The Desk of Ladyada - More RP2040 Tester Brains
70The Desk of Ladyada - More RP2040 Tester Brains
This week at the Desk of Ladyada, we spent more time on our RP2040 Tester Brains board: this is our board that is replacing the Teensy3.6-based testers that we've been using for years with an available chipset. We've now published the CAD files on github (https://github.com/adafruit/RP2040-Based-Tester-Brains-PCB) for folks who want to use it for their own hacking. Thanks to Thach's intrepid work, we've replaced all our RP2040 programmers and now we'd like to do our ESP32 programmers as well. We stock *a lot* of ESP32 boards of various flavors - and traditionally we've used Raspi's to bootload and program over USB but Raspi testers are not as rugged as fully solid state testers. We wrote an ESP32-in-situ programmer back when we did the PyPortal ADABOX to burn in the ESP32 Airlift code (https://github.com/adafruit/nina-fw), but that only works on 'classic' ESP32s, turns out that modern chips need a stub loader! (https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esptool/en/latest/esp32/esptool/flasher-stub.html) Work on that part is happening slowly but surely over in github (https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_TestBed/tree/brain-esp32-stub-loader) but should allow us to have higher speed programming from optimizations and compression.
The Great Search - Alternative to NRND Part PAM8301
https://www.digikey.com/short/p8p81h7f
This week's Great Search is for a replacement for our Venerable PAM8301 class D amplifier (https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/diodes-incorporated/PAM8301AAF/4033366) a part we've used in a ton of boards to act as a mini amplifier for SMT magnetic buzzers (https://www.digikey.com/short/1w0t87ww) for making beeps and simple sound effects. It's low cost enough it is only a little more expensive than a Class AB, but without needing large blocking caps. Sadly, its now NRND so let's find another similar chip that we can use to keep our designs alive and kicking!
Visit the Adafruit shop online - http://www.adafruit.com
-----------------------------------------
LIVE CHAT IS HERE! http://adafru.it/discord
Adafruit on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adafruit
Subscribe to Adafruit on YouTube: http://adafru.it/subscribe
New tutorials on the Adafruit Learning System: http://learn.adafruit.com/
-----------------------------------------
#adafruit #deskofladyada #electronics