blog:
Some months ago I started a project where I needed a microcontroller with just a few pins and a DAC. After some digging, I came across the ATTiny1 series from Microchip. Worked great for the task and after finishing that project I found it's "cousin MCU" series the AVR64DD14. Both are very good on price/performance and they exist in 14 pin SOIC packages, making them DIY friendly.
For a new product, I'm making a very simple IoT distance sensor. Initially I thought this whould be a quick project, but finding the right sensor proved more difficult than expected. This is what I learned from the project.
Throughout the years I've made several Kicad reference designs that others can use as starting points for their own custom boards and today I've published a new one for the popular RP2350 sereies, based on the RP2354A that has 2Mb builtin Flash.
I just made a nifty little board for use with my Joulescope that will let me plug any USB dev board into it to precisely measure power. But it wasn't just as smooth as this? It only worked half the time? I was puzzled. Did I forget something?
I was discussing phone usage with some friends the other day and we compared our ScreenTime. I almost fell off the chair and the others were seriously shocked as well: 8+ hours of screen time per day? What on earth had happened to me? I was certain that I had used my phone less than average that week, and the next week it was even worse.
I recently got a new kind of spam entries added automatically to my calendar without me ever doing anything. Here's how to fix it.
I just published the first major firmware update for my radar sensor and while doing that, I stubled upon what seems like a significant change in the Arduino esp32 integration. This took me some time to figure, so time to post it for others to find.
President Trump has had an “alternating” relationship to electric cars in the first six months of his second precidency. He really do not want to support them in any way and rather the opposite he wants to support the fossil fuel industry to Make America Great Again. Meanwhile, I just discovered that we now have Petrol stations without Petrol?
Just had a gotcha with a custom board based on ESP32 S3, so I'm posting for this for future me (and anyone else that may need it).
What would you say if I told you the biggest social media site in 2002 was owned by a chocolate manufacturer? It wouldn't sound plausible at all, would it? Yet it's true and I was part of it. The name of this blog is even related to it.
In my feed, there keeps popping up stories about “Vibe coders”. At Bitraf there is currently an influx of new members that never would code unless AI enabled them to do so. These are “hardware vibe coders” that trust that AI can help them solve hardware problems. Is AI coding for either software or hardware currently viable? And is Vibe coding possible beyond the first prototype?
When you work as a consultant, you have to work when there is work. Having a side project that you can develop during downtime and then later sell is nice. I'm happy with how the RadSense product has developed, but there is one project where I recently missed my opportunity making better lighting for LEGO and model projects.
My gaming PC died the other day. It's one of those annoying things about SSD's. They just die instantly. So to get my computer back, I had to reinstall Windows 10. After re installing, there was a super annoying nag screen telling me to install Windows 365 Copilot. This is not ordinary .exe file, so I had a hard time preventing it from running on startup. I used search engines to see if…
As a Teenager, you know everything! You also think that you cannot die and that everything must be tested. This is a brilliant time. It's the time to party until late and solve world problems over endless units of alcohol. Many years ago a friend explained me the idea that knowledge comes in steps.
I've been a huge fan of SpaceX and Starlink for many years, so I was first in line when they launched in Norway two years ago. Up until November 26th when my router died, it's been brilliant.