Every hardware component we're actually using — real pinouts, real wiring, and everything we've learned the hard way, in one place.
Serial-controlled MP3 module for per-room ambience and triggered sound cues. Verified pinout image, wiring to the Mega, direct-to-speaker audio.
Analog linear magnetic sensor used in the Cross-Pollination bench test. Real datasheet pinout (center pin is GND, not signal), orientation physics, and the inverse-cube-law range problem that reshaped the whole game concept.
Solid-state media player driving The Reserve's barrel-station video + synced audio. Why it replaces a separate audio module (no cross-device drift).
The canonical wiring between an ESP32 gateway chip and a Mega running game logic — why it's on UART0, the bootloader-contention story, and the wireless-flash path.
Known issues with clone boards, USB-to-serial chips, the STK500v2 bootloader, power limits, and flash write-cycle limits.
What actually causes ESP32 devices to degrade over hours/days unattended — heap fragmentation, RSSI drift, WiFi range knobs, and callback-stall traps.
Platform-wide pin plan: fixed hardware/platform reservations, then a shared remaining pool split by device class (actuators ascending, sensors descending) so a new station's wiring predictably doesn't collide.
Arduino-only vs. ESP32-driven bench test firing the HD223's own GPIO trigger inputs (fallback after mixed Ethernet results) — full pinout, wiring, BrightAuthor step, and the 5V-into-3.3V gotcha both firmware variants avoid.
Real, prepared pinout + commands for validating every not-yet-tested component (ARGB, arcade buttons, reed switches, MOSFET RGB strips, buzzers) — plug it in, send one command, see the result.