Custom ESP32-S3 development board — professionally manufactured by JLCPCB. A far cry from where it all started. It Started in a School Science Lab — Around 1998 Most people who get into electronics start with a kit, a tutorial, maybe a breadboard and some LEDs. I started by sneaking ferric chloride out of a school science lab to etch my first PCB. That was around 1998. I was living in the Maldives — a small island nation in the Indian Ocean — where there was no electronics supply chain, no maker community, no local PCB fab. Just a chemistry cabinet at school, a copper-clad board from somewhere, and a lot of curiosity. This post is about what the next 25+ years of PCB prototyping looked like from there. The early wins with proper chemicals, the years of improvisation when those chemicals disappeared, the real injuries, the failed boards, and finally — the moment JLCPCB changed ever...
I always have interest in electronics and i think in 1994 i got an physics book from some where that i don't remember now. Everyday after school i read it and got more interested on it even though i don't understand what its all about. Day by day small radios are disassembled and experimented how it works and able to fix the issues. When i was in grade eight till ten i don't have any interest in studying any subject that i feel useless. More and more focus to physics and math but 99% is always physics specially the electronics chapters. Couple of friends from school know that i know electronics some how and we share what we built and ideas. Those days Internet or PC is not available for me but a friend have i PC and i used to visit him and he knows some computer skills. we spent time on dial-up Internet in IRC. :) One day my physics teacher asked me do you like electronics? i said yes i do and i want to learn more. So he told if you love electronics i can help you t...