I’m thinking of making a soldering microscope from a Raspberry Pi (either a spare B+ I have or maybe a ZeroW). I had looked at Andonstar ADMSM201 or Lapsun 14MP HDMI 180x scopes, but they each have their limitations – crap software, tiny focal length requiring additional lenses, £200+ pricetags….. So looking at it, I just have to buy a Pi camera module with a CS mount and a decent lens.

I’ve wasted about three days trying to get OTA upgrades to work on my ESP8266 boards. They take 1-2 OTA’s and then don’t even boot into the sketch. Tried my Gizwits WiFi Witty and ESP12F on a breakout board with an LDO as described in my earlier post. Then I tried my old NodeMCUv2 board and it worked fine, all of the time. Turns out we need moar powah! The HT7833 LDO on the white breakout boards from the earlier post, are supposed to be able to put out 500mA so I guess its not a current problem but a voltage one, when measuring what gets through to the ESP its just over 3.

Inspired by this Reddit post, I decided I’d have a go at making a soldering board with helping hands. The bill of materials is over £10, but I’ve bought more than I need, so probably under a fiver for the build: Crocodile clips, 10 for 83p Oil coolant pipes, 10 for £3.83 Silicone mat, £1.50 Epoxy, 90p Anti-skid pads, 125 for 90p Sandpaper, 25 sheets for 90p 3:1 sticky heatshrink, 5 metres for £1.

I just made a portable power supply out of a few components. I wanted something more flexible than my bench supply. So the parts list is: TP4056, which can charge a LiIon or LiPo battery at the same time as powering a circuit from it, or USB. In powerbank terms it would be called pass-through. It also provides over [dis]charge protection but I don’t think reverse polarity protection (could be solved with a diode).

Its been quite a while since my last post, so here’s a big one….. I’ve been doing a lot of 3D printing since I received my FlashForge Creator Pro 2016. I learned OpenSCAD and FreeCAD, my designs are here. I’ve made various enclosures for Arduino’s and Raspberry Pi’s, as well as USBASP cases, voltmeter cases, solder tip holders, calliper battery savers, resistor forming tools, soldering helping hands, bottle openers, trolley tokens, SD card holders, PIR cases, Dremel accessories, various 3D printer upgrades and the usual calibration prints.