| Article author here — just to clarify a couple of points. Firstly, it appears a few people have not actually went through and read what I wrote and suggested, well pretty much the same thing I suggested on the article! If you can get away with 5V, I link to 6p connectors that are indeed very easy to use, and even provided links to my own projects [1] using them! Please, have a read of the article, maybe there is something I missed, but it's not that. Secondly, I made this very clear that what I'm writing about is for hobby projects. Of course a lot of the energy I'm spending looking at options here is not going to be a worthy RoI if you're doing this professionally. That's the point of a hobby project! [2] But it also means that I'm looking for things that are easy to source and to modify for different uses.
If the answer is "Use that one module, that only one manufacturer makes" or "Get a cheap AliExpress thing that maybe will exist in two years and maybe not", then I feel like it's all for nothing. When I looked into this (which admittedly by now is _months_ ago!) finding the components for the fpx board [3] (which someone linked to down in the thread already) was basically impossible as the STUSB4500 was out of stock everywhere. Thus, trying to find alternatives and trying to "pay the development price" once, and have others be able to pick up some code for ESPhome or Zephyr and build upon it. I'm sure there's plenty of closed-source implementations of these in ECs and similar closed-source firmwares, so why not get it in hands of more people? Also, honestly, I enjoy the challenge, when it's not frustrated by manufacturers publishing outright lies in their datasheets (more on that in the next few months!) and since I had some additional spare time for a couple of months, I connected it with a fundraiser [4] not for me but for Diabetes UK. Y'all are welcome to donate to Diabetes UK if you want to read more on this topic. Some of it is written down already, but other stuff has been basically stalled. [1] https://flameeyes.blog/2023/07/30/acrylic-lamps-finally-work...
[2] https://flameeyes.blog/2020/01/19/unnecessary-but-required/
[3] https://blog.oxplot.com/fpx/
[4] https://tiltify.com/@flameeyes/gone-with-the-wind |