Fundamentals
Soldering, breadboards, multimeters, pull-up resistors and logic levels. The things every other tutorial assumes you already know.
Electronics Starter Kit: Breadboard, Power Module and Loose Parts
A boxed set of the parts most breadboard circuits start with: an 830-point breadboard, a USB-C power module switchable between 3.3 V and 5 V, jumper wires, resistors, capacitors, LEDs, buttons, potentiometers, diodes, transistors, MOSFETs and two sensors. How to read the parts, set up the bench, and build the first circuits.
Nano V3.0 USB-C and PinPulse Shield: Seating the Nano, the LEDs and the First Sketch
A Nano V3.0 with an ATmega328P and USB-C, and a shield that puts a light on 22 of its pins. The one rule: power off before the Nano goes into the shield or comes out of it, the right way round, pushed fully home.
ESP32-C3 OLED Board and Its Three Bases: Expansion, Pluggable Terminal and Screw Terminal
A 25 × 20.5 mm ESP32-C3 board with a 72 × 40 OLED already wired to GPIO 5 and 6, and three bases it seats on, each with a battery connector, charger and switch: 2.54 mm pins, push-in terminals or screw terminals.
ESP32-S3 Expansion Base pinout
Every hole on the Lonely Binary ESP32-S3 Expansion Base: two 20-way strips a side on the same nets, 28 of the 36 GPIOs at the edge, the eight that stay on the sockets, and the 15-way display connector.
ESP32-S3 Pluggable Terminal Base pinout
Every way on the Lonely Binary ESP32-S3 Pluggable Terminal Base: 24 GPIOs on two 12-way push-in blocks, two 4-way power blocks, the display connector, and the twelve pins that stay off the edge.
ESP32-S3 Screw Terminal Base pinout
Every way on the Lonely Binary ESP32-S3 Screw Terminal Base: two 15-way screw blocks, 26 GPIOs once each, 3V3 on the left and 5V on the right, and the ten GPIOs that do not come out.
ESP32-S3 Expansion Bases: 2.54 mm, PinPulse, Pluggable Terminal and Screw Terminal
Four bases for the 44-pin Lonely Binary ESP32-S3. Which GPIOs each one brings out, which way round the board goes, the fifteen-way display plug they all share on the same GPIOs, and the 36 LEDs on the PinPulse that cannot disturb I²C or SPI.
ESP32-S3 PinPulse Shield pinout
Every hole on the Lonely Binary ESP32-S3 PinPulse Shield: 44 nets on a male pin and a female socket each, the LED on all 36 GPIOs, and what that LED costs the pin.
ESP32 Expansion Bases: 2.54 mm, PinPulse, Pluggable Terminal and Screw Terminal
Four bases for the 38-pin Lonely Binary ESP32. Which pins each one brings out, which way round the board goes, the fifteen-way display port they all share, and the twenty-four LEDs on the PinPulse.
Logic Level Converters: MOSFET 2/4/6-Channel, TXB0108 and TXS0108
Five boards that let a 3.3 V board and a 5 V part share a wire safely. Which one to use for I²C, SPI, serial or an LED strip, which side is which, and the three wires that come before any signal.
Logic Analyzer Kit, 8-Channel 24 MHz
Eight channels sampled at up to 24 MS/s, straight up a USB cable. It decodes I²C, UART and SPI at the speeds a microcontroller actually runs, and the sample rate is the number that decides the rest.
ESP32 Gold Edition pinout
All 38 holes on the Lonely Binary ESP32 Gold Edition — the four that can only ever be inputs, the five sampled at reset, and the six that are drilled, labelled and wired to nothing.
1. Arduino IDE Installation & Environment Setup
Complete download, installation, and basic setup of Arduino IDE on Windows for programming with the TinkerBlock kit.
29. ADC Concept
Learn ADC (Analog-to-Digital Conversion); outcome: serial prints A0 analog value (0–1023) and D2 digital value (0 or 1) together so you see continuous vs discrete, multi-level vs two-level.
45. Final Project: Free Integration
Final project: combine what you learned into one project; outcome: choose a theme (e.g. smart lamp, temp/humidity alarm, remote LED), finish wiring, code, and test—wrap up the course.
Analog to Digital Signal
An LM393 comparator on a TinkerBlock board: plug an analog block into the IN socket, set a threshold with the blue knob, and DIG tells your board whether the block's voltage is above or below it. The block's own voltage passes through on ANA, and a slide switch printed H and L turns the answer over.
Logic Level Converter
Six bidirectional channels between 3.3 V and 5 V on a TinkerBlock board: L1 to L6 in a socket on the 3.3 V side, H1 to H6 on a header on the 5 V side, each a BSS138 with a 10 kΩ pull-up either side. It needs only 5V and GND: an ME6211 regulator makes the 3.3 V side's supply, so the socket's 3V3 pin is an output that powers a 3.3 V block, and is never fed.
TinkerBlock
Our own modular series — sensors, displays and actuators that share one pin convention, one numbering scheme, and one set of wiring habits.
TinkerBlock 46-Piece Sensor Module Kit
Forty-four modules on gold-plated breakouts, sharing one pin convention — and the forty-five-lesson workshop written around them.
ESP32-S3 pinout
All 44 holes on the Lonely Binary ESP32-S3, what each one can do, and the twelve that are already spoken for before you wire anything.
Flash the board
Get Blink onto the board, and learn what to do when the upload fails — which the first time, it usually does.
Install the toolchain
Arduino IDE or PlatformIO, the ESP32 board package, and the USB driver your laptop is probably missing.