I Bodged a microSD Adapter Back to Life A cheap microSD adapter died with a horrible scratchy noise, so instead of binning it I cracked it open, found a snapped spring contact, and soldered on a resistor lead as a makeshift tip. Against all odds, it worked and the card mountedâproof these things are just spring contactsâbut itâs mechanically cursed and absolutely not to be trusted. Fun experiment, not advice. 28 January 2026
When âSoftware Bugsâ Are Actually Bad Soldering A quick MLX90640 IR camera test turned into a dead-on-I2C mystery. I ran the usual checksâaddresses, pull-ups, voltages, wiringâand even fixed my forgotten UART/I2C jumper, but still nothing. A peek under the microscope revealed sketchy solder on the 3V3 LDO; a quick reflow and the sensor sprang to life. Lesson relearned: donât trust factory soldering, look early with a microscope, and stop blaming software when the hardwareâs silent. 25 January 2026
Train Surgery I took a hilariously loud, 4xAA-hungry toy train and gave it a proper glow-up: dropped an 18650 in the coal car, used a charger/protect/boost board dialed to ~5.5 V, and added a simple series pot as a volume knob. After some careful teardown, polarity sanity checks (center positive!), and an irresponsible amount of hot glue, itâs now rechargeable and actually pleasant to listen to. The motor clatter is the only thing the volume knob canât tameâbut the wheels go round and round, and Iâm calling that a win. 07 January 2026
ESP32 Rainbow QA - A tale of three boards Weâve shipped a few hundred ESP32 Rainbow boards-most are perfect - but a few failed QA. Hereâs 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 (oneâs now a donor), and itâs a great reminder why we do final assembly and full QA here in Scotland. 02 January 2026
Red Arcade Thing Repair I resurrected a dead AliExpress arcade handheld by swapping the blown 3.3V regulator (I now own 99 spares), adding a TP4056 charger with Schottky diode isolation, and nursing a 0V LiPo back to life. A bit of hot-plate rework, tidier wiring, andâflip the switchâboom: it boots! Itâs not pretty, but itâs alive again. 14 September 2025
A nicer repair After my previous messy attempt, I aimed for a more refined repair by carefully matching and tinning the bodge wire. Despite a minor mishap during the cleaning, the final result is much cleaner thanks to solder resist. I feel like I'm improving! Watch the video to see the process! 07 August 2025
Electronic chopsticks I recently got my hands on the HT140 Solder Tweezers from Sequre, adding an exciting new piece to my toolkit. Powering it via USB-C, these electronic chopsticks heat up fast thanks to a robust 65W power supply. Testing on a Raspberry Pi Pico board proved successful with a little flux help. Despite hoping for minimal use due to my PCB order, these tweezers are a handy backup for precise soldering work. 05 February 2025
I broke it and then i fixed it 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! 01 July 2024
Are my usb cables any good 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! 18 March 2024
Flashing the TS80P with IronOS 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... 04 August 2022