Real hardware, live from the desk.
Live from the Desk of Ladyada is a hands-on engineering desk check-in built around visible prototypes, code, chips, and testers. The show moves quickly from e-Ink readers and DACs to CAN FD boards, battery chargers, sensor libraries, and open-source arguments.
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Live from the Desk of Ladyada treats electronics work as something worth watching before it is clean, packaged, or fully explained. The center of the show is Lady Ada’s desk: boards in bags, overhead cameras, computer screens, testers, sample parts, and prototypes moving through the queue. Recent episodes move across PCM-5122 and TLV320-style DAC work, ADS12122 testing, CAN FD boards, BMP and BME sensors, e-Ink bonnets, USB-C charging hardware, DVI HSTX experiments, Particle Tachyon boards, RGB cafe lights, and TM1814 samples. The vocabulary is specific because the work is specific. Chips get compared, pinouts matter, pitch matters, libraries matter, and a small layout decision can become the whole point. The show also makes room for the surrounding workflow: AI coding helpers, prompt checklists, private repos, hardware feedback tests, and the discipline of keeping automated tools away from important files and keys. That gives it a very current maker-lab feel without turning into general AI commentary. Open source is not decorative here. It appears through firmware, library work, shared guides, and arguments about what open source does and does not cause. The rhythm can be wonderfully uneven. A prototype gets a serious technical breakdown, then a joke lands, then the conversation snaps back to voltage, current limits, I2C behavior, or why a part deserves a breakout. Great Search gives the desk a recurring research shape, but the strongest material is still the working-through. It is not a beginner glossary. It is also not a sterile engineering lecture. The show is best understood as a running desk record for people who enjoy watching practical constraints force decisions: discontinued parts, flaky audio layouts, charger limits, display connectors, sample timing, and code that mostly works until it does not. The copy of the show is in the doing. Boards are shown because they are being solved.
Made for: Suits a listener who enjoys concrete electronics work: boards, sensors, firmware, test rigs, datasheets, and design tradeoffs. It especially fits someone comfortable with technical shorthand and unfinished prototypes.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by keeping the desk visible while decisions are still being made. It mixes chip-level detail, open-source practice, AI-assisted coding, and blunt process notes in one desk-centered flow.
Join Ladyada streaming live for circuit board layout design, code writing, surface mount soldering and more fresh engineering and even some gaming! If Ladyada’s working on it, you’ll find it here first.
A hissing DAC becomes your invitation to follow Ladyada toward another board revision.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded bench session on E Ink hacking, AI-assisted oscilloscope code, and keeping the experiment under human control.
This desk session keeps the focus on practical AI-assisted engineering, moving from an open-firmware E Ink reader to an oscilloscope interface that Claude helped extend.
A bench-level hardware review where a DAC tester leads into an emerging AI-assisted coding workflow.
The episode returns from summer break at the workbench, using a PCM-5122 DAC tester as the main thread through the practical mess of hardware development.
A practical hardware check-in turns crowded prototypes into clear choices about power delivery and CAN FD.
Lady Ada's desk is busy in the best way: pink bags, circuit boards, and the unfinished work of getting hardware drivers into shape. The check-in moves from the BMP581 and BMP580 to a USB power-delivery breakout, where programmable voltage and current can make a supported adapter…
A practical desk-side episode on open-source 3D printing, e-Ink hardware, and display-driven audio alerts.
Open-source 3D printing leads this desk-side technology episode, with the host pushing back on Joseph Prusa's argument that open source is why 3D printing has not worked out.
A Particle Tachyon bench demo turns charger talk into a grounded test of hardware judgment.
Ladyada's desk turns into a practical proving ground for the Particle Tachyon, starting with a Raspberry Pi-compatible pinout, a BME680 sensor, and a CircuitPython library check from an SSH terminal.
BSD news with operational consequences attached.
Loose tech talk with real builders.
Open source health, measured with context.
Open source builders on code, licenses and money.
Ladyada discusses hacking an e-ink reader with open firmware and Circuit Python, and previews upcoming projects like OpenClaw and vibe-coding an oscilloscope.
Ladyada discusses designing a tester for the PCM5122 DAC chip and its use in Raspberry Pi accessories.
Live from the Desk of Ladyada opens with Lady Ada clearing a desk full of prototype boards, then showing the BMP581, BMP580, BMP585, and MLX90632 parts on the overhead camera.
["Live from the Desk of Ladyada opens with a pushback on Joseph Prusa's claim that open source explains 3D-printing problems, then moves into her own build workflow and hardware updates.", "She says Cloud Code now runs natively on Windows, which speeds up her Dropbox-synced Arduino compile-test loop compared with WSL2 on Debian.", "She walks through the VEML6046, BMP585, Particle Tachyon, and an e-Ink bonnet prototype that adds a 24-pin connector, selectable resistor values, GPIO power breakouts, two buttons, and a speaker output.", "The Great Search segment, sponsored by DigiKey and Adafruit, narrows a 24-bit I2C ADC for RTD sensing and lands on the ADS1219 after comparing sample rates and tradeoffs."]
Lady Ada demos Particle Tachyon support for CircuitPython libraries, including a BME680 sensor test over SSH and a Pi Stemma I2C workaround.
Live from the Desk of Ladyada covers debugging the DAC-3100, where an unsoldered headphone ground and an incorrect TRRS microphone connection interacted through a 2k microphone-detect resistor.
Ladyada discusses RGB cafe light samples using TM1814 LEDs for outdoor decoration.
Ladyada discusses designing a USB-C charger board using the BQ25185 chip, comparing it to an older charger design.
Ladyada discusses her new motorized dual-level desk and compares it to her old crank-operated one.
Ladyada shares her excitement about receiving an ESP32P4 eval board sample and discusses its features.