An independent lab for serious work.

Tools, writing, and eventually hardware. Built for the gap between hobbyist boards and bare-metal toolchains. One engineer, in public, with a slow but strong cadence.

TOPOLOGY SOLARWARE CATALYST TOOLS SOFTWARE SHOP BUILD LOGS DEEP DIVES POST-MORTEMS T.01 UART BAUD T.02 CRC GEN T.03 I²C ATLAS T.04 TRACE WIDTH SOLAR STUDIO IDE DEV BOARD [TBD]
01 / CURRENTLY BUILDING

A development board between toy and tape-out.

The middle ground.

For engineers who've outgrown Arduino but don't want to buy a $300 dev kit and a Keil licence to do real firmware. Proper SWD, sensible defaults, footprints that survive reflow, hobbyist price.

Build log opens on Catalyst once the schematic is locked.

PRELIM / SPECS
MCU class32-bit ARM Cortex-M, TBD
DebugSWD, native USB
PowerUSB-C PD, 1V8 / 3V3
I/O40-pin, 3V3-tolerant
Form factor~50 × 25 mm
Target price< £25
Open sourceHW + FW + docs
02 / FROM CATALYST

Notes from the bench.

Catalyst is the long-form publication side of Solarware. Build logs, hardware deep-dives, and decisions written up with their post-mortems. First posts go up alongside the dev board schematic review.

Visit Catalyst →

03 / TOOLS

Small, sharp utilities for embedded work.

ID Tool Description Status
T.01 UART Baud Calculator Crystal frequency vs target baud, error margins across BRR settings. ○ PLANNED
T.02 CRC Generator CRC-8 / 16 / 32 with reflected and non-reflected output across common polynomials. ○ PLANNED
T.03 I²C Address Atlas Searchable database of common peripheral addresses with conflict flags. ○ PLANNED
T.04 Trace Width Calculator PCB current capacity by copper weight and temperature rise (IPC-2152). ○ PLANNED

Visit tools →