ESP32 Rainbow QA - A tale of three boards We’ve shipped a few hundred ESP32 Rainbow boards-most are perfect - but a few failed QA. Here’s how we tracked down and fixed three real-world faults: no sound from lifted headphone jack pads, USB not enumerating due to a mis-seated ESD IC pin, and a flaky touch keyboard from poor ESP32 module joints. A bit of microscope work and reflow brought two boards back to life (one’s now a donor), and it’s a great reminder why we do final assembly and full QA here in Scotland. 02 January 2026
That was 2025! 2025 was the year I actually shipped hardware: the ESP32 Rainbow—a modern, full-color riff on the Sinclair Spectrum—crowdfunded, certified, manufactured, and in customers' hands. The economics were brutal (COGS, tariffs, shipping, CE/UKCA), but the community made it worth it. I also went deep on high voltage, made a 10¢ MCU sing and talk, escaped printf hell with USB/JTAG, built a browser serial plotter, fixed broken gadgets, and even let AI pick parts. For 2026: more ESP32 mischief, more joyful builds, and probably more bodge wires than I'd like to admit. 31 December 2025