This really SUCKS.... and I love it! Exciting news! Robin sent me a Pixel Pump to try out, and I'm loving it so far. It's really well packaged and comes with a ton of handy goodies, including two foot pedals and SMD magazines. It's perfect for my USB tester project as it makes pick and placing components super easy. Although it requires a bit of practice, the foot pedals make the process much smoother. Plus, with the interactive BOM plugin for KiCad, I can mark components as placed without using a keyboard! 27 August 2025
ESP32 Touch Spectrum - Battery and Expansion port test. It's time for a bit more testing of the boards from PCB Way, and I must say, these boards have come out amazingly well. Check out PCB Way – there's a link in the description! Today, we're focusing on testing the battery charging and the expansion port. The battery charging circuit seems successful, and even when playing music, everything is running efficiently. I've looked into some optimizations for the speaker side, such as adding more decoupling capacitors. We also tested the expansion port, successfully running an emulator on the Pico that drives the display via the expansion port. Excitingly, I... 27 August 2025
ESP32 - 40 Independent touch pins! Wow! I'm absolutely thrilled with the results of this video - I've been experimenting with my ESP 320x Spectrum board and its touch Matrix keyboard. Had a bit of trouble with combined button inputs, so I took a deep dive into how touch works and discovered these old, but gold, ICs. After some testing, they turned out to be a perfect solution to my multiplexing problem! I then got a new board design shipped from PCB way - looks awesome and it didn't break the bank. Can't believe how responsive the keyboard is! Got the 'Hello World' program up and... 27 August 2025
I blew up my dev board - and then fixed it! So, in my latest experiment with an 8 feather DVI board, I was greeted with a strange smell and a board that stopped working flat. After some hair-raising debugging, I discovered that our villain might be a dodgy Voltage Regulator, throwing a tantrum and refusing to output voltage steadily. After removing it, I conscripted an external 3.3 volt regulator and voila! The board sprang back to life, and we have a happy ending. But the mystery continues: what wreaked havoc in the first place? I'm pinning the blame on a rebellious USB hub. So, next on the agenda, shopping for... 27 August 2025
ESP32-S3 ZX Spectrum - Full Color Silk Screen is really cool! Super stoked to share this creation – an ESP32 ZX Spectrum emulator! Although it's still very much a proof-of-concept, it's looking pretty rad. I've got the classic games like Manic Miner, and yes, you can program in basic too! In perfect Sinclair fashion, I'm planning on selling this key piece of nostalgia for just £99. Work still needs to be done before the production phase, but rest assured, I'm meticulously working out the kinks, including tweaking the keyboard to ensure even better user experience. And on the technical side - a single ESP32S3 runs the show and we’ve multiplexed the... 27 August 2025
1024 LEDs - WLED Flame Lamp Today we're elbow-deep in LEDs for another exciting project — we're building a high-resolution flame lamp! Kick-starting the endeavour with a 1024-pixel LED matrix, we proceed to throw in the towel with a faulty old flame lamp boasting a mere 300 LEDs. Mislabelled PCBs and questionable diodes keep us on our toes, making this undertaking a little more Sparky than usual. With the help of competitive soldering skills, a beefy 5V power supply and a 3D printer, we channel our inner Edison to bring our LED matrix to light. After a pinch of struggle, our LED matrix rollercoasters into a... 27 August 2025
Look at My Shiny Crystal Balls - Custom ESP32 PCB With WLED. Step right up, folks, for the grand unveiling of my shiny new crystal balls – yes, crystal balls. I've transformed ordinary AliExpress pieces into juggernauts of light and color, all powered by the splendid WLED software. Dive deep with me into the nitty-gritty of the underlying electronics and come face-to-face with the true beauty of voltage measurements (I promise, it's more riveting than it sounds). While the original circuit boards from AliExpress might not thrill, my beefed-up version invites gasps of wonder, with microphone-controlled LEDs throwing light in a million dazzling ways. Join me as I chronicle my journey through... 27 August 2025
Is it time to change my batteries? Amazon thinks so! Got a heads up from Amazon that one of my device batteries was low. Gotta give it to the battery, it lasted quite longer than I anticipated. So, I peeked into the device usage history, which was a trove of data Amazon has kindly stored. In fact, I wrote a web scraper to download all this data. Sadly, records only go back to two weeks. Nevertheless, I plotted the data and surprisingly the pattern revealed that battery level gets affected by temperature change. Cool, isn't it? Finally managed to change the battery. Also, I might just plug in a rechargeable... 27 August 2025
How Good Are My USB Cables? In this video, I engage in a deeper exploration of USB testing, encountering a range of trials and tribulations along the way. First up, I attempt to test a couple of USB cables and discuss their data lines' peculiar situatedness. Then, I delve into the assembly of the PCB boards, sourced from PCBWay, which surely turned into a learning voyage than an easy sail. The first version faced challenges of misordered large-frame stencil, unseen connection problems, and even DRC errors in the submission process. Not dwell on that, I redesign and bring to table Version 2, complete with USB connectors... 27 August 2025
Surprisingly Clever DVD Eject Mechanism In this video, I dive into the exciting world of the ejection mechanism for a DVD player. The hook which mechanically keeps the DVD player in check is an essential piece of the puzzle. Also noteworthy is a small micro switch, which ensures the device acknowledges when a DVD is fully in. With a bit of blue-tack trickery, we convince the DVD player there's a DVD inserted. The key players are this cam-shaped, blue protrusion and worm gear. In a clever turn of events, the movement of these components manipulates the hook controlling the ejection. Quite astute of our humble... 27 August 2025
Nickel Coating PCBs At Home In this experiment-filled video, I explore the inner workings of a resistor box I spotted on the EEVBlog channel. With its ability to adjust in increments down to 0.1 ohms, I was fascinated, but also noticed the binding posts could do with an upgrade. Upon inspection, I was intrigued by the simple yet clever construction and the possibility of enhancing the durability of the copper with some nickel plating. Navigating through the potential challenge of the resistors on the PCB, I embark on the journey of creating a homemade nickel plating solution. A few hiccups, adjustments, and an hour later,... 27 August 2025
Easy - KiCad Symbol, Footprint and 3D Model! In this video, I walk you through the transition from EasyEDA to KiCad for your PCB designs. While we lose the tight integration with LCSC parts, we gain the ability to export 3D models in KiCad. I discuss the challenges of finding certain components and how a handy script can help pull LCSC components into KiCad. We also explore how to position and adjust components correctly. Needing enclosures for your design? We discuss how to export these 3D models for review and even import them into Fusion360. To top it off, I mention the value in using PCBWay for your... 27 August 2025
Surprisingly Simple! - “16-bit" Mini Handheld Arcade In this video, I explore and dissect a 16-bit handheld gaming machine that hosts 160 Sega games. This interesting gadget priced at twenty dollars is surprisingly accurate to the original Sega console. After unboxing and testing the game Golden Axe, I opened it up to check out the internal components like the pcb, chips, battery pack and controls. Although it's not very hackable, as the functionality lies under an epoxy blob, this little machine was a treat to disassemble and reassemble, all while still keeping its functionality intact. With a dash of nostalgia and quality gaming in a handheld package,... 27 August 2025
ESP32-TV Version 3 - Is it done? In today's project update, I'm excited to share that my ESP32-TV boards, fresh from PCBWay, are operating flawlessly! We've successfully dealt with the USB2244 conflict with the ESP32, and the battery charging issue is now a thing of the past. We've also made some awesome additions like a microphone to our board. The real MVP though, is the USB2244 chip that’s given us significantly improved read/write speeds - making it perfect for handling video files. Next on the agenda, figuring out a solution for the non-standard display connector. As ever, there’s progress, there’s problems, and there's David Bowie animated gifs!... 27 August 2025
We don't need a DAC - ESP32 PDM Audio In this video, I've made some fascinating explorations with the ESP32 S3 chips and TinyS3 boards from Unexpected Maker. Intriguingly, even without a DAC converter, S3 chips can produce an audio waveform. I've played around with a basic RC filter to reconstruct the analogue audio signal from a PDM signal. The result was quite impressive for a board without a native DAC! I also discussed the possibility of creating a simple amplifier using just a MOSFET as a switch. Finally, I gave a peek into some of my new boards from PCBWay and looked at how Delta Sigma modulation can... 27 August 2025
Live GPIO Viewer In my latest discovery, I found an incredibly efficient visualization tool from the last outpost workshop that upgrades how I check the status of the GPIO pins on my ESP32. It's super simple to use and allows me to monitor pin activities directly. I set up a couple of LEDs and a button on various GPIO pins to demonstrate its effectiveness and the results were fantastic. Although it currently supports only digital input and output and PWM, I'm optimistic it will expand with time. Thanks to the open-source community, you can find the setup instructions in a GitHub repo. This... 27 August 2025
TinyWATCH and Bling - Unexpected Presents! In this festive video, I did an unboxing of unexpected gifts I received from Australia by The Unexpected Maker! Among the cool stuff I got included a TinyC6, Bling and its box, and an amazing Unexpected Maker watch with a number of impressive features like time display, message options, and accelerometer. Pushing my luck, I also got my Christmas present a day early and gave it a quick Wi-Fi connection. Overall, an exciting watch with a microphone, buzzer and an esp32 S3. Also, I gave a brief look at my new USB 32 TV boards being manufactured and contemplated running... 27 August 2025
Christmas Quiz We had a blast going live for our exciting Christmas quiz! We started by whipping up some suspense, dealing with a few technical glitches, a tiny bit of trippy feedback, and some legendary guests. We had James, Brian, Pat, and Desi – the real stars of live streaming! With the rules set out - not questioning Santa, we navigated through a wave of Christmas and science-themed questions. From 1980s computers and the first SMS message to hormones, physics, electronics, and space exploration – we had it all. We even added a splash of math and popular culture into the mix.... 27 August 2025
Most Interesting Addressable LEDs that I've Ever Seen So, I got this nifty 2x2 meter 400 LED curtain and immediately went to work dismantling it. The LED strands are tapped off the main wire, rather than daisy-chained, which is a departure from the norm. Turns out, these LEDs are pre-programmed, allowing them to intelligently latch onto the right serial data. Unraveling the control unit, we see an IR receiver and other key components responsible for driving the LED strings. Despite my misgivings about deciphering in-built Bluetooth characteristics, I hooked the circuit back up with our dependable WLED software and got some amazing grid patterns. Interestingly, the LEDs operated... 27 August 2025
ESP32-S3 - Which Pins Are Safe To Use? In this video, I've decided to dive deep into the ESP32-S3, a module ruling my lab recently due to its plug-in-and-play functionality, and the flexibility offered by its GPIO matrix. However, working with it requires vigilance, especially with regard to the strapping pins and USB data pins, among others. Discovering such quirks, I've encountered unexpected values, short glitches and the occasional code crash. To help you avoid these bumps, I've documented everything I've learned on my GitHub repo, where I'm inviting you, my fellow makers and engineers, to contribute your valuable experiences and findings. After a minor hiccup with my... 27 August 2025
Can You Spot the Problem? Buckle up folks, this video is a thrilling one! There's everything from unboxing my new ESP32 TV boards that arrived from PCB Way to discovering some hidden issues. We're talking about some pesky problems, surprises, and even a potential catastrophic error that could've led to a disaster. The main dish is the high-speed SD card access over USB - ultimately achieving a whooping transfer rate! But, the journey is a roller-coaster ride, from the project completely failing initially, to some smart hacks and triumphant moments. All the peripherals worked well, from the display to the sound amplifier and even the... 27 August 2025