Hardware build-logs, written so you can rebuild them.

Every build-log here ships with the full bill of materials, the wiring, the firmware, and the mistakes that cost an evening. The other two pages are not build-logs and are labelled as such below: a method note on settling a dimension the board vendor never published, and a printable-parts page that marks which of its numbers are unverified and says outright that nothing on it has been printed. No affiliate links, no “buy my course”, no ten paragraphs of preamble before the code.

Latest build-logs

• First Light: Blinking an LED on the ESP32-S3

  Blink on an ESP32-S3 — with the flashing steps and what goes wrong the first run, from the wrong USB-C port to an LED in backwards.

  17 June 2026 · ESP32-S3

Follow new build-logs by RSS: paste dankbuild.com/feed.xml into any feed reader. It is a plain XML file — no signup, no email address, no account. One feed covers the whole site, so the next build-log reaches you without you having to check back.

Printable parts

• Four printable ESP32-S3 bench parts

  

  Drawings, not photographs — bench plate, fit gauge, jumper-wire comb, left to right. The fourth part is a browser generator, so there is no file to draw.

  Three STL files to download, and a fourth part — a parts tray — with no file to download at all. All four can be rebuilt in the browser around measurements you type in: three controls rebuild the files above, and the tray exists only there, sized from the two inside dimensions you give it. The geometry is checked by code, and none of the four has been printed. The page has the dimensions, and marks which of them are unverified.

  8 August 2026 · STL downloads · not a build-log

Method notes

• Measuring a dev board for 3D printing when the size is not published

  How to settle a dimension the vendor never published: measure it rather than guess, and check the generated solid in code before printing. Nothing described has been printed.

  8 August 2026 · Method · not a build-log

What gets covered

Three pages so far, and they are all that is here: getting first light on an ESP32-S3, a method note on settling a dimension the board vendor never published, and four printable bench parts — three as STL downloads, the fourth generated in the browser only, and all of them resizable there to your own measurements. Microcontrollers and firmware are the through-line. Schematics, sensors and power measurement will get written up when those builds actually happen — there is nothing published on them yet, and this page will say so until there is.