iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

I fixed a damaged USB-A port on a PS5 this week. The most tedious part was the 42 security trox screws encasing an EMI/Heat shield to the motherboard. 🙃

PS5 front I/O circuit board, next to a pile of screws.

ifixit page for PS5 repair. showing 42 screw locations.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Not my neatest work, but it works. This wire's pvc melts super quickly, so soldering can be a challenge. But I still prefer having the colours 🙂 A quick 3d print to hold the wires avoids strain

circuit board with coloured wires soldered to an SMD footprint.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

The scope traces were crisp atleast. Maybe I didn't need to look to closely at my xacto scratching and probe landing 😆

Spring loaded scope probes landing on test points on a PCB

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Well there's your problem. This chip has a pimple outbreak. 😅

$SOIC8 part with a visible fracture in the encapsulation$

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Pretty cool that you can actually see the logic clouds as a blob in the middle. Early parts from wafer.space, perfect to take photos

silicon chip from wafer.space held in tweezers

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Quick weekend project to put enclosures over my various Glasgow prototypes. Teaching myself the "configurations" feature in fusion to handle slightly component placement differences between various Cx versions.

Colourful 3d printed enclosures for the Glasgow interface explorer

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

First samples on the first run from wafer.space! There is a disclaimer with these parts, that only ~80% are fully bonded successfully. This could be marketed as a feature, an air gapped solution using state of the art wireless bond wires. 😜

Bondwires in a COB packaged part, one bond wire has snapped from the PCB.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Fresh and custom silicon day! 😍 This is a multicore riscv soc design based on the serv processor core. Based on GF180MCU PDK, and fabricated through wafer.space 🚀

wafer.space chips populated in a COB carrier PCB.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

When the stencil aligns perfectly 🫠

Solder paste stencil over an ENIG PCB. Stencil openings are aligned with the ENIG pads

Solder paste perfectly applied to a circuit board.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Small USB PHY from WCH. CH123C. Who needs symmetry in footprints 🤪

QFN silicon chip sitting upside down on a ruler, showing that it is 2mm across.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Oscillators don't like begin installed upside-down 😭

Circuit board with QC sticker pointing to an oscillator which has been installed incorrectly.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

LEDs ❇️ These are about all on at about the perfect brightness for visual indication. But my standard macro photography process (off camera flash) just floods so much extra light that these appear really dim.

Green light emitting diodes on a circuit board

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Another day. Another bodge ✨

Circuit board. 0402 capacitors. A bodge wire connected neatly between two vias.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

It has been 0 days since I forgot i2c pullups. 🥲

Resistors soldered to the edge of a TSSOP package, with a bodge wire connected to them.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Some BGA footprints are distinct enough to act like a fingerprint for the part. If you've used this part on a board design before you'll likely recognise it. 😉

solderpaste applied to various footprints on a green circuit board.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

It's not stupid if it works 😅 Avoiding soldering down a connector for the one time operation of burning fuses, and loading bootloader/firmware for some UsbGpib adapters. github.com/xyphro/UsbGpib

AVR programmer attached to a circuit board

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Surface mounted components atop solder paste

Circuit board macro photo showing capacitors, resistors, and other components ontop of solder paste ready for reflow

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

I'd forgotten that the ECP5-25F doesn't have all the I/O, and 4 or so pins that are on the 45/85F are N/C on the 25F. I just happened to use one of these for the ULPI interface. 🥲 Bodge wire to the rescue! Now we're enumerating again! USB boot loader in gateware, takes up ~15% of the device

Circuit board with bodge wire neatly snaking between passives. Connecting two vias.

Terminal output from nextpnr showing an error that T16 is not available on this package.

nextpnr output showing device usage around 15% of the logic for a HS USB core and QSPI logic to implement a boot loader.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

These two boards have the same BGA geometry defined in their gerbers. For some reason JLCs DFM adjustments have expanded all the "via in pad" connections. Makes for an interesting visual effect.

Circuit board with a large BGA footprint. Some pads on the BGA package are larger than others.

Circuit board with a large BGA footprint. All the pads on the BGA package are the same size.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

How's my solder paste application? I think I missed some spots. 🫣

Circuit board with solder paste applied. The photo is close enough so you can just start to make out the tiny spheres that make up solder paste.

There are 2 components which don't have solder paste applied.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

FPGAs programming FPGAs 🐢

ECPBreaker FPGA development board featuring a Lattice ECP5 FGPA. Being programmed via JTAG from an ORBTrace, that is powered by a Lattice ECP5.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

Plan vs. Execution The messier the plan the cleaner the bodge looks in comparison. 😅

PCB layout in KiCad showing a bodge plan

Circuit board with bodge wires connecting a new component

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Can't recall where this came from, but ended up in my labs cable drawer. Curious why it wouldn't enumerate.. 🤮

USB-C with cable cut, showing only 3 wires: red, black and white.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

I've been using KiCad 9's new table features to aid in schematic documentation. I guess it makes sense.. But still puzzled me for a moment that you can perform a vertical/horizontal mirror on a single cell. 🙃

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Whoops, it's quick and easy to simply base 3d geometry off a KiCad board outline. But the topology has caught up to me. 🫠

3d CAD showing a rounded surface, that is made up small flat planes, rather than a continuous arc. A fillet has created awkward joins to these flat planes.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Designed this board years ago, and finally ordered it. The pattern looks really cool on the physical boards. github.com/gregdavill/a...

Hand holding a circuit board with diffusion pattern

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

Had an idea, and I nerd-sniped myself into building it... Similar idea to the last ecpbreaker design, but adding the 5Gbps SERDES to enable USB3. The ECP5's serdes supports display-port, so you could probably do some cool alt-mode stuff, but currently only routed for SS USB.

Circuit board rendering. A USB-C port and chips are visible. The board is labelled ECP Breaker r3p0

KiCad PCB design showing a large BGA package and routing on 6 Layers

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Spun up a new design to add an ESP32-C3 module to the back of the flip-dot module, along with DC power input. Got a little carried away in inkscape for the silkscreen. Trying out github.com/30350n/pcb2b..., a plugin that is in the KiCad PCM for exporting textures directly into blender, works great

Rending of a circuit board, Components and soldermask look pretty realistic.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

Turns out if your riscv code causes an exception before the handler is configured and the core triggers a load access exception, you’ll be in a loop that never exits. Apologies for creating… checks notes… 1.8TB trace logs 😵‍💫🫢

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

When you don't have the exact part... Just place a parallel combination 🙃

Components on solderpaste. The center of the image is two resistors back to back sitting sideways on the space typically taken by a single resistor.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

When you realise that one method of creating a 32.768kHz crystal is literally just a miniature tuning fork structure. MEMs oscillators do this to, but at another level of miniaturisation. The lid of this one is glass and you can see that it's been laser-trimmed through likely through the window

Australian dollar coin with a surface mount 32.768kHz crystal component.

Australian dollar coin next to ruler. The ruler has a surface mount 32.768kHz crystal component, showing about 3mm in length.

Macro photo of a ruler with surface mount 32.768kHz crystal component, showing about 3mm in length. The glass top of the components shows the internals

Macro photo. A surface mount 32.768kHz crystal component a glass top of the components shows the internals. A tuning fork structure is visible.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

One of the joysticks on this PS5 controller had gotten really crunchy. (I think some sand made it into the mechanism scratching it up. Picked up a few new hall-effect based joysticks to fix the controller

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Cool that they leave the back open on this USB-C connectors on the PS5's controller board.

USB C connector on a PCB. The back of the connector is open and crossing conductors are visible

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Sunday solderpaste stencilling

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Importing an image into KiCad isn't a new feature. But it's super handy for reverse engineering a design. 🐍 Would be handy if it was a touch easier to calibrate the exact image size I just adjusted scale until parts started lining up, then locked the image.

KiCad window with components laid out on top of an image of a circuit board.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Added logging of dishwasher cycle count to home assistant, via an ESPHome based UART bus sniffer. Convenience factor of the top drawer being easier to fill and empty is visible in the data.

Home assistant page showing sensors from a dishwasher. Top drawer is 207 cycles complete, and bottom is 90.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

I've had the flipdot bare modules for ages. And designed a few drivers, but definitely over complicated them. This is now just shift registers + h-bridge drivers. Can't get much simplier.

Rendering of a stack of circuit boards with components on them. The bottom layer is an array of flip dots.

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Spun up a new prototype of my LED controller. This is a minimal ESP32-C3 breakout for running esphome/wled projects. +5-24V input. 4x Mosfet outputs for dumb LEDs Qwicc connector for i2c/aux expansion Extra I/O on test-points available Low cost BOM

Compact circuit board with ESP32-C3 module, USB connector, and various components.

Back of the circuit board showing various labelled testpoints and the text "led-ctrl-mini-r2p0"

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

After having these screens for over 2 years and not using them in a project I decided to refresh my mipi-dsi code in Amaranth. Got some pixels! It's not perfect, I think my frame timings or config registers are off slightly, hence the darkening at the edges of the display.

MIPI clock and data lane visible on a oscilloscope

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

Displaying junk is better than displaying nothing 😁 This 720x720 panel is setup to accept a 18bit RGB signal, but as the driver IC is used across different panels it required a fair amount of configuration over SPI before it accepts a video input.

LCD panel displaying some blue/green patterns

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Greg @gregdavill.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

9bit SPI decoding 👍 Nice sanity check that my RTL is doing the right thing.

Oscilliscope photos showing SPI traffice with decode. The decode shows "18 CLKS" and displays two 9 bit decoded fields

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