I used to think emojis were odd, but now I really like them. They are so clear. I can't read emotions from faces, except for emotional vs not emotional. But emojis are easier. I wish people looked more like emojis. 😊
It actually depends, on longer posts they somehow disturb the reading flow for me (because they are kind of distracting compared to plain text). For short comments on the other hand I like them and find them rather refreshing.
Yeah I have such a small, cheap Chinese one (T962) that I modified and flashed a nicer firmware on.
I basically populated the bottom side (with more components) first after applying solder past with a stencil, then reflowed the board. After cooling down I applied the solder paste to the upper side (with the LED) by using a small needle on a syringe (because using a stencil was too weird since the board wasn’t laying flat) but since the pads are relatively large and not that many that worked fine. Then I placed the components on that side and simply run the reflow cycle again.
I started with the bottom side because there are no heavy components. I expected heavy parts to just fall off on the second reflow cycle so I tried to avoid that.
At the end I manually assembled the USB connector using a regular soldering iron and tons of flux gel.
Nice! Thanks for explanation! I don't have much experience with soldering larger circuits. Usually I'm stuck with a soldering iron and tweezers. Just recently got a used stereo microscope. That already helps a lot. But certain packages like BGA are out of reach this way.
I was kind of afraid of SMD things in general a long time but I discovered they are (up to a certain size, 0603 is still okay for hand assembly if you’re patient) comfortable to work with. Even QFN packages are okay if you have access to a hot-air station. I did actually order an BGA sensor out of curiosity along with other things, looked at it and was like “hahaha, thanks, I probably better don’t design that thing into my circuit” (I think it’s a 5-WLCSP package).
I used a Chinese oven that looked just like that, maybe the same model. I found it uneven in its heating, so much so that paste near the door sometimes didn't flow. It was possibly a step up from my Black and Decker toaster oven.
I don’t have it for that long but I didn’t have problems so far, I’m usually only making rather small PCBs tho. I did make some recommended modifications like replacing the paper insulation tape with a kapton tape, proper grounding and flashed another firmware.
I did only use a small hotplate and/or a hotair station, so it seems to be definitely a stepup here 😌.
You can find a lot of different dev boards with ESP32, like the one you mentioned. There is other with camera, e-paper screen drivers, smaller footprint (Xiao ESP32). The simplest way to program is using Arduino IDE, but I prefer using PlatformIO on VScode. GCC would work. The interface is with the USB port, which is used for COM port or for programming
The easiest way to program it would be using something like Esphome. I think Node Red is another tool that greatly simplifys things, but I haven’t had the time to mess with it yet.
In addition to what others have mentioned if you're using Home Assistant or an MQTT environment than using the ESPHome tools can make life much easier.
You can also install MicroPython, and with it's new and improved "mip" (pip for micropython) you can easily find drivers for most things. Micropython doesn't support "threads" on the esp8266 as such, but can use uasyncio, which achieves the same goal.
ESP32 or Raspberry Pico, if you want something easy to use, reasonably feature full, easy to interface, inexpensive, and medium form factor.
ATTiny, if you are strapped for physical space and don't have anything super complicated to interface with. Also, really inexpensive. I like it for basic electronics projects where even a Pico would be overkill.
On the other extreme, if you need more complex software, then a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 is a great option. Fortunately, the supply situation for Raspberry Pi has been improving a bit, at last. Sometimes, it's nice to be able to use all sorts of high-level software libraries, and then you hit a limit with the ESP32s and Picos of this world.
You can also mix and match. A PiZero talking to a Pico is a great combo. A ESP32 and an ATTiny can also sometimes turn out to be the more pragmatic choice.
Oh, and if you need even more oomph, then I really like the Raspberry CM4. Lots of nice carrier boards to choose from. But that's really not a microcontroller, so might not fit OP's question.
There are plenty of other boards out there. But they frequently have poor support, or are released only for the vendor to immediately abandon them. Maybe fine for one-off projects, but I generally prefer to stick with designs that last for a couple of years. Much easier to support, if I need to revisit my project down the line.
Nowadays there's a plethora of options available for beginners. Heck, even PICs have dev boards available with built-in programmers, so you connect it to your computer using regular old USB cable and you can build away using Microchip toolchains. Depending on your comfort level of low-level C, I'd probably still stay away from PICs as a beginner.
There's Arduinos and all the numerous clones (cheaper, different features). The main benefit of Arduino ecosystem would be that it's really easy to find libraries and/or content on the internet that gets you real close to solving your problems without having to write too much code yourself.
And of course very cost effective ESP32 based offerings that excel at wireless usecases (WiFi, bluetooth).
Recently there's even more beginner friendly boards appearing using MicroPython where you don't even need a toolchain. You connect the board to your computer, it appears as a mass storage device, you drop your Python code on it... and that's it, the board runs the code when you disconnect from the computer.
Have a browse through Adafruit and Sparkfun stores to get an idea of all the possible (beginner friendly) boards out there.
Thanks for the detailed answer, I was familiar with ASM and C. And soldered some of the boards myself. But probably cant do the soldering parts too much now.
3 years ago the obvious answer was Atmel AVR chips but they are still in short supply today. I think ESP32 is the answer today. They are shockingly powerful for the price. And they have built in wifi, bluetooth, and USB.
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