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Learn and build
The part where the project actually works.
Guides are not a bonus we add later. A Koala product is not finished until someone who has never seen it can get it working and then change it.
Sections
Seven kinds of guide
Everything written for Koala hardware lands in one of these. The sections are here now; the guides fill them as products reach people.
Getting started
Coming soonFirst power-up, first flash, first working thing. Written for someone who has not done this before and does not want to be made to feel that way.
Product guides
Coming soonOne guide per board: what the pins do, how to power it, how to talk to it, and the mistakes that are easy to make with that specific hardware.
Projects
Coming soonComplete builds, parts list to verification. Each one ends with a test you can run to prove it actually works.
Embedded skills
Coming soonThe transferable parts: reading a datasheet, I2C and SPI, power budgets, level shifting, debugging when nothing on the bench is lying to you helpfully.
Firmware customisation
Coming soonChanging a profile's configuration, editing an example, and eventually building your own from the source.
Troubleshooting
Coming soonSymptom first, cause second. What a dead board, a hot regulator or a bus that will not enumerate is usually telling you.
Repair & reuse
Coming soonFixing what broke, replacing what wore out, and giving a retired project's parts a second job instead of a bin.
Library
Published guides
No guides match that
Try a broader section, or clear the search box.
The first guides are being written
Rather than pad this page with a count of guides that do not exist, here is the format they will follow - so you can judge whether it will be worth reading before you buy anything.
Standard
What a finished guide owes you
A guide that gets you 90 per cent of the way and stops is worse than no guide, because it costs you an evening first.
- Every part you need, named and counted, before step one.
- Safety notes at the step where they matter, not buried at the top.
- A wiring diagram that matches the photographs.
- A verification step, so you know it worked rather than assuming.
- A troubleshooting section written from things that actually went wrong.
- Ways to extend it, because the interesting part starts after it works.
- Repair and reuse notes where the project has a physical end of life.
Project inspiration
Things worth building with a board like this
Not products, not promises - just the sort of project the hardware is aimed at, so you can see whether we are aiming anywhere near you.
A logger that survives a season outside
Battery or solar, sensible sleep behaviour, and data you can still read six months later.
A bench instrument you built yourself
A signal source, a bus sniffer or a go/no-go tester for the other thing you are building.
A classroom set that survives a class
Hardware that can be reflashed to a known state between groups, and repaired rather than rebought.
A controller for something that already exists
Giving an old machine, a greenhouse or a workshop tool a small brain and a way to talk about itself.
A repair that keeps something out of the bin
Replacing the dead electronics inside something whose mechanical parts are perfectly fine.
A second life for a finished project
Reflashing the board from last year's build into this year's, instead of buying another one.