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The state of off the shelf maker tools and parts is insane. Recently built a custom LED controller based on a WT32 ETH01 (cheap, $8 on Aliexpress, ESP32 with a
by brotchie 3y ago
The state of off the shelf maker tools and parts is insane.
Recently built a custom LED controller based on a WT32 ETH01 (cheap, $8 on Aliexpress, ESP32 with an Ethernet port). I ended up building 3 revision, all in EasyEDA (Web-based EDA tool), which integrates directly into JLPCB (PCB manufacturer).
After submitting to JLPCB, they fabbed the PCBs, assembled them, and shipped them to West Coast USA in less than a week! For like an all-in cost of ~$10 per board, insane.
The esp-idf toolchain is amazing, and pretty well documented, with lots of concrete examples of getting peripherals up and running (SPI, Ethernet, TCP/IP stack).
Then I need custom enclosures, so got a Bambu Labs X1. Learning Fusion 360 was a bit of a lift, but a week later had a snap-fit, fully custom enclosure.
That combo of super easy, supplier integrated EDA, cheap and quick fab and assembly, good tools chains, and easy building of enclosures is night-and-day from doing hobby electronics back in early 2000s.
Choose a base ESP32 board, design and have a shield fabbed in a week, quickly code it up, done.