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. 01 February 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. 01 February 2026
I've got a new toy to play with! Unable to generate a summary because no transcript was provided. Share the transcript or a brief outline of the video and Iâll craft a concise, author-voiced summary. 01 February 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. 01 February 2026
Please Unsubscribe! Please unsubscribe. No, I havenât lost itâthis is an experiment. I want to see what happens if only the people who genuinely want my mix of ESP32/MCU tinkering, AliExpress teardowns, and odd electronics stick around. I think YouTube tests new videos on subscribers first; if they donât click, the video dies. So Iâm asking casual subs to bail so the signal is cleaner. Weâll watch the stats for about six months and see if fewer, more aligned subscribers mean better performance. Iâm making what excites me, not living in a niche box. Sure, Iâd love a silver play button (maybe... 01 February 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,... 01 February 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.) 01 February 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... 01 February 2026
Christmas tree train! Unable to generate a summary because no transcript was provided. Share the transcript or a brief outline of the video and Iâll craft a concise, author-voiced summary. 01 February 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. 01 February 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.... 01 February 2026
It blinking well works! Unable to generate a summary because no transcript was provided. Share the transcript or a brief outline of the video and Iâll craft a concise, author-voiced summary. 01 February 2026
I Built a 27V PCB to Fix This $3 Display... I resurrected the LCD writing tablet I blew up last time by designing a dropâin PCB that generates a 27 V pulse to clear the screen. Itâs a regulated dualâjouleâthief variant with two magnetically coupled 20 ÂľH inductors (soldered opposite ways), a 27 V zener for regulation, inrush limiting, and a few caps and a bleed resistor. I assembled it with PCBWay boards, tried both Volteraâprinted paste and manual SMD under the microscope, salvaged the blister button, and profiled it on the Nordic PPKâpeaks ~18â19 mA, ~7 mA while regulatingâtotally coinâcell friendly. It fits with a bit of mechanical fiddling,... 01 February 2026
CH32V0003 Plays Mod Music Unable to generate a summary because no transcript was provided. Share the transcript or a brief outline of the video and Iâll craft a concise, author-voiced summary. 01 February 2026
How Is This 10¢ Chip Talking? I got a 10âcent MCU literally talking. With just 16K of flash and 2K of RAM, I used PWM and a tiny transistor amp to play 6+ seconds of audio at 8 kHz by compressing it with superâsimple 2âbit ADPCMâ4:1 compression and a decoder in under 2 KB. I built a handy WAVâtoâ2âbitâADPCM tool to make it easy. For longer phrases, I switched to the Talkie library (TI LPC speech synthesis from the TMS5220/TMS5100 eraâthink Speak & Spell and classic arcades), and I even made a web tool and player for generating and previewing LPC data. Itâs wild what you... 01 February 2026
10¢ MCU Brain Surgery - CH32V003 I crack open a punchy little toy, show how the original just squishes two contacts to light the eye LEDs off a pair of LR41s, then perform some brain surgery to cram in a tiny lithium cell and my own board that triggers lightsâand an incredibly annoying tuneâon each punch. It sips about 7 ÂľA in deep sleep and wakes via a yellow trigger wire, but the soldering was fiddly and full of swearing. Tape it up, cram it back in the head, and yes, it works a treat⌠maybe too well, because the beeping is driving me mad. 01 February 2026
10¢ MCU Music Hack - CH32V003 I spun some tiny WCH boards at PCBWay around an 8âpin MCU (48 MHz, 16k flash, 2k RAM) to beep tunes off a coin cell. I tried hand-soldering, then used my paste-dispensing PCB printerâexpired paste still worked great. Standby sips under 8 ÂľA, but it locks out programming; a WLink flash wipe rescued me. Wake draws ~3.3 mA, and audio peaks hit ~130 mA (~13â14 mA average), which browned out the coin cell. A tiny 80 mAh LiPo with a TP4056 (modded to ~100 mA) proved the design, then swapping the buzzerâs base resistor from 1k to 10k tamed it... 01 February 2026
ESP32 PDM Microphone - What do you do with the L/R pin? I treated myself to some hands-free probes and dug into the PDM mic on my ESP32 board. I was confused that the new I2S PDM API only asks for clock and dataâno LRCLKâyet the mic datasheet shows an LR/SEL pin. The trick: in PDM, LR is just a static select. Tie it low and data is valid on the rising edge; tie it high and itâs valid on the falling edge, so two mics can share the same I2S lines by picking opposite polarities. I proved it on the scope and realized I donât need to burn a GPIO on... 01 February 2026
ESP32-S3 USB UAC Audio Device - does it work? Time for an audio project: I took my PCBWay ESP32âS3 board for a spinâfixed the common anode/cathode LED mixâup, verified the IMU and battery charger, then tested an I2S PDM mic and tiny speaker with a Web Serial Audio Studio (scope, spectrogram, tuner). I also turned it into a USB UAC device in ESPâIDF: the mic is clean, but speaker over UAC is crackly (Mac/Windows toggle oddity); direct I2S WAV playback is perfect, so the hardware passes QA. 01 February 2026
High Voltage Coin Cell - 27V Joule Thief How much voltage can we squeeze out of a CR2025? Turns out⌠plenty! I built a little Joule-thief-style boost circuit with two 1 mH inductors, an NPN, a Schottky, a 27 V zener clamp, and a storage cap to zap my LCD pad clean at around 27 V. I profiled it with a Nordic power monitor: about 11 mA during the boost and ~9.28 mC per clickâso tens of thousands of presses from one coin cell. Then I added a second transistor tied to the zener to auto-limit the drive, dropping hold current to about 1.5 mAâhuge win. Scoped it... 01 February 2026