How to flash CH552 - Last Chance Edition if nothing else worked

According to the inter-webs flashing already programmed CH552 IC requires a 10kOhms pull-up resistor connected to D+ pin3.6 to 3V3. By doing so, the chip should boot into bootloader for few seconds. Unfortunately for some ICs it does not work and IC ignores this method.

You may try to install drivers, according to sources provided at the end.

In my case, it didn’t help, just like changing computer and operating system.

My CH552G was bought as a ready to work small keyboard with 2 keys from aliexpress.

To program it, alternate method to enter bootloader was used.
It requires to pull-down Pin1.5 to GND. This pin is 3rd pin on the other side of the IC dot - opposite to GND. As on the Figure below. Used here is again 10kOhm resistor.

Figure. IC pinout

And that is how it came out:

Project for PCB board which checks what standards given cable supports. It check for amount of conductors inside the cable by lighting up LEDs.

Link: https://github.com/AlekSmola/USB-A-and-USB-C-cable-tester

Features:

• Shows if there is continuity between different USB pins, i.e. which standards cable supports;
• Can measure USB-C to USB-C cables
• Can measure USB-A to USB-C cables
• Powered from another USB-C (smart chargers compatible) or by soldering leads;
• neat solution in pocket size;

1. Introduction

Modern even mid-range phones are capable of lasting for more than 2 years of usage. Their performance in terms of CPU, RAM, etc is usually high enough to use for a longer time than we were used to back in eg. 2014. In 2014 phone market was progressing much faster and a generational increase in capabilities and performance was worth the upgrade even in 1 year intervals. Not saying about 2 years.
Nowadays, things have changed and 3 years old flagship device will not be the fastest, but it will still be working just fine for 90% of daily tasks.

Figure. Battery hero: BattLisa.

Unfortunately, what is the benefit of that, if my 2-year-old phone lasts 2 hours on a single charge!? This may be the case for a lot of devices. This pushes customers to buy new devices only because the battery of old one degraded too much. Since there is no easy way to replace the battery by the user without pretty specialized tools and knowledge (it is doable, but certainly does not mean ‘easy procedure’), you are left with a device that can be most used as a photo frame permanently connected to the wall.

In this article, I will mention a few ways to prolong the battery life. I will focus on one solution which in my opinion is important - max charging percentage.

1. The Problem

The problem appears when there is more than one device connected to the SPI bus. As it is known, SPI interface uses several wires to achieve fast data rates [1]. It requires one data-in wire, one data-out wire, one clock wire, a ground reference and one chip-select (CS) wire.

The last one is the problem.

ESP32 allows remapping the default SPI pins for almost any other available pin [2]. This allows a certain level of flexibility in a design.

Each of the new devices connected to the same SPI bus requires one additional chip-select wire dedicated to this device. Since there is a default CS pin, there is a problem with changing it.

It yields the issue that only one device can be accessed, since the CS pin points to only one device.

1. GMG12864 display overview

The GMG12864-06D display is and module which can be used with microcontrollers with SPI interface. It runs on 3.3V logic as well as a power. Screen size is: 58 by 28mm, amount of pixels: 128 by 64 pixels. Driver IC is ST7565R.

The display also have the nice texture of the displayed characters which make it more appealing than other screens.

1. Discord Updater

Little simple bash script which allows automatic updates of Discord app for Linux.

Every time there is an update of Discord app it is required to open browser and download then install .deb package. It is not really hard but annoying over time. This little script will do it automatically without user input.

2. Link: https://github.com/AlekSmola/Discord-Terminal-Updater

https://github.com/AlekSmola/Discord-Terminal-Updater