Welcome to the Tinkering Bench.

This is the electronics half of my setup — the microcontrollers and single board computers I play and experiment with. Arduino being the go to because of the ease of PoC and STM being the hardest, I am still trying to learn most of it.

Nothing here is exotic, it's just the collection happened over the past decade, a board in every 2-3 month to learn and experiment with new architecture.

An Arduino Uno on its own
The board that's always within reach.
An Arduino wired up and running mid-project
Mid-project, wires and all.
An STM32 board on the bench
STM32 — still the hardest one to learn.
Single-board computers stacked in an open acrylic frame on brass standoffs, each wired to the network
The Raspberry Pi cluster.
A Raspberry Pi 4 Model B held in one hand
A Pi 4, before it went into the stack.
Books on digital logic and computer architecture
The books that keep getting pulled back off the shelf.
A box of boxed boards — Arduino, ArduCam, Raspberry Pi 4 and a Pi Camera Module 3 — beside a keyboard
The unopened pile, which never gets smaller.
An Arduino robotic car with an ultrasonic sensor, servo and yellow wheels
2023 — rebuilt the robotic car.

My Board Collection

Raspberry Pi

Board What it’s for Specs
Raspberry Pi 5, 16GB Desktop Linux, containers, small ML inference — the most headroom in the lineup BCM2712 · 2.4GHz · 16GB RAM · microSD
Raspberry Pi 5, 4GB The everyday box for lighter always-on services BCM2712 · 2.4GHz · 4GB RAM · microSD
Raspberry Pi 4 Model B The generation that made Pi a real desktop BCM2711 · 1.8GHz · 8GB RAM · microSD
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ Reliable, low-power, still enough for most services BCM2837B0 · 1.4GHz · 1GB RAM · microSD

BeagleBone

Board What it’s for Specs
BeagleBone Black, Rev D I/O that has to be precise and deterministic AM3358 · 1GHz · 512MB RAM · 4GB eMMC
BeagleBone Black Industrial, AM3358 ARM Cortex Projects that have to survive harsher conditions AM3358 · 1GHz · 512MB RAM · 4GB eMMC

STM32

Board What it’s for Specs
STM32F407G-DISC1 Discovery Kit Onboard accelerometer, mic and audio DAC — ST’s classic F4 demo board STM32F407VG · 168MHz · 192KB RAM · 1MB flash
NUCLEO-H7A3ZI-Q The fastest STM32 on the bench STM32H7A3ZI · 280MHz · 1.4MB RAM · 2MB flash
NUCLEO-F030R8 The cheapest way onto the STM32 toolchain STM32F030R8 · 48MHz · 8KB RAM · 64KB flash
STM32F103C8T6, min. system, “Blue Pill” The famous cheap board that got half the maker world into STM32 STM32F103C8 · 72MHz · 20KB RAM · 64KB flash

Official Arduino

Board What it’s for Specs
Uno R4 Minima Faster and more capable than the classic AVR Uno, same footprint RA4M1 · 48MHz · 32KB RAM · 256KB flash
Uno R4 WiFi “EK” Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on the Uno form factor RA4M1 + ESP32-S3 · 48MHz · 32KB RAM · 256KB flash
Mega 2560 Rev3 Projects that outgrow the Uno’s pin count ATmega2560 · 16MHz · 8KB RAM · 256KB flash
Nano ESP32 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in the smallest official Arduino ESP32-S3 · 240MHz · 512KB RAM · 8MB flash

Texas Instruments MSP

Code Board What it’s for Core Mem
G2 MSP-EXP430G2ET Battery-powered basics — TI’s original LaunchPad MSP430G2553 · 16MHz 512B RAM · 16KB flash
FR23 MSP-EXP430FR2355 Non-volatile memory that survives power loss mid-write MSP430FR2355 · 24MHz 8KB RAM · 32KB FRAM
FR41 MSP-EXP430FR4133 Low-power display projects MSP430FR4133 · 16MHz 2KB RAM · 16KB FRAM
M0G LP-MSPM0G3507 TI’s newer LaunchPad line, replacing MSP430 for most new designs MSPM0G3507 · 80MHz 32KB RAM · 128KB flash

RISC-V boards

Code Board What it’s for Specs
GD32V Sipeed Longan Nano, GD32VF103CBT6 One of the first affordable RISC-V dev boards, with a tiny onboard LCD GD32VF103, RISC-V · 108MHz · 32KB RAM · 128KB flash
PD WeAct CH32X035F8U6, USB-PD core board USB power-delivery negotiation projects CH32X035, RISC-V · 48MHz · 20KB RAM · 62KB flash