One side effect of ordering PCBs from a professional fab house is that you always get more PCBs than you actually need. For example, when you place an order for a PCB prototype at PCBWay, you get at least 10 copies of the PCB, sometimes even more. In most cases, …
Introduction Earlier today I needed an extra of those USB-to-TTL-Serial adapters for a project I am currently working on. Among my spare parts I found an old one, based on the PL-2303HX chip, but when I attached it to my Windows 11 PC, it didn’t seem to work. I remember, …
Introduction The Sonoff Basic Wi-Fi Smart Switch is an inexpensive wireless smart switch for anyone who wants to remote control and/or automate electric devices around the house or workplace. Unfortunately, it suffers from the same privacy issues as many of the inexpensive consumer grade smart devices, like the one in …
Recently, more and more consumer devices are available to make your home “smarter”. While they can make our lives a bit easier, comfortable, most of these smart devices also give rise to a number of privacy concerns as well as usability/reliability issues: The mobile apps (i.e. Ewelink, Smart life, etc) that …
Problem After an update of some software on a 64 bit Windows computer you might run into the following message when you start MPLAB X: Also, when you try to program your device it fails. PICkit2: Loading code from F:/Projects/PIC/LilBang.X/dist/default/production/LilBang.X.production.hex…Loading symbols from F:/Projects/PIC/LilBang.X/dist/default/production/LilBang.X.production.cof…Loading completedConnecting to programmer…The programmer could not be …
Introduction I am a regular on eBay and 99% of the time I successfully source items from China. The key for this success rate is knowing what to order and what to expect for your money. However, recently I ordered a number of test leads from China for about USD2.50 …
Introduction After months of waiting for my new mobile phone when I finally received it and wanted to use it it turned out that it takes a micro SIM card instead of the mini SIM card my previous phone has been using. I knew that the SIM cards have gone …
Introduction I usually make a custom PCB for my electronic projects. Throughout development the PCB, however, changes several times. Making a custom PCB at each stage is not practical for several reasons including price, long waiting times between versions and being very wasteful. For all these reasons I use a …
