footprint in KiCad per STâs land pattern, tweaked the routing, and the 3D preview looks goodâfingers crossed the next... 19 August 2026
$3 AliExpress Heart Rate and Oxygen Sensor Module You know how it isâyou grab one cute little AliExpress module, then another⌠so I finally put an ESP32-C3 to work. Under the microscope it looks solid (nice 3.3V reg, ceramic antenna Iâm not trusting for WiâFi), and I paired it with a MAX30102 heart-rate/SpO2 sensor. Wired up I2C (SCL pin 6, SDA pin 5, INT to pin 2, 5V in), ran a scan, and boomâtwo devices found. After some finger-fiddling, the readings matched a commercial oximeter. Codeâs on GitHubâcheap, fun, and it works. 19 August 2026
How to make your ESP32-S3 code faster. I put my ESP32-S3 dev board from PCBWay through a quick performance workout by decoding a baked-in animated GIF with Larry Bankâs decoder and tweaking ESP-IDF settings. Cranking the CPU to 240MHz gave the expected ~1.5Ă bump, -Os beat -O2, switching flash from DIO to QIO shaved a bit more, and turning the caches up to 11 pushed it further. Best combo: 240MHz, -Os, QIO, max caches (with a larger partition and watchdog off). Nice little speed win. 19 August 2026
Even more AliExpress gadgets Another shamelessly overstuffed mailbagâcheers to PCBWay for fueling the bench carnage. I poked UV sensor cards with a curing lamp (they go purple then fade), sifted through robot gears, and lit some fragile LED filament letters (~2.7 V, happy around 100 mA). A USB photocatalytic mosquito trap spins at 0.02 A (teardown later), an OV7670 cam joins the ESP32/UVC experiments, and a chunky COB strip looks like a 12 V amp-gobbler. Bonus: surprisingly decent keyring torches with âpoliceâ flash, a hilarious translation on a temp/humidity doodad, and watch oiler wands that are perfect for painting on solder resistâprojects incoming. 19 August 2026
I Turned an ESP32 into a Thermal USB Webcam Last time I made an ESP32 pretend to be a webcam; this time itâs a real USB UVC cam streaming MJPEG. Then I go further: I bolt on a tiny 32x24 infrared sensor, scale it up to 320x240 with nearest-neighbor or bilinear, JPEG it, and stream it like any normal webcam. Along the way I show why ESP32-CAM wonât work (no native USB), dive into I2C gremlins (run a scanner first, check pull-ups), and fix a flaky 3.3V regulator solder job. Quick hardware tour: onboard 2.2K pull-ups, ME6212 LDO, and an AT32F415 MCU. Audio can waitâtodayâs all about making thermal... 19 August 2026
Amazon Basics vs SanDisk: I Cut Them Open I cracked open an Amazon Basics microSD-to-SD adapter (the one I fixed last video) and a branded SanDisk to see whatâs actually different inside. Under the microscope the contact geometry is surprisingly different: Amazon uses springy bent pins the card slides underâwith a clear fatigue weak point I already snappedâwhile the SanDisk has staggered-length contacts the card presses down onto, with what looks like heavier gold plating. Iâm leaning toward the SanDisk for robustness; shout out to PCBWay for the dev boards, and let me knowâA or B? 19 August 2026
My ESP32S3 Thinks It's a WebCam! I turned a vanilla ESP32-S3 dev board into a USB UVC webcam that doesnât use a camera at allâfirst streaming a static test card, then an animated GIF, and finally a real-time Pong game. The ESP32 pre-decodes GIF frames to RGB, JPEG-encodes them, and streams MJPEG, and for the live game it renders to a framebuffer, JPEG-encodes in ~23 ms, and just about hits 30 fps. Thereâs room to optimize (dual-core draw/encode), and this approach is great for dashboards, sensor visualizations, or testing video pipelines. Shout out to PCBWay for the boardsâthey turned out great. 19 August 2026
Why did I fix this? Quick little teardown and bodge-fix: my scratchy-sounding SD card adapter had a wonky contact pin. I cracked it open, tried to bend it back, promptly snapped it, then lost the bit. So I chopped a resistor leg, soldered it in under the microscope, tweaked the pins for continuity, and slapped it back together. Plugged it inâholy crap, it worked! Not the prettiest fix, and I probably wonât trust it long-term, but that was fun. 19 August 2026
I Spent Hours Debugging My Software⌠Quick bench update: I tried to get a 32Ă24 pixel IR module talking over I2C and it just would not play ballâpull-ups, library swaps, address scans, nothing. First silly mistake was not bridging the I2C jumper. Even after fixing that, still dead. Under the microscope I spotted the real issue: poorly soldered pins on the IC. A quick reflow and some IPA cleanup later, it sprang to life. Moral of the story: if yours wonât talk, check the underside soldering. Project video coming soon. 19 August 2026
Drones and Lasers? Itâs been a while since weâve done an unbagging, and Iâve clearly been on an AliExpress bender. Big thanks to PCBWay for fueling the chaos. Todayâs haul: a pair of tiny ESP32âC3 OLED modules (no idea why I ordered two, but here we are), a finger pulse/SpO2 sensor, a USBâC PD trigger with DIP switches that happily serves up 5/9/12/15/20V (1+3 gives 20Vâvery handy), an INMP441âcompatible MS8625 mic, a surprisingly nice transparent clock with temp/humidity, a couple of rechargeable nightlights that only charge on dumb USB because there are no CC resistors, a laser and matching detector (pew pew!), and,... 19 August 2026
Train Surgery I take a fun but unbelievably loud battery train and give it some train surgery: measure the 4xAA pack (~6 V), gut the coal car, shoehorn in an 18650 with a charge/protect/boost board set to about 5.5 V, wire it up, sanity-check polarity, and get the wheels turning. Then I tame the racket by putting a potentiometer inline with the speaker, chop some plastic so the knob pokes out, and hot-glue it all in place. Result: rechargeable power, adjustable volume, same charmâminus the living-room headache. (Quick shoutout to PCBWay for the boards.) 19 August 2026
Three ESP32 Rainbow Boards Failed QA â Can we fix them? Iâm assembling another batch of ESP32 Rainbows: PCB house does the boards, UV silkscreen and some parts, and I finish assembly and QA here in Scotland. I run through three QA failsâno sound, dodgy keyboard, and no USBâthen fix two: the audio fault was lifted pads on the headphone jack, so I bodged it back with flux and solder (speaker and headphones now work, but itâs a spares board). The noâUSB issue was an ESD protection IC sitting off its pad; I reflowed it on a mini hot plate, cleaned up with IPA, verified continuity, and it now enumerates and... 19 August 2026
Stop Using printf() - Debug ESP32 the Right Way Right, letâs give this a go. Instead of drowning in printf()s and blinking LEDs, I show how the ESP32-S3âs builtâin USB JTAG lets you hit Debug in the Arduino IDE (or PlatformIO) and actually step through code. We set breakpoints, add watch expressions, use conditional breakpoints, and even edit variables live with a simple FizzBuzz/LED demo. Itâs quick, it works, and it beats âworks on my machineââjust mind realâtime code and ISRs. Works on ESP32s with native USB. 19 August 2026
I Built My Own ESP32-S3 Board⌠And It Actually Works! I finally assembled my super simple ESP32âS3 dev boardâvoltage regulator, reset button, three status LEDs (5V, 3.3V, and a GPIO blinker), and all pins broken out. I showed two build methods: stencil + hot-plate reflow (quick, with a few USB bridges to clean up) and full hand-solder under the microscope, complete with the rigorous âsolidâ test. Soldered the ESP32âS3 module (skipping the center thermal pad unless you need it), plugged in, got power LEDs, confirmed USB enumeration, flashed a blink sketch, and weâve got a blinking LED. Next up: turning this basic dev board into something more professional for production.... 19 August 2026