When âSoftware Bugsâ Are Actually Bad Soldering A quick MLX90640 IR camera test turned into a dead-on-I2C mystery. I ran the usual checksâaddresses, pull-ups, voltages, wiringâand even fixed my forgotten UART/I2C jumper, but still nothing. A peek under the microscope revealed sketchy solder on the 3V3 LDO; a quick reflow and the sensor sprang to life. Lesson relearned: donât trust factory soldering, look early with a microscope, and stop blaming software when the hardwareâs silent. 25 January 2026
The six stages of debugging - ESP32 Debugging Every dev knows the six stages of debuggingâfrom 'That can't happen' to 'How did this ever work?' On embedded projects Iâve lived on Serial.println and blinking LEDs, but modern ESP32s have builtâin USB/JTAG so you can set breakpoints, step through code, and inspect variables right in the Arduino IDE. In the video, I show how to jump faster from 'Why does that happen?' to 'Oh, I see.' 13 November 2025
Easy esp32 s3 dev board Quick recap: Iâm putting together a super simple ESP32-S3 dev boardâthereâs a video walkthrough, the full KiCad project on GitHub, plus the schematic and a slick 3D render of the assembled board. 20 September 2025
E32-S3 no DAC - No Problem! We'll Use PDM In this post, I tackle the lack of a DAC on the ESP32-S3 by demonstrating how to use Pulse Density Modulated (PDM) audio with Sigma Delta Modulation to achieve analog audio output. I explore the simplicity of creating a PDM signal and its reconstruction into an audio signal using a low pass filter, even an RC filter, though a more sophisticated active filter is recommended. I guide through using both a timer and the I2S peripheral on the ESP32 for outputting PDM data, noting the quirks and solutions for each method. And I wrap up with how straight PDM signals... 05 January 2024