Started off on a techie adventure with an RP2040 DVI board from Adafruit, aiming to get the pico-zxspectrum going. Things started acting haywire once the USB hub got involved, ending in a complete shutdown, intuitive diagnosis showed the power pin was a ghost town! After pin-pointing (and removing) the dead IC, I performed a delicate soldering operation to bless it with a new 3V3 regulator. Working the kinks out with the resolution led to a thrilling revival and, voila, we were back in business with DVI output and SD Card support!
Building a USB cable tester turned out to be trickier than anticipated! My first attempt with fully shielded USB sockets was foiled by design flaws and hidden solder issues. The second iteration featured more accessible sockets, yet still posed challenges. The improvement allowed us to distinguish between high-speed cables and average ones. I'm now in the midst of creating Version 3, with all connections broken out for easy testing. Stay tuned for what's next in this unexpectedly complex journey!
In this blog post, I explore the TS80P soldering iron, a tool that has been generating buzz. One of the highlights is that its firmware can be flashed with an open source system called IronOS. Here, I share my process of flashing the TS80P with IronOS and testing it out on a Raspberry Pico W. Please note, a Quick Charge or Power Delivery supporting power supply is needed for this iron. While running some tests, I observed that using a fast charger can heat this iron up twice as fast as using an Apple charger. Also, flashing the firmware is...