October 2026 Updates

Battery Chargers

Added info on battery charger ICs.

nRF54 Updates

Added more info on the nRF54 series of SoCs.

NVD ZBD Display Updates

Added a video and info on how ZBD displays update the display.

EPD VCOM

Added info on the VCOM voltage of electrophoretic displays.

Jumper Wires

Added info on jumper wires (a.k.a. Dupont cables), including a photo of a selection of them and the history of the name (Berg Electronics, DuPont, FCI and Amphenol’s Mini-PV).

NTC Thermistors

Added a photo of an NTC thermistor bead inside a heat-sensing fire alarm.

M5Stack CoreS3

Added info and a photo of the M5Stack CoreS3 IoT development kit, an ESP32-S3 based dev. kit with a touch screen and camera.

Light Pipes

Added a new page on light pipes, which carry light from an LED on a PCB to the outside of an enclosure. Includes photos and information on the Bivar families of light pipes.

JLC PCB Component Placement

Added a screenshot and info on the JLC PCB component placement preview, including differences between Kicad and JLC PCB’s default footprint rotation.

Fuel Gauges

Added info on the BQ4050 fuel gauge IC and its compensated end-of-discharge voltage (CEDV) algorithm.

LoRa

Added a new page on LoRa, a long-range, low-power wireless communication protocol using chirp spread spectrum (CSS --- not cascading style sheets!) modulation.

Keypads

Added a new page on keypads, including info on how membrane and silicone keypads are constructed, and keypad manufacturers.

X-Ray Inspection

Added a new page on X-ray inspection of assembled PCBs, used to check hidden solder joints such as those under BGAs. Includes an X-ray image of a tiny 4-ball BGA package soldered to a PCB.

Digital Isolators

Added a new page on digital isolators, which use capacitive or magnetic coupling to pass digital signals across a galvanic isolation barrier much faster than optical isolators.