The ringing comp is interesting: it’s completely synthetic (sensorless). The chip models what it thinks the ringing should be based off some physical parameters (that can be configured over I2C), then drives the coil in a way that it hopes would counteract the ringing, but never actually knows if it has succeeded.

Similar to how you can do current sensing in motors

I do not think there are not enough variables here to make this work. Reading coil current won’t give you any information you don’t already know if you’re already controlling coil current. You need to be reading at least one more variable that is somehow related to coil position.

Turning off the coil drive and shorting the coil temporarily to measure current is unlikely to give you anything but the same current you were driving it with (minus some losses). Ie still not an extra variable.

you can send and receive with the same coil in a metal detector.

This introduces new variables! Reflected signal magnitudes (and distortions & phase delays) that depend on distance to a nearby metal object that you intentionally install near the coil (eg the metal casing).

Not sure how easy or reliable this would be to do in practice. I have my doubts but I could be wrong :)

Woah. I thought it was 3mm, not 3cm. This this is huge.

Maybe you could also use it for laser experiments, not just cameras? Variable laser focus or for tuning distances to match.

+/-1 least significant digit at a minimum.

“I’m sorry frog, but you might actually weigh 0”. Little buddy noooo

Really, Penfold.

I suspect that you need to think of the 3 B->E voltages as inputs (OR’d with each other) and the C->lowestvoltageE path as the output. All of them are operating in linear mode too, I think one of them is a low-gain follower whilst others have a lot more gain. Maybe.

Nope, bottom right and top middle >:D

Oh my god I’ve forgotten what a base is. This transistor is doing my head in.

I don’t want my children influenced by this. “Dad why does your transistor only have 3 legs?”. And I had only just rid the house of dual-gate mosfets too!

I only know what wikipedia tells me about these things, I’ve never played with one. I also have no clue yet what it does in this circuit.

3 emitters and 2 collectors.

The headline and text of this article were amended on 24 March 2025 after the Guardian was notified of a significant calculation error in the Queensland Conservation Council research. An earlier version said the dams that supply the proposed Callide and Tarong nuclear plants “could not access enough water” to cool them in the event of a meltdown; our article has been amended in line with the organisation’s revised analysis.

Source: bottom of amended article.

That’s a CH340G, it has an in-built 3.3V regulator. But there is no external regulator on the board.

Maybe the chip is running off its internal 3.3V, but the board designers put a tie-up resistor on one of its pins to 5V, which results in the weird 3.9V. Dunno. Try attaching a 1K resistor between that pin a GND, see if that makes the problem disappear.

The 5.3V is from your computer, that’s not the fault of the USB UART.

3.2V is perfectly acceptable for a 3.3V rail.

The 3.9V is a bit weird. Can you post a photo of your USB UART board? Maybe the main chip has an inbuilt 3.3V regulator separate to the external one.

Stand back, I’m carrying a budgie smuggler.

It’s holding a hammer!

There are some youtube videos of people machining them (sadly my browser does not support smell). Looks like you treat it like any other solid material: hobb or mill the teeth. This is much more expensive than 3d printing.

You might be surprised by your 3d printed gears. If you keep the detail size large they work really well, but backlash is definitely an issue.

I swear that I read that white lead oxide is water soluble, thus happily sticks to your fingers and then gets on your food. I must be misremembering.

Maybe it was something about the solid lead object turning into an (oxide) powder that can then be easily ported as tiny particles on greasy hands? Hearsay science and safety information from me today :)

The fun thing about Pb is it’s relatively safe in pure form. Unfortunately the oxides that appear on its surface are water soluble and love entering our bodies.

Just looked this up, apparently I’m completely wrong. Maybe I was thinking about lipid compatibility? Not sure now.

Welcome to security news theatre :(

I don’t think espressif would bother suing, these kind of misshapen claims get constantly made against popular projects all of the time. It’s just unusual to see so much coverage about this particular one.

Not so say that externally attackable vulnerabilities in an ESP32 don’t exist, they might. Bluetooth devices have an awful track record. But making them up doesn’t help the world.

I happily ran THUGPRO under wine, so I assume rethawed would be the same. Dunno.

Where am I even supposed to buy it if I wanted to, which I don’t really,

Looks like it’s abandonware. Yeah, publisher dropped the ball.

Bleepingcomputer’s title and article are very misleading, the presentation did NOT reveal a backdoor into an ESP32. It looks like Bleepingcomputer completely misunderstood what was presented (EDIT: and tarlogic isn’t helping with the first sentence on their site).

Instead the presentation was about using an ESP32 as a tool to attack other devices. Additionally they discovered some undocumented commands that you can send from the ESP32 processor to the ESP32 radio peripheral that let you take control of it and potentially send some extra forms of traffic that could be useful. They did NOT present anything about the ESP32 bluetooth radio being externally attackable.

Another perspective that might help: imagine you have a cheap bluetooth chipset that is open source and well documented. That would give you more than what the presentation just found. Would Bleepingcomputer then be reporting it’s a backdoor threatening millions of devices?