October 2026 · 3D Printing · Marlin · STM32 · Hardware Hacking A practical account of installing a BLTouch-compatible probe, debugging a firmware that wouldn’t boot, and finally getting a good first layer across a 300 × 300 mm bed. I bought a 3D Touch-style probe for my Longer LK5 Pro because I wanted something
Category: Electronics
All You Ever Needed To Know About UPDI, And Then Some!
Part VI — The Complete Reference Design, Operating Guide, Troubleshooting Manual, and Resources Updated for the finalized NANO UPDI PROGRAMMER Rev. 1.0.0 hardware We began this series with one deceptively simple question: What is UPDI? Six parts later, the answer is considerably richer than: “It is Microchip’s one-wire programming interface.” UPDI is indeed a one-wire
Continue Reading “All You Ever Needed To Know About UPDI, And Then Some!”
All You Ever Needed To Know About UPDI, And Then Some!
Part VI — The Complete Reference Design, Operating Guide, Troubleshooting Manual, and Resources Updated for the finalized NANO UPDI PROGRAMMER Rev. 1.0.0 hardware We began this series with one deceptively simple question: What is UPDI? Six parts later, the answer is considerably richer than: “It is Microchip’s one-wire programming interface.” UPDI is indeed a one-wire
Continue Reading “All You Ever Needed To Know About UPDI, And Then Some!”
All You Ever Needed To Know About UPDI, And Then Some!
Part V — Using UPDI as an On-Chip Debugger Updated for the finalized NANO UPDI PROGRAMMER Rev. 1.0.0 hardware So far, we have used only half of UPDI’s name. We have built the: Unified Program and Debug Interface into a functioning programmer. Now we turn to the second half: Unified Program and Debug Interface This
Continue Reading “All You Ever Needed To Know About UPDI, And Then Some!”
All You Ever Needed To Know About UPDI, And Then Some!
Part IV — High-Voltage UPDI Activation and Recovery By the end of Part III, our Arduino Nano could do something genuinely useful. It could: That is already a practical programmer. But there remains an awkward problem. What happens if the microcontroller’s UPDI pin is no longer configured as UPDI? Or, on newer devices, what happens
Continue Reading “All You Ever Needed To Know About UPDI, And Then Some!”
All You Ever Needed To Know About UPDI, And Then Some!
Part III — Turning the Arduino Nano into a Real UPDI Programmer Updated for the finalized NANO UPDI PROGRAMMER Rev. 1.0.0 hardware Parts I and II got us across the wire. We now understand enough of UPDI to: That is already a useful communications system. But it is not yet a programmer. Programming begins when
Continue Reading “All You Ever Needed To Know About UPDI, And Then Some!”
All You Ever Needed To Know About UPDI, And Then Some!
Part I — Foundations, Electrical Interface, Protocol, and High-Voltage Activation There was a time when connecting a programmer to an AVR microcontroller could consume a surprisingly large number of pins. Traditional AVR In-System Programming used SPI-like signaling. JTAG used four principal signaling wires plus reset and power references. debugWIRE reduced debugging to essentially one signal,
Continue Reading “All You Ever Needed To Know About UPDI, And Then Some!”
Beyond One-Way Power: Upgrading a Linear Regulator to a Two-Quadrant Linear Power Supply
The “Negative Load” Problem Standard linear regulators, like the ubiquitous LM7805, are designed to be “sinks” of power. They take a higher voltage and drop it down, pushing current out of their output pin to power your circuit. However, they are effectively “one-way valves.” In a modern project—especially one involving motors, large inductors, or external
Developing an Open Hardware Device Programmer
Introduction As an electronics enthusiast with over 50 years of experience, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing the dramatic evolution of computing systems. From the early days of 4 and 8-bit machines with minimal RAM to today’s powerful 64-bit computers with terabytes of storage, the progress has been nothing short of extraordinary. The same transformative
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The Definitive Guide to RS-232 Communication: History, Standards, and Relevance in the Modern World
Introduction RS-232, often referred to as a legacy serial communication standard, has been the backbone of communication in electronics and computer systems for decades. Developed in the early 1960s, RS-232 became the standard for robust, reliable data transfer between computers, modems, and peripherals. While USB, TTL serial, and wireless protocols have supplanted RS-232 in consumer
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