 And welcome to Desk of Lady Aida. Hey everybody, and welcome to the Desk of Lady Aida. It's me, Lady Aida, and this is my desk, and it's Lady Aida O'Clock. It's time to check out some of the stuff I've been working on. It's been a nice weekend, so Mr. Lady Aida and I have been outside a little bit more. I wear sunscreen, so you can't tell, because I burn instantly. But I did get some samples, and I was poking through them. So I thought, let's kick it. Let's show it off. So let's go to the overhead because I can show off some of the stuff I've been hacking on. So number one, Espresso sent me, well, samples everywhere. Espresso sent me some ESP32 S3 modules that have four megabytes of flash and two megabytes of PS RAM. These are not even released to the public yet, but they kind of slipped me a couple of wheels. I mean, I paid for them and everything. They just sent them to me a little early, which is awesome. So this is the ESP32 S3 Feather, and the silk screen on this one says eight megabytes of flash, but I ran another set of these boards that say four megabytes flash, two megabytes PS RAM because it's really hard to tell which module you have. So I made a new version of this tester. Hold on, let me reboot this board. So this tester, but I rewrote the code and everything for the four megabyte flash, two megabytes PS RAM. I actually didn't think I was gonna get the module for quite a bit. And so I went ahead and I made the QT pie and the Feather with the current ESP32 S3 without the PS RAM. But that said, I think I'll still stock both versions because I think that there's times where you're like, I really need eight megabytes of flash and that extra storage. And there's some times you're like, no, I really need the PS RAM. And I think it's a good trade-off. So we'll probably have both. So this is the tester. Put the board in and I hit the button. I put the board in here and hit the button and it goes through and it flashes the test code and tests all the pins and verifies that the PS RAM is in fact there. So that way, as long as the tester doesn't get mixed up, people get the board that they expect. And we'll also have a little guide. There is a marking on the module that you can look on. So they go past in a couple of seconds, 16 seconds. And then I'll do the QT pie as well because we also got the chip. That one doesn't have a lot of space on the silkscreen. So I'm probably gonna revise it and just tell people like, hey, here's what to look for to know which one you have. And then of course, I've also got the TFT version. I never did the S3 version of this board even though again the module would be identical because I was like, if you're gonna have a display, I feel like you really need to have the PS RAM because you're gonna be like buffering display stuff. I figured like I was gonna wait and so I waited and so I'm gonna also do a version of this board with an S3 because I think people really like our little all-in-one screen. And then if you wanna do like Bluetooth or dual core, I think it'll be nice and handy to have the S3 with a PS RAM. And then I also have that reverse version of this board too. So S3 stuff is going good. S3 is still, remember it's not stable yet in Arduino or circuit Python, but I wanna get the hardware out there and then see where we go. So that's the board version. Oh, I also got like this is a sample I'm testing. So this is a sample, it's a USB cable that tells you the voltage and current. You know, we actually stocked something like this already but that got discontinued. I'm noticing, you know, part of the chip shortage is I think a lot of companies are discontinuing products and changing products. So I'm seeing a lot more like this is no longer available. I gotta find another version, alternative, whatever. So it's definitely a party. So this is one sample that I got. I do like this one. There's also I think a version that's USB-C and I'm gonna try to get that because it'll also show you the voltage and current with USB-C, which I think would be really handy for when you're trying to figure out like did my PD USB-C thing work out? So this sample is one sample that I approved. I'm gonna unplug it, bam. Okay, so that's that. So this ESP, sorry, the ESP32-S3 feather will probably try to fabricate that this week. Next up, this is actually a Mr. Lady Aida request. I got these cool wire, like super skinny wire LEDs. People are using these for like models. I know we have like those wireless LEDs, but sometimes people make models and they want to have like little LEDs and like they don't have space for the wireless ones, but you know, maybe you could use ones that are wired. So here these are skinny and they use wirewrap wire and they have an 0805 LED. And I'm just going to, I have a little board here that I can power it from to show you. So it's just a surface-mount LED, soldered to wires, but you know, it's super bright and it would be great in little models or like wearables and stuff where you just want like a tiny little LED and this without a resistor. So of course it's like super heckin' bright. And then let me see, I've got, that was the cool white. Oh, this is pink-purple. So let's look at the pink-purple one. We talked about pink-purple LEDs last week or two weeks ago. So let me grab one of these and test this out. So I'm going to test all the colors and then I think I'll stock these because you know, it's a lot of people don't have the skill to solder an SMT LED. Oh, these are beautiful. So you can see that. I don't know how clear it is that it's just a nice purple color. Oh yeah, that came out really nicely. So these are nice pink-purple. So yeah, I think you saw these originally in like a bonsai tree kit. And you were like, oh, we should totally stock these. So I think, I think this will be handy for some people. So that's another demo, starting with a sample. Of course now I've got this like wire wrap LED spaghetti going on here. Hold on, let me try to clean this up so we can photograph this. Oh my goodness. Oof, hold on. All right, I think I'm going to give up. So you got a couple other colors. You got warm whites, blue, and I think this one was purple. So you got a couple different colors and then of course it's pink-purple. Okay, so then I just got like a couple more samples. I'll show off and then we'll go into the great search. And you can let me know if there's questions and stuff. I got some transceivers. So one thing that we stock live is ultrasonic modules. And they look like this, where they have a transmitter and a receiver and they have a little chip. And the chip is like, there's like an all-in-one chip that does it, the RCWL9600 or whatever. There's like ASIC chips that'll do the work. And these are really, really cheap. So we sell this, I think this does the standard like parallax style sonar transceiving as well as Yort. And it said it does I squared C, but it doesn't really, although I have to figure out if I can get it to work with I squared C. And then I was like, well, you know, the MaxPotix sonar modules only have one sensor. So I thought I would get some of these, like RX and TX ones, like the ones that can do both because, okay, hold on, let me show you. I don't know if these will have the markings, but for RX TX style sonar, like they come as a pair and hold on. They'll actually say, I think it's on the back. They'll actually have a T and an R on them to tell you which one is the receiver and which is the transmitter. Whereas this module is apparently can do both. Although I've never built my own ultrasonic transceiver or like a distance sensor, but I can't imagine it's that hard because like again, you know, Parallax was doing this in like the 90s with like a PIC microcontroller. So I'm sure that I can do it with a, you know, SAM-D09 or an AT-Tiny running at 20 megahertz. So I thought this can make a nice stomach QT board because I was thinking like I could solder a standard sonar into like an I squared C adapter, but maybe it's like, I can just drive this directly and get the reading and then I wouldn't have to do this like conversion from pulse width to I squared C. It'll just read it and then just give you the I squared C data measurement. Cause I would like to have an ultrasonic that has I squared C and I would like it to be small. Like it would be cool if it was, you know, if it like fit on like your standard one by 0.7 I squared C stem like QT board, right? It would just be like one transceiver. So maybe, I don't know. You saw help make it I squared C. Well, this would be just an all in one, you get all in one chip. So like it would just program a chip to do it. Cool. But I have to learn how to do that. I've never, I've never actually done this. I mean, it's like, I know I have to drive it and then I just have to listen to the echo and it's like 40 kilohertz or just like, again, it's nothing, but I don't know, do I have to have a special, do I have to have an H bridge for this? I don't know. Like how much current does it need? Can I drive it from two pins? Can I just set up like a timer? It's a little bit of a mystery to me. So I just got these modules in. So that's cool. If anybody has any links to somebody who's like DIYed it, let me know. I also got this cool super fun button mixed bag. So the company that I buy some buttons from, I have a couple of companies I buy buttons from because like they're, you know, you need to have multiple suppliers and they're very generic. So they had like a sample pack. And so I picked up a sample pack and this is like great because it's got like these through hole 12 millimeters and the ones with like the nubbins and then it's got like the right angle through hole and it's got like some surface mount like big key nubbies and SMT, you know, I've got actually stock of the easy SMT three by sixes and like right angle and little mini ones. And the reason I actually was interested in this because I wanted, I use these right angle switches and a lot of boards, but I wanted a tinier one. And, you know, they were, I was basically like, well, I could get a sample of the tiny right angle switches that they stock, which you can see are like, you know, half a quarter of the size of the large ones. But it's like, well, instead of just getting like a sample of those, I was like, why don't I get their sample pack because then I'll just see all them. And then I was thinking like, oh, it's gonna be cool to stock just because sometimes you're repairing something or you're like, you want to just look, it's like hard to gauge what the buttons feel like or look like until you actually get them in your greasy little fingers. So, so this is a sample kit of buttons. So the only button that I was really interested in was this one, but I'm thinking that I might stock the whole thing, you know, in the shop so that people who are prototyping designs or they want to like compare buttons. Cause you know, there's one thing to say, oh, it's a three by three millimeter by six millimeter button. And you can like visualize it and maybe even measure a button until you have it in your hands. It's really tough to know if it's gonna be, if it's gonna work out for you. Okay, this is ice blue. Okay. And then, oh, so then let's go to the computer. I'll just show what that button is for and then we'll move on. So the reason I want the small button is this is the Feather M480 Lager that I've just been delayed on finishing. I have, what's funny is I have the chips for this. This is Samdi 51J20, not 19. And so I actually have extra J20s because I bought both, but like only the J20s shift. And so I wanted to replace this button because I really like having a button here. I thought that would be fun, but I don't like that it's kind of in the way of this standoff hole. So I wanted a smaller little button. So I thought, you know, maybe this tiny side switch button which I think will work great would be a good alternative to that one. And so I wanted to get a couple samples so I could redo the PCB. So that's that. Okay, so that's my sample Sunday. Any questions before we go on to- Let's do some great search. This is a great search. The great search brought to you by Did You Key and Ada Freer. LaData User Powers of Engineering every single week to find the things that you need. It's tough to find things because it's a global part shortage. LaData, what is this week's great search? Okay, this week's great search is, you know, I had a couple great searches where we did, you know, alternative searches. And then I went to like, oh, I'm like trying to find some chips and stuff that I want to design with. And now I'm back to alternatives because I'm seeing like the second wave of part shortages where I believe that there are parts available but they're not being allocated necessarily. And so, you know, we have a lot of parts that we've ordered and the lead times are still a year. And now I'm actually seeing them stretch out to two years. You know, I was looking at like a MOSFET that, you know, we use the DMG 3023 or five, I think, which is a nice little slot 23P FET for a lot of our boards that we use as like a little, you know, ideal diode type thing. And, you know, it's a MOSFET, you know, it's like, hey, most generic common thing, but it has 89 week lead time. And so there's a lot of parts that are again, common that are hard to get. We got a bunch of shipments but it might be a while until we get our next shipments. So this week's, the great search is about the AP2112K3.3 which is our like super favorite low dropout regulator. We use it in like everything. We used to use the MIC 5225 which is also still a great regulator. And we use that on a lot of boards. The AP2112 has very low dropout and also can do 500, 600 milliamps of current easily from up to six volts. It's, you know, great. It's very stable. It doesn't need a bypass cap. It's a great little regulator. And once we started using it on our boards, like our feather boards, for example, all use the AP2112. We're like, well, like instead of stocking, you know, it's cheaper than the MIC 5225. We don't need that 16 volt input for all our STEM IQT boards. Let's just move everything to the AP2112. That makes manufacturing and stocking easier because we only had to stock one LDO. We've really only used one LDO for pretty much anything that needs to be 0.3 volts. And that's totally awesome. As long as you can get that part, which we can no longer guarantee. And we use a lot of them. I go through over a thousand a day of this LDO because it's, again, used in like everything we use in all of our breakouts and our feather boards. So we're not out, but we're worried that we might run out before the next shipment because what we're seeing is you'll get a ship date and that date will start getting bumped and bumped and bumped. You know, you thought you're gonna get it in June. You're actually not gonna get to August and then it goes to November and then it goes to January of next year. And so we needed to find something alternative that I could, you know, to have as a backup so that we wouldn't be like stuck because the regulator is good for up to 500, 600 milliamps which we definitely need for like our feather ESP32 boards. They can use a lot of current. So all our feather boards, I wanna keep that regulator but for our breakouts, we don't need 500, 600 milliamps. A lot of them can get away with 50 or 100 or even less, very few even need more than 100. Most of our sensors are very low power. You know, they sip power and low quiescent currents is not that important. As long as a dropout is low enough and it's pin compatible, it'll work just fine. So today what I'm gonna try to do is find an alternative and one that has a lot of stock so that I can get enough that, you know, in stock it so we can keep all of our STEMIQT boards in stock and let our AP2112 sit for the feather board. So it's like maybe if we divide the stock up, we won't end up using a thousand a day because we'll secure that, you know, hard to get part for the boards that really need it. The boards that don't need it will use something that's a little less capable but hopefully about the same price. So that's the story. But definitely like when I saw that, you know, our purchaser would be like, hey, we need an alt for this. I was like, oh goodness, I gotta do this immediately. So, because, you know, again, we use a thousand a day and if we went out of this part, like we pretty much grind to a halt. So let's find an alternative so Adafruit can stay in business. Okay, so the part that we're talking about is the AP2112K and yes, it's out of stock. You know, there'll be some, you know, 16 I can get in like two months. They might be a little bit more in October. If I need a whole bunch, I'm looking for, you know, maybe 6,000 come in October but I'm not gonna get the rest until 2023. Can't wait that long. So again, I use about a thousand a day. So let's look at this. So again, this is a 3.3 regulator, lead time 80 weeks, exciting. But let's find something that's similar enough. Again, the quiescent current isn't that important to me and the current output's not that important. We just have to keep in mind the dropout. I want about, you know, 0.2 to 0.4 volts. Again, the current we're using is so low, it doesn't matter, but it does have to be a low dropout. I can't use like an LT117 with like a massive one volt dropout. It's just, I need something very light because sometimes you'll give it 3.3 volts and you want about 3.3 volts on the other side. So it's 3.3 volts output. It's a one fixed positive and I want it to be active. I want it to be surface mount and it should, I want to enable, but I'm not 100% sure that that isn't another name as well. And then the reason I'm not picking the supplier device is because thought 25 is the same as thought 23.5. And I think like sometimes the package names are kind of like, you know, they're split between them. So I want to be able to make sure that I can select all the options. And again, output current is an important quiescent current. PSSR, they're all going to be about the same. And then protection features, I'm not too worried about because almost all of them have the same features. Okay, so the output input maximum, I do want it to be at least, well, let's just say five volts, but it can go up, you know, to whatever. But definitely it can't be less than that because I definitely need to have all my boards take five volt input. Then for the package, again, there's a lot of thought 23s, there's thought 25, thought 25, thought 23.5, thought 23.5 DC, there's like a huge number. So I'm going to try to select all of them and try to do my best to get all the different names. So the thought 23.5s, I got those. And then also the thought 25s, that's another name. That's the thing that really you got to watch out for. I think they might also be called SC74s. Yeah, SC74s are also the same thing. Again, this is a tricky thing because you want to get any package that's compatible without getting the ones that are not. Okay, next up, so the current output, I don't want anything with less than 100 milliamps out because I just feel like if I'm going to get a regulator, I don't want to have to, some chips want to, you know, have 100 milliamp peak like, you know, the VL53s, actually those use a 2.8 volt, but like there are some sensors that use, you know, they can have a little bit of a spike in current, let's see, some of the light sensors, especially because they put a burst of IR out. So I think 100 milliamps is my minimum. I really want something that's in stock right now. So, which takes it from 1,000 to 100. And then the dropout is, you know, dropouts are kind of calculating a weird way because they're like, it depends on the output of the regulator. So I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to check that on, you know, the board itself and see what's up. Okay, so the next step is I do want to kind of try to keep it to about the same price. And the price I pay for the AP2112s on DGK, I think is like about 10, 10ish cents, maybe 12 cents. I, you know, there's always going to be regulators or 75 cents a piece. I can't afford that because the boards I'm putting them on, they need to be affordable, they need to be low cost. I just need a basic regulator. I don't need, you know, the end all be all. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to look at the combination of the price and stock numbers. So again, I can't really go with something that's only 6,000 pieces in stock because like that's six days. It's not worth it for me to do a revision if it's only six days worth of stock. So I'm going to look at as the ones that are like, ooh, like 192, like that's, you know, if I use a thousand a day and I get 190,000, that takes me to the end of the year. And so I can at least float my current inventory that long. So let's look at the AP2002K, which actually sounds kind of great because it's like similar to the AP2112K. It's a smaller, let's see, it's this one. It's fixed. It has a higher voltage input. Usually that means the dropout's a little higher. It looks like it is a little higher, but it might be okay. The quiescent's also a little bit higher. Again, not uncommon, but it has the overcurrent, over temperature and reverse polarity. So let's look at the data sheet. So yeah, this is a standard, regulator has pretty low LDO. One thing that I will say that just to watch out for is it does have a bypass pin. So the regulator I use now does not require a bypass pin, either has some built-in capacitance or it's just stabilized or it's compensated inside. So the only thing to watch out for is this, if you don't, if I'm using it in a board where that doesn't have that bypass cap spot because no board currently exists, has that that I've designed, I just want to make sure that it's not, it won't go unstable and the noise isn't going to be too high. So you can check through the data sheet because they will have higher noise. That said, the higher noise might be the same as the current regulator I have and as long as that's true, I'm good to go. Another thing to watch out for is some of these regulators are not stable with ceramic capacitors. I've seen that. I've seen some that are like, they need high ESR capacitors on the output, which is like really tricky because you think like, oh, like lower ESR is better. Yes, except when that extra resistance adds a little bit of delay, a little bit of stability to your regulator. So just make sure that it can use ceramic caps. It's unusual these days to not see that. But you can like Google for ESR. Looks like here they're actually like lower ESR is fine and there's no stability. And then sometimes you can search for ceramic. If they don't mention it, then it's probably fine, but true. Yeah, they don't have anything about electrolytics. So yeah, this looks like it'll probably be just fine, stable with ceramic caps. So this is one option. But again, want to watch that noise, see what that's like. The rest of these, there's not that many. Then there's this one, the AP7380. So that one has 120,000 stocks. That's a good option. But I didn't like this high voltage dropout. So the voltage dropout is 1.5 volts, which is like way too high. I need it to be, the other one was 0.4 at 600 milliamps, which means it's gonna be like 50 millivolts at 100 milliamps or so. I could deal with maybe again like 0.2 or whatever, 0.3, but 1.5 is right out. So not gonna look at the AP7380. The next one that has a lot of stock is this one, the AP7354. It's a little bit more expensive. Now we're getting into 17 cents compared to eight cents or whatever. But this one is 150 milliamp output. Very low quiescent current, which is kind of impressive. And the dropout's okay, it's 0.35. And this one, let's load the datasheet. This one doesn't need the bypass cap. So it's maybe low noise, that's pretty good accuracy, range up to 5.5 volts. This is also probably a good option. I think for this one, the AP7354 and the AP2202K, I would just check the noise and the dropout and compare it for like about 50 to 100 milliamps. How does it compare to the AP2112K? It could be that for some higher current breakouts, I would still stick with the AP2112K because like I know it works, it's good at the higher output current. But for like a BME280, it's cool to swap it out. It really doesn't matter what regulator you use, all of them are gonna act the same. And I would just do a revision. And until I get another gigantic shipment of the regulator I'm looking for, I would just swap it out. I'm starting to do more of these dynamic swaps. Definitely like MOSFETs I can't get, diodes I can't get, I'll just find the equivalent part that has the same specifications. Swap it in, I'll just make a revision note, but I won't necessarily separate the stock because if the part is really equivalent enough and it passes test it won't, it's not gonna make a difference in a regulator like this. As long as the noise is within reasoning the dropout's about the same, again, you're not gonna notice much difference for low current uses. So this time I'm gonna try to get through this part shortage being flexible and creative. So those are the two chips I recommend. I think this one probably is gonna be a better fit, but I'm gonna get some samples of both and try them out. And that's great, Church. Okay, a couple questions. Yeah. QSNTS means? QSNTS current is how much current the regulator itself uses. So even if the chip that's powering doesn't use any current, there's always gonna be some power used by the regulator itself at all times. What is voltage dropout? The voltage dropout is the difference between the input and the output. There's always gonna be some difference. You want it to be usually very low because that means that you have a wider input range of valid voltages that will give you a stable output. Okay, and those are the questions. Okay, okay. So we'll see everybody during the week. Lots of shows, lots of content, lots of things ahead. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. We very much appreciate it. Looking forward to seeing all things you share together. I'll see you during the week. Bye, everybody.