In today's episode, I'm unboxing some goodies from PCB way - my super tiny esp32 breakout boards, which I'm planning to use to recreate a mini TV complete with speakers and a display. Also received some convenient adapter boards for easier testing. Excited to explore a new Arduino Nano esp32 based on a different, tinier module, and contrasting it with other products like the Tiny Pico. Also up for testing is a new mini wear electronic load compared to my old one, and an ATX power adapter for more USB ports. I'll be testing power banks, playing with inexpensive yellow displays and nunchucks for fun gaming projects, and testing out an RGB bead curtain with hackable possibilities. Also, under my ongoing experiments is a Raspberry Pi zero, turning into a 'Doom' playing device with added sound and game controllers. Finally, an air quality measuring device for detecting air particles, CO2 levels, humidity, temperature and other parameters is up for exploration as well. A whole array of fun projects queued up, so stay tuned!
[0:00] it’s time for a mailbag
[0:02] we’ve got a parcel from PCB way
[0:10] let’s see what we’ve got
[0:15] it’s my ever so tiny
[0:18] esp32 breakout boards
[0:28] I’ll do some close-ups of these later
[0:30] let’s try plugging one in and see what
[0:32] happens now there’s currently no esp32
[0:35] on these so I’m not sure what will
[0:37] happen but we do see a little LED
[0:40] so what will happen on the top of these
[0:43] we’ll have a esp32 plugged in
[0:46] so I’ve had some of these delivered so I
[0:49] have a bunch of esp32s
[0:52] so what I’m going to try and do is
[0:54] remake one of these tiny TVs
[0:57] so this is a tiny TV
[1:01] and it’s pretty cool so I thought it’d
[1:03] be quite fun to try and make our own
[1:05] version of this so I’ve made up this
[1:07] very simple
[1:08] esp32 board we’ll solder an esp32 onto
[1:12] the top here so one of these modules
[1:15] well let’s stick on the top there
[1:18] and um I’ve also got
[1:20] some little speakers so I’ve got these
[1:24] tiny speakers that we can um slow it on
[1:27] there’s two pads here for a speaker
[1:30] and I got these very nice little
[1:31] displays
[1:33] so these have come as well
[1:36] so our TV will be slightly bigger than
[1:39] theirs but it should still be pretty
[1:40] nice so I’ll do some close-up shots over
[1:43] there of this board later
[1:45] um for the end of the video and we can
[1:47] have a look everything seems seems okay
[1:50] nothing is getting warm so that’s quite
[1:52] promising so also from PCB weight
[1:59] we should have some nice adapter boards
[2:02] for these
[2:03] so
[2:05] I’ll be able to solder one of my
[2:08] breakout boards onto this and plug it
[2:11] into some breadboard so this should
[2:15] slot on like that
[2:18] and then we’ll have a nice um breakout
[2:20] board for testing these in a slightly
[2:22] easier way so that should be good fun as
[2:25] well so I’ve also ordered an Arduino
[2:28] Nano esp32 so this is an S3 based um
[2:33] device
[2:34] so this should be quite interesting to
[2:36] play with it’s interesting is actually
[2:38] using a different kind of module from
[2:40] the ones we’re used to obviously it’s
[2:42] quite a tiny module so this should be
[2:45] quite interesting I’ll be interested to
[2:46] see how this Stacks up against things
[2:48] like the tiny Pico from unexpected maker
[2:51] which we use a lot in our projects so
[2:54] stay tuned for a detailed video on the
[2:57] Arduino Nano esp32
[3:00] I’ve also received one of these mini
[3:02] wear electronic loads so I’ve been using
[3:08] this electronic load for quite a while
[3:11] but I thought it’d be nice to invest in
[3:13] something slightly more sophisticated
[3:15] so
[3:17] this will be very useful for future
[3:19] projects let’s open it up and have a
[3:22] quick look I do like the uh
[3:25] mini wear products they always look
[3:27] pretty amazing
[3:30] all right let’s get this out of the box
[3:37] so that’s kind of neat so
[3:41] very nice compact little um electronic
[3:45] load now someone recently gave me an ATX
[3:48] power supply so I ordered a
[3:51] ATX power adapter I guess you could
[3:53] never have too many USB ports that’s
[3:56] going to be quite handy
[3:58] um I’ve got this older one but uh this
[4:00] one looks slightly better I’ve also been
[4:02] playing with building my own power bank
[4:03] so I’ve got this nice board here but um
[4:07] we’ll try out so we’ll use the
[4:09] electronic load to test these out in a
[4:12] future project
[4:13] so I’ve also ordered a couple of the
[4:15] cheap yellow displays that Brian Locke’s
[4:18] been talking about a lot
[4:20] um these are pretty cool so I can power
[4:23] one of these up
[4:25] they come with a small demo
[4:29] um
[4:30] so everything
[4:31] try this out it works it works
[4:34] surprisingly well and they are
[4:36] very very cheap hence the name cheap
[4:39] yellow display
[4:40] and now I’ve
[4:43] flashed one this one with um an emulator
[4:48] Gallagher so let’s try that
[4:52] should boot up so we’ve got Pac-Man
[4:55] Gallagher Donkey Kong
[4:57] and I think if I push some of these
[5:00] buttons
[5:02] the game should start up so there we go
[5:04] Gallagher running
[5:07] so to go with this
[5:09] we’ve got some
[5:11] some wee nunchucks and I also ordered a
[5:14] little breakout board to make these
[5:16] slightly easier to um to play with so
[5:18] that should be a fun project for the
[5:20] future we’ll do a do a video on the
[5:22] cheap yellow display soon and that would
[5:25] be pretty cool
[5:26] now the other thing I’ve ordered is this
[5:28] RGB bead curtain
[5:31] so this is pretty interesting I saw this
[5:34] on Becky Stones Channel she was doing a
[5:37] DIY version and then realized that there
[5:40] was actually a version on AliExpress
[5:42] that you could buy so this is a bead
[5:45] curtain with RGB addressable LEDs so
[5:49] that’s quite cool
[5:51] um let me find a plug and we can try
[5:54] this out
[5:59] oh we’ve got some flashing lights
[6:02] and we’ve got a remote control so we’ll
[6:05] do a tear down of this and we’ll see
[6:06] just how hackable it actually is and
[6:09] what we can do with it so that should be
[6:11] a fun project
[6:12] we do like an LED project on this
[6:14] channel
[6:15] now another thing I’ve been playing with
[6:17] recently is a Raspberry Pi zero with a
[6:20] display
[6:21] and I’ve been turning this into a into a
[6:24] doom playing machine so let’s power this
[6:26] up so I’ll currently boot into x windows
[6:29] I thought it’d be good to add some sound
[6:31] so I’ve got a couple of uh little
[6:33] speakers here and we need some control
[6:35] as well so I put a little um games
[6:38] controller
[6:40] and we’ll do some wiring up to plug this
[6:42] into the Raspberry Pi which should be
[6:45] booting there we go
[6:48] and it should run chocolate Doom to
[6:52] games
[6:53] chocolate Doom so obviously we need
[6:57] sound so we’ve got some speakers and
[6:59] we’ll use some way of controlling it so
[7:01] we’ve got a little um controller here
[7:04] try plugging it all together and seeing
[7:06] if it works and then the last things I
[7:08] want to play with for another project is
[7:11] building a little air quality meter
[7:16] this little box here
[7:18] there’s a air particle measuring thing
[7:20] so this will detect um particles in the
[7:23] air
[7:24] this is a CO2
[7:27] level meter
[7:29] and this is an air quality metering it’s
[7:32] humidity temperature and other stuff so
[7:36] that will be another fun project to try
[7:38] out
[7:39] it looks like I’ve got a lot of fun
[7:40] projects to try in the future so watch
[7:42] out for the videos coming soon