Pesky Products

5,404 orders since Jul 23, 2014

Danville, CA, United States of America

Ships from United States of America.

Custom Work Available

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Welcome to Pesky Products!

Overall Rating:

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (4.74)

Documentation: (4.14)

Shipping: (4.80)

Communication: (4.60)

All Reviews

David | June 2, 2024

Always great products from pesky

For PAA3905 Optical Flow Camera

This flow sensor works well for my large tank-treaded robot. There are a few different software examples that make it easy to get started. Wish the full SPI spec was available online.

Michael | March 16, 2023

Still good after all these years

For ESP8285 Development Board

Noticed the last reviews a while ago so here's something newer.

Ran out of the packaging straight away, but I wasn't sure what program it was running. Summarizing the documentation some tips to program with Arduino 2.0.4 from my notes:

from: https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino had to put: 'https://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json' into preferences/Additional
boards Manager. Then in boards manager install 'esp8266 by ESP8266 Community'
Then plug in and at the top left set board 'Generic ESP8285 Module' and select xxxD800bla bla for the port
Set Serial Monitor to 115200 baud
To program press and hold boot, then tap reset, release boot, then program.

Worked great with range out of the house into the garage with a 1.25 inch wire for antenna.

Response from Pesky Products | March 16, 2023

Thanks for the thorough review! Hard to compete with the $2 ESP8266 clones availabe on aliexpress. But I have used this little board myself for many projects and still think it is a bargain even compared to the cheaper Chinese variants. I am glad it is working well for you!

John | June 26, 2021

Great electronic compass sensor

For MAX32660 Motion Co-Processor

I've been developing robotic sailing drones for about 5 years. In that time the design of my controllers has gone through an number of evolutions. This is the fifth iteration with a new compass sensor, and the USFS MAX32660 is the best one yet.
I have spent a lot of time working with i2C devices like MPU-9250, BNO 055 and BNO 080, and struggled to get useful a magnetic bearing from them.
I bought the USFS - LSM6DSM + LIS2MD, and that was the best one to date, that I had used in the last sailing drone and did many hours at sea.
Then I stumbled upon the USFS MAX32660.
I've now incorporated the USFS MAX32660 into my new design and the accuracy straight out of the box is much better than I've seen before in a magnetic heading sensor.
I'm using this with a Teensy 3.6 and using the sample code provided by Gregory Tomasch.
I'm still working toward live trials, but so far its looking good. I do still use the MPU-9250s as low cost long-range (15 to 20mm) magnetic angle sensors within the sailing drone, and they are good for that, but I struggled to use them for a magnetic heading.
The USFS MAX32660 is more expensive than most I2c devices with magnetic heading capability, but if you know what you want, and you just want to get a result without much trouble, then it is a good solution.
I would definitely go to this device again for any projects requiring an electronic compass, ahead of all the others I have previously used.

Response from Pesky Products | June 27, 2021

Thanks for the detailed review and kind words!

We too were unsatisfied with the commercial offerings in this space so we designed our own. We believe (and have demonstrated) that the USFSMAX is simply the most accurate absolute orientation estimation engine at this size and price. We are delighted that you agree!

The USFSMAX Module + carrier is even better.

Andrew | May 15, 2021

Excellent small design, useful in many applications

For VL53L1 long-range proximity sensor

I have used this sensor in multiple applications, and I think small size and weight could benefit building an array of sensors since each is low cost, low weight.

The ST ultra lite driver seems to work well for basic and advanced functionality, although I have not tried ST's full API implementation for this sensor. I believe there is a python API implementation as well, which seems to work on raspberry pi with minimal setup.

Seems to work well in various lighting conditions but I have not tested specifically.

Keep in mind this board is 3.3v voltage in, some of the other larger boards out there are 5v and have a regulator.

Julian | July 12, 2020

perfect eval board for the BQ25504

For BQ25504 Solar Cell LiPo Charger

I am am working on a solar harvester myself and bought this board to see the BW25504 in action.
The board worked right out of the box. Great eval board to try out solar harvesting.

The only thing that could be improved is the marking on the board to show which pin is which.
The overvoltage threshold of 4.3V seems 0.1V to high for LiPo batteries?

Brad | July 11, 2020

Excellent Sensor

For MAX32660 Motion Co-Processor

I have been evaluating this sensor for use in a vehicle mounted application. I am still early in my testing but indications are that I will be able to achieve far superior results to any other comparably prices options available. Kris at pesky products has been extremely helpful with any questions I have had.

Response from Pesky Products | June 27, 2021

Happy to help Brad and I am glad you are getting good results.

Francois | April 1, 2020

Output of Quaternions in less than 15 minutes

For Ultimate Sensor Fusion Solution - MPU9250

Hi,

Here were the steps for first try:
- unpack: 1'
- solder on top on teensy 3.6: 10'
- download and adapt sketch (add OUTPUT HIGH and LOW on 2 pins to power USFS): 3'
- upload and test: 1'

Result is perfect considering the declination which I didn't change yet (otherwise I would have hit the 15' minutes barrier and needed 16' :) )

Kind regards,

François

Franz | Jan. 1, 2020

quick shiping

For ICS43434 I2S Digital Microphone

I use the Digital Micro for the Open City measurement projekt https://luftdaten.info/laermsensor-bauen/. The first device work well. I don't know about the enviorement behavior, but hope the best.
The online Shopping was easy and quick, thanks.

Dmitry | Dec. 30, 2019

Works, but DRV8838 doesn't support coast mode :(

For DRV8837 H-Bridge DC Motor Driver

Works. But wish there was a warning in the documentation, that DRV8838 doesn't support coast mode :( Also the pins on the board are marked rather arbitrarily as F and R. For DRV8838, F is PHASE and R is ENABLE.

Response from Pesky Products | Dec. 30, 2019

Both the DRV8837 and DRV8838 support coast mode when the inputs (Forward and Reverse pins) are High-Z. A quick look at the DRV8838 data sheet (https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/drv8838.pdf, page 11) will confirm this.

Yes, the board labeling is more appropriate for the DRV8837, but the schematic should make clear enough how to use the board.

Response from Pesky Products | Dec. 30, 2019

Both the DRV8837 and DRV8838 support coast mode but for the DRV8838 the sleep pin is used and these are ganged in this board design so all four motors would be in coast mode. Maybe not too convenient.

Yes, the board labeling is more appropriate for the DRV8837, but the schematic should make clear enough how to use the board.

Gregory | Nov. 10, 2019

Great product except mechanical brittleness of switch.

For LiPo battery charger add-on for Teensy 3.1

Very handy product. It is possible to mount on top or bottom of the Teensy (I put it on top) but be careful of the battery polarity if "flipped."

I would give it five stars except for the mechanical brittleness. The battery connector should be glued down or, eventually, the pins will fatigue and break. It is not a problem for "one-time" connect-and-forget of a battery, but a huge problem for prototyping where batteries are often disconnected and reconnected.

Even more brittle is the power switch. Again, probably not an issue for many, but the four units I received had very little mechanical strength here in the direction out of the board plane (up). Bad reflow? Not sure, but very hard to repair. I would suggest adding some through-hole holes so that an external switch can be wired. Sure, the board is tight, but I think it could be done. Another option is a surface-mount switch with a more rigid mounting to the PCB.

Of course, the designer warns you about it in the product description. However, that doesn't solve it. Maybe a dollop of epoxy for users who care?

Thanks for reading.

Response from Pesky Products | Nov. 10, 2019

Thanks for the detailed review.

Yes, the switch can come off if pushed out of plane. I hand assembled these using low temp solder paste so perhaps these are less robust than they could be, but then there are only three small solder pads to hold the switch down so I think even with proper production soldering this will be a weak point in this small design.

I have changed the ALPS switch to the variant with lugs in the STBC08 high-current version of this battery charger which is produced in a a proper fab but even here there is the occasional de-mounting of the switch reported.

This is an open source design an if you are willing to trade a little larger size for more PTHs or a different switch design it is easy to modify to taste.

I think your idea of gluing the LiPo battery connector might be extended to the switch to provide more lateral strength.

Jan | Oct. 12, 2019

Nice and practical

For ICS43434 I2S Digital Microphone

Very nice and handy product. The only problem I have is the luck of information how to use it on a popular platform - Raspberry Pi.

Justin | June 19, 2019

What voltage is requred for the optical flow board?

For Compact AS7265X Spectrometer

Hi, I purchased this board and the optical flow board from Pesky Products. For reasons unknown, I cannot contact the seller (when I submit a question it says "Forbidden") or leave a review on the optical flow page, so I am asking this question about the optical flow board here.

https://www.tindie.com/products/onehorse/pmw3901-optical-flow-sensor/

What voltage is required for the optical flow board? The page says 3.3 V, but when I do that, the sensor does not detect any motion, but seems to work otherwise. If I irresponsibly assume the NCP161 will handle it (the spec sheet says 5.5 V max) and connect the board to 5 V, it gives sensible output, but it is flaky and seems to skip or freeze. I feel like I've missed something and could use some direction.

I am using a name brand Arduino Uno, and the Bitcraze PWM3901 library, pretty much following what is done at the following link, but without the distance sensor: https://www.bitcraze.io/getting-started-flow-breakout/. I also have an Ethernet board attached to the Uno.

Thanks for any help.

Best wishes,
Justin

Response from Pesky Products | June 19, 2019

For trouble with the Tindie page function please send Tindie a message.

PMW3901 data sheet says maximum VDDIO is 3.6 V so I would think you might have broken your sensor applying 5 V. I am not sure why it doesn't work at 3V3 but this is the correct voltage. Maybe the SPI on your UNO only works at VDDIO = 5V? Why not try a 3V3, 32-bit MCU? If you have other questions please send me e-mail at tleracorp@gmail.com.

E.J | April 22, 2019

Really nice little breakout board !

For All-ST Motion Sensor Breakout Board

I bought the board in order to evaluate the LSM6DSM and LIS2MDL sensors, which I needed as successors to Freescale's MAG3110 and Invensense's MPU6050.
Initially I could not obtain the schematics. Then Kris Winer kindly pointed out the URL and I was set to go.
The breakout board was used in conjunction with ST's STM32L476 Discovery board, and I wrote a few proprietary drivers to deal with the sensors.

The board was very easy to use, a few header cables connecting it to the mother board was all that was required.

I join Kris in his praises of the sensors, because it appears to me that ST has done an extremely good job building them. They are low power, inexpensive, fast, very accurate and relatively easy to use!
The only (mild) criticism on my part is ST's technical writing which at times is cryptic about the features and capabilities of the ICs. Especially the LIS2MDL datasheet is written rather poorly.
I recommend this board to anyone who wants to venture beyond the Invensense ICs - The ST ICs are great and this board will help you find out for yourself.

David | March 22, 2019

Good product, good seller

For Ultimate Sensor Fusion Solution - MPU9250

I'm very happy with the quality of this sensor board. It shipped very fast and arrived very fast from across the country. I was able to install the demo project from Github and was able to wire it up to a Teensy and get it running with no issues (aside from my not following directions). This will be going onto a mobile platform tomorrow!

Matt | Feb. 13, 2019

great sensor, got it working fast

For Compact AS7265X Spectrometer

An interesting sensor, that would probably have been too hard for me to use on my timescale (necessary to load a firmware and have an eeprom on board). The hard work's been done and this breakout board makes it easy to interface with I2C @3.3v.

We are using it to ensure the LEDs we are using in our product are up to spec. I'm turning off the central light, and then measuring the red, green and blue LEDs inside an RGB package, then plotting a graph. Much more information that the typical TSC3200 sensor often used for colour sensing applications.

Robert | Feb. 7, 2019

the ULTIMATE sensor fusion board to date!

For Ultimate Sensor Fusion Solution - LSM6DSM + LIS2MD

Like Kris (but with a lot less scientific of an approach!) I waded through several different MPU chips, combinations of them, magnetometers, etc, and always had issues with either my AVR not being able to hack doing the math, drift from the gyro making the heading useless, or bizarre magnetic anomalies I couldn't calibrate for (and yes I'm aware of calibrations and soft iron corrections and all that...) I had even made a self learning routine to take these into effect but it just wouldn't do. The only sensors I haven't fooled with are the Bosch ones. BNO0xx units... The high end ones are impractical without making your own boards and the... anyway, I digress.

TLDR; This board couples some of the latest sensors together with the SENTRAL chip to produce OUTSTANDING results right out of the box. I am gobsmacked looking at my debug output and the flat lines on the plotter as it sits quietly on my desk. If you have struggled with these things, give this board a try, you'll be glad you did!

Did I mention how super small and low powered it is?? Kris does a better job explaining this all, go read his write-up. Go.. I'm verklempt!

Jean-Michel | Feb. 5, 2019

Great product :)

For nRF52832 Development Board

They arrived quite fast, before I had time to get a SWDIO programmer :) Great build quality. Looking forward to play with it!

Scott | Dec. 9, 2018

Fantastic tiny board!

For Smallest ESP32 Development Board

I bought this so could pack an esp32 into a tiny enclosure. True to the description, it is the smallest esp32 dev board out there and includes lipo charging as a bonus. Performance has been in line with what I've experienced with other esp32 dev boards. I got it working with the esp-idf (FreeRTOS) firmware by making the following changes in "make menuconfig":

- "Serial flasher config": change the SPI mode to "DOUT", SPI speed to "26Mhz", and Flash size to "4MB"

- "Component config" -> "ESP32-specific": change "Main XTAL frequency" to "26Mhz"

From there, flash as you normally would. This board does require being placed in flashing mode manually: press down BOOT, press and release RESET, and finally release BOOT.

Excellent board!

Jesse | Nov. 11, 2018

Great product

For VL53L0X Time-of-Flight Ranging Sensor

These work perfectly. At first, I had trouble getting them to work, but then I found the Arduino library - Adafruit VL53L0X. That did the trick for me.

Charles | May 25, 2018

Excellent Environmental Sensor in a compact package

For Air Quality Sensors

I initially had some trouble getting the CCS811 working but the seller was very responsive and helped me get up and running quickly. I plan to buy a couple more.

Chip

Josef | Aug. 7, 2017

Great product. Unbelievably small!

For Smallest ESP32 Development Board

This was exactly what I was looking for to reduce the size of my hobby project. Everything worked as expected after the seller helped me with flashing the device (my own ignorance, no fault with the product).

Martin | July 24, 2017

Arrived promptly, very small, works perfectly

For STBC08 High-Current LiPo Battery Charger

Arrived in Canada within a week. Package contained only the receipt and the chip, and I had to browse forum posts and pages on predecessor products to verify that:
*The Vin and Vusb traces on the Teensy must be separated.
*Only the (4) labeled connections require soldering to the corresponding Teensy pins.
A Teensy audio board is directly below the Teensy, so I had to mount below that. It works, powering both of these and an audio Bluetooth module, and charging a LiPo battery connected via wires. The lug switch could be larger - planning to replace for finished device.
As advertised.

Erich | June 16, 2017

Got my first couple of BNO055 nano boards, GREAT

For Wearable BNO055 Nano Board

Ordering was a breeze, delivery fast and the product ........ Amazing.

Ripped the envelope open, soldered the 4 wires to the nano board, connected it to my already existing Arduino prototype setup and the Pesky nano board is happily working along with various other breakout boards with BNO055 sensor (using multiplexer) on my Arduino project setup. Not a single line of Arduino code to change, the nano board is playing nicely along all the other sensors.

Could not be happier. Certainly I will replace the other - good working but too large for my project - breakout boards with this tiny tiny nano board.

What I am doing? Wearable motion monitoring. Using the smallest possible components in wearables is imperative, even at a prototype stage when custom PCBs are too expensive to make.

Lucky me, I ended up a couple of weeks ago on Tindie and the Perky portfolio. Was looking for ages to improve my proof of concept design.

Diego | May 29, 2017

Excellent Quality

For Grid-Eye 8 x 8 IR Array

Amazing sensor, the build quality is VERY good, the sensor works perfectly.

I'm still getting to know it as I just got it 30 minutes ago; for those of you working with esp8266 the connections that worked for me working with a Nodemcu are:

* 3V3 -> 3V3
* GND -> GND
* SDA -> D2
* SCL -> D1

Pesky Products answered all my questions quickly and very clearly I highly recommend them and I will surely make some more purchase in the future as they have many interesting products.

Robert | April 27, 2017

Great little board

For nRF52832 Development Board

Really like this board - nice combination of 2nd gen nordic bluetooth and 9-axis 9250.
Also appreciate the quick shipping of product once they returned to stock.

Recommended.

Allan | April 16, 2017

great board

For nRF52832 Development Board

Great board for trying out nRF52.
Kris shipped the next day and was very helpful and responsive when I contacted after with questions.
Highly recommend.

Bryan | March 22, 2017

Breadboard

For BQ25504 Solar Cell LiPo Charger

The board works and does it's job as described in the documentation. Unfortunately it is not bread-boardable due to the pin layout. It would have been nice if all pins were setup in two lines on each side of the board. Yes, I could have ran an extra wire and yes, the PCB size may have needed to be slightly bigger, but I would gladly take the extra size to give it bread-board capability.

Response from Pesky Products | March 22, 2017

Thanks for the review!

The BQ25504 breakout board is designed to mount onto the back of a small LiPo battery and/or solar cell, so small size was the goal. There are other breakouts that are larger and offer better access to the pins for breadboard use. Yet, the solar cell input pins and the battery output pins are on the board edges spaces 0.5" apart and can accept 0.1" machine pin headers and be mounted in a breadboard. This is how I tested my very first one. In this case, I used hooked test leads to connect the system voltage and GND to an MCU. So the board is almost perfect, even for breadboarding, but I'll keep trying...

Gennadii | March 20, 2017

Balanced composition of features for good price

For nRF52832 Development Board

Initially bought it for my idea of cheap balance\gait\posture training rehabilitation device, and I'm still on my way to it. During my journey device showed itself as a 3D mouse, joystick, head tracker. Unoptimized power consumption about 15mAh and probably it could be quite lower when handling correctly.

One thing to be careful with - in older version of the board interrupt from MPU comes to pin 10 that is protected by default to be used as NFC (along with pin 9). You should remove protection to use it as GPIO.

Also, when used with external power bank from OnePlus board's voltage controller goes crazy and starts cycling between power on\off continuously. Not sure why. With other power sources (USB and battery) it works as expected.

Daniel | Jan. 27, 2017

Super fast shipping and great support

For BNO-055 9-axis motion sensor with hardware fusion

A nice compact design with good examples and excellent shipping and support -- thanks Kris!

A few notes from my initial experiences:
- the v0.02a BNO055/BMP280 board no longer has jumpers to control the pullups -- they're hard wired
- the BNO055 firmware is v3.11 on the ones I received
- using Kris' sketch with the board in "shield" position with headers
- sometimes I get hangs in the I2C scan phase
- the magnetometer behaviour seems problematic: the mx,my,mz reports change very little when rotating execution but substantially from one boot to another, and the reported heading is completely unreliable, even when the system and magnetometer report full calibration (all 3s). I was able to get much more sensible output by disabling the up-front magnetometer calibration and relying on the running auto calibration. Could this be related to being in the S hemisphere?

Next step for me will be a thorough review of the BNO055 docs.

Thanks,
Daniel

John | Jan. 17, 2017

Arduino Compatible Development Board - ESP32

For Smallest ESP32 Development Board

All in all I am absolutely satisfied with this little morsel. I had a bit of trouble on my windows 10 machine at first, but it ended up being windows assigning the wrong drivers to this device and was easily fixed. Kris helped me with every question every step of the way and has since created additional documentation. This is in the early stages, but is going to be a great addition to any tinkerers toolbox for sure! I am proud to have been one of the few to have funded the Kickstarter and to have been able to purchase the device. I have been playing with this as well as the DragonFly, LadyBug, and ButterFly for a few weeks now and have not found a limitation yet. Some libraries may not be compatible yet, but that in my opinion is a call to action for the community. If anyone is interested I will start a section on my forums at https://ghostlyhaks.com /forum to support and help build on this great project that was graciously left open source by all who was involved in this.

Tanguy | Dec. 16, 2016

First attempt to use in a motion capture setup

For Wearable BNO055 Nano Board

I received 10 of those sensors a few days ago. My goal is to use them as a body motion capture device. 10 of such devices to capture a human body attitude and motion. Interfacing them with an arduino like processor board with an i2c multiplexing module is straightforward. Il easily transmits quaternions on i2c bus after a few bytes of configuration.
Only problem: getting the 16 bytes of a quaternion. Each byte has to be requested separatly. I failed having them in a burst or multiple read mode. l did not use a ready-made library.
The very small size of the board is very practical for my project.

Loïc Tanguy
France

Thomas | Nov. 17, 2016

Great board

For Dragonfly STM32L4 Development Board

Bought it with the microSD expander. Works well. I will be ordering 10 more in the next few months.

Also, will last about 48 hours with a 400mAh LiPo battery.

David | Nov. 16, 2016

LiPo battery charger for Teensy 3.1: Great device!

For LiPo battery charger add-on for Teensy 3.1

The design of this charger add-on makes my day. The way it puts the power switch right next to the MicroUSB port simplifies enclosure design, and the low-battery blinking feature is quite handy, coming from MCP73831-based designs.

I do have one suggestion, though. It would have been SO NICE if the travel of the power switch went from one end of the micro-USB port to the other, instead of starting at one end and moving away from the center. That way, the access hole in my enclosure could just be a bit taller, instead of taller and wider. Plus, it would have been so nicely symmetrical.

Robert | Oct. 3, 2016

Amazing product, but could use better documentation.

For ESP8285 Add-on for Teensy 3.2

To do a thorough job on the documentation for this product would probably be harder than creating the product itself. The range of understanding and knowledge that customers bring must be all over the place. But it is important. Stuff like: 1) Here is what you received, and here are some of the things it can and can't do. 2) Here is the first thing that you should do, then do this and this. 3) Be very careful to do/not to do this and this. 4) You have different options for developing software and flashing this microprocessor....here they all are with the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy. 5) Here are some clear examples of how this product can be connected with other hardware. 6) Here is a glossary of terms we are using. 7) At every step, here is what you should see if all is well. And here is what you should do if you don't get what you are supposed to.

With determination a customer can eventually figure things out. But it sure saves a lot of time with good documentation. For this amazing product, the documentation provided is accurate and clear, but just not enough of it. It needs 20 pages, not 1 page.

Response from Pesky Products | Oct. 3, 2016

Thanks for the review Robert!

If this was only one of a few products I sell or if I had a team of people I might be able to oblige the request for better documentation with in-depth tutorials. Alas, I am not Sparkfun or Adafruit, it's just me! And for this product there is the ESP8266 forum, an excellent Arduino core with wiki, lots of discussion on the Teensy forum about how to use the ESP8266 with the Teensy, and of course, I am ready and happy to answer all questions about this or any product I design and sell. I am glad you got it to work for you!

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