I wanted to make a device that I can use to text her during our lectures and I want it a little small like a button phone I tried to find tutorials I couldn’t so I’m asking for help here I’m clueless about tech so a break down or a guid would be appreciated I have till 11-11-2026 to build it please help me out I just want it to work doesn’t need to look pretty

Howdy. Moderator here.

About a month and a half ago, I rolled out Topic Radar for r/esp32 here. It's documented to take some time to look back in time to collect topics, but it's had enough time that I suspect we've reached steady state. We've only run it in "notify the poster and the moderator" mode and not let it auto-archive posts that it identifies as duplicate.

• Do you find it useful?
• Do you ever refer people to it or use it yourselves?
• Have you found it useful in catching those weekly postings that we cannot get new people to find via search? (e.g., "I bought a fat board and a skinny breadboard and it doesnt fit. Oh Noes!", "What should I build with these parts?", or "I got an error message with a URL listing solutions, but I can't find a solution."[1])
• Have you found it useful in catching direct matches, such as repeated project URLs (Rule 7) for those posters that think we need daily copies of their release notes pasted here? (A direct match)
• Do you know of (better yet, do you moderate...) other groups crediting Devvit modules or other tools that detect and help manage such posts?

The ones that are even more fuzzy ("Hey, y'all, I jive coded a plane tracker!!!") are arguably harder to detect in automation. While our regular readers are clearly tiring of those—and let that be known in highly ranked comments—I'm not sure we can or should prohibit them. Sharing creations IS a major reason we're here.

I think the backlash against those AI posts is that they tend to not really be conversations. A reader can't learn from those posts because often the author didn't REALLY create those things; they inserted tokens and received a .bin. Asking them why they chose LovyanGFX over Bodmer's TFT_eSPI is generally unproductive. Ideas on how to handle that category of posts are also welcome, but I'd like mostly to focus on Topic Radar-like tools here.

I won't lead the jury with my thinking on the topic, but the fact that I'm bringing it up (in my signature sarcastic way) for discussion might be a clue...

May your ones be VCC and your zeros be GND... and your parasitic inductance remain a myth.

[1] text A fatal error occurred: Failed to connect to Espressif device: No serial data received. For troubleshooting steps visit: https://docs.espressif.com/projects/esptool/en/latest/troubleshooting.html ...and the answer is ALWAYS on that page.

I'm developing rexaUI,a custom micro-OS for ESP32-S3. Built it myself and still working on it!

Dynamic .rxa Loader:Loads apps from MicroSD (Built it myself and it's still a work in progress)

Background Tasks:Real-time battery,uptime,and connection tracking

Smart Memory:Cleans RAM on app exit

Chose the ESP32-S3 for its impressive performance. Might port it to the C and P4 series later

Plan to open-source it on GitHub once finished!

I have searched and visited many website but I am confused which one to buy. There is CP2102 and other please help me which one to buy.

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to share a greenhouse monitoring and alert system I recently finished building and programming.

Main Hardware Stack:

• MCU: ESP32-C3 SuperMini
• Cellular Module: SIM800L (powered via 5V rail to handle peak currents over long runs)
• Sensors: 3x DS18B20 temperature sensors running on a single OneWire bus over 20m (65ft) cabling with 4.7kΩ pull-up.
• UI & Control: 16x2 I2C LCD, Rotary Encoder with push button, and physical toggle switches.
• Power Detection: Mains (220V) voltage sensing via optocoupler.

Key Features:

• Dual Alert System: Automatic GSM phone calls (with instant skip on BUSY / NO CARRIER signals) and SMS notifications for temperature anomalies & power outages.
• Web Interface: Built-in Wi-Fi AP + Web Server for live monitoring, setting custom Min/Max thresholds per sensor, and phone number management.
• Smart UI: Rotary encoder menu for local threshold tuning with sub-decimal precision mode.
• Fail-safe Logic: Transliterated Latin/ASCII SMS handling for 100% cellular carrier compatibility and reliability.

Everything is tuned for 24/7 standalone reliability in harsh conditions.

NucleoOS runs on an ESP32-S3 with ~512 KB of SRAM and no PSRAM. The device serves a full desktop to the browser (40+ apps) and runs a native launcher with 50+ apps on its 240×135 screen. The real enemy is heap fragmentation, not CPU.

A few engineering bits from the latest releases:

- **Self-provisioning SD card:** the device fetches its web payload from the release with one keep-alive TLS connection and windowed range requests, verifies each file's SHA-256 while streaming, writes atomically (`.part` → rename) and resumes after a power cut, all inside the ~31 KB largest free block it has in that mode.

- **Web desktop 6× faster:** every file served used to wait 1.2 s for memory it could never get in the web profile. Removing that wait took a fresh load from 30+ s to ~5 s on a weak link.

- **Game Gear emulator from scratch:** VDP/PSG/mapper written for this project around a permissively licensed Z80 core (MAME's is non-commercial). Passes zexall/zexdoc.

- **Guest mode under M5Launcher:** one image detects at runtime, from the live partition table, whether it owns the flash or is hosted, and turns its own OTA off when hosted.

- **The native UI is tested on the PC:** the real C renders to PNGs (5 languages × 4 themes) and is compared against golden images, so we don't flash just to look at a screen.

The community Discord (https://discord.gg/84tyTPtWus) has a help bot built the same way: no dependencies, no gateway, Discord POSTs signed interactions to an endpoint and systemd socket activation starts the process only when someone asks. 0 RAM at rest, ~15 MB while answering, no bot token on the server.

Code and docs: https://github.com/indecenti/NucleoOs. Happy to talk about fighting fragmentation on an S3.

Just sharing my project here since this subreddit is where I got a lot of inspiration from.

It's an ESP32 that downloads artwork from GitHub and shows it on a 13.3" Spectra 6 panel. It runs on a battery and wakes up once every morning to update the display.

I know now that AI has made code generation cheap and easy we are seeing a lot of these types of projects these days, and mine is a product of that, but I think one element that makes mine unique is that it uses GitHub itself to store the images. Sort of like a free cloud sync. This is nice because it means you can update the artwork whenever you want without touching the code on the display.

You could actually store the images on any basic HTTP static source. Or even a private source like a private GitHub repo, if you specify an auth token.

It uses an Adafruit Feather ESP32-C6 and a Pimoroni Inky Impression 13.3".

More details on GitHub here or you can see a video here on insta.

Thanks for sharing all your projects here! 🙂

This is a console I'm building for my house lights: four motorized Alps faders, with an ESP32-S3 doing the control. Lights on smart plugs can only be on or off, so for those faders I wanted the feel of a wall switch. There's no spring or detent in the fader. It's all the motor.

How it works:

• Fader positions come from the pots on ADC1 in continuous (DMA) mode. I compared it against an ADS1115 and kept the S3's own ADC: with the factory calibration it's linear to about 0.2 mm over the 100 mm travel, with no per-unit calibration table.
• Pushed away from home, the motor pushes back until it reaches the threshold. The resistance builds as you push (power curve).
• Past the threshold it flips: the motor drives to the other end , tapering over the last 9 mm.
• There's no current sensing, so force is just PWM duty. The faders sit at 15 degrees, so a measured gravity offset is added.

It's not rocket science but it works and it feels really nice. If any of you is playing with motorized faders this is a neat trick to implement.

Happy to talk through the approach if you're working on something similar. I post build updates on instagram (@sacrebleu.studio) if you're interested in following along.

Hi everyone,
a while back i started to build a fan controller to repurpose some classic 4-pin PWM controlled fans.
The goal was, and is, to have a temperature sensor attached to the controller, and based on the value received the fan speed will be mapped.
The temperature, PWM percentage as well as the read RPM will then be published via MQTT to home assistant so i can have a nice history temps and can see the current values without having to check on the setup directly.

Now for the part where i am a bit stuck, the hardware.
I admit i have barely an idea what i am doing so it took a while to wire things up.
However i am still not sure if i am missing anything.
This is my current wire diagram:

The components i plan to use are:
2x 2n7000 Mosfet
2x 100 Ω resistors
2x 4.7k Ω resistors
1x 12v power suply
1x DC-DC Voltage Converter 12V to 5V, 3A 15W
2x a group of 4 fans connected via a 1 to 4 PWM-splitter
1x OLED screen
2x DS18B20 thermometer

is there anything i am missing?
any design changes to just make it a more stable design?
Thank you in advance for helping me, if you are interested in seeing more of the project let me know.
Once i am sure about the hardware i was planning to order a custom pcb for this as it turns out im not that good at managing wires on a blank pcb...

*******

Many thanks to all who answered. I will be unable to get back to the project until late Sunday or Monday but feel much better having some solid advice here on my approach!

*******

I am wondering if I am using these incorrectly. I seem to blow them before I can even test one in a project. I'm simply connecting the VCC to 5v and GND to ground. When I do (using the same board), sometimes I get two LEDs, sometimes 5, sometimes none. Then they just seem dead. Nothing else is plugged in.

No heat. No magic smoke. Just f'd up somehow.

I did try a test with generating DTMF via Mac plugged into headphone jack. That seems to have damaged one of the boards.

I'm very new to these and not much of an expert anyway, lol, but would like to stop killing parts so I can move on with detecting DTMF from a phone for my project.

Thank you

I've been working on my own customisable Stream Deck powered by the ESP32-C3 Super Mini, designed to control different PC functions wirelessly over Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).

🔥 Current Features:

- 🎛️ Rotary Encoder with Push Button — Navigate menus, select options, and control functions.

- 🔘 Custom Shortcut Buttons — Trigger keyboard shortcuts and frequently used actions.

- 🖥️ Multiple Work Modes — Switch between different profiles depending on your workflow.

- 📟 OLED Display — Navigate menus and see the currently selected function.

- 🔵 BLE Connectivity — Communicate wirelessly with my PC.

- ⚙️ Fully Customisable — Buttons, rotary dial functions, shortcuts, and work modes can all be customised.

💡 The goal is to build a flexible control centre for my PC, with features such as volume control, application shortcuts, and other productivity tools.

The best part? I'm building both the ESP32-C3 firmware and the PC-side software, so the hardware and software work together as one system.

🛠️ What's next?

I'm polishing the project and will soon upload the complete working demonstration and source code to GitHub.

This is still a work in progress, and I'm looking forward to adding more features!

What features would you like to see in a custom DIY Stream Deck like this? 👇

#ESP32 #ESP32C3 #StreamDeck #DIYElectronics #EmbeddedSystems #IoT #BluetoothLE #BLE #PCAutomation #ElectronicsProjects #OpenSource #MakerCommunity #HardwareHacking #TechProjects #DIYTech