WHY I BUILT THIS

Every maker has been there. You grab a pinout image off a forum or a random blog, wire up your board, and nothing works. Then you find out the image was for a different revision, or someone just drew it wrong. I got tired of having three different pinouts for the same board and no idea which one to trust.

So I started building a reference guide where every entry tells you where it came from, which revision it covers, and whether it's been reviewed. That turned into Black Wire.

WHAT IT IS

Black Wire is an offline desktop workbench for makers, educators, students, hobbyists and engineers. It keeps board pinouts, manufacturer source files and power data in one place, and it works with no internet connection and no account.

WHAT'S IN THE COLLECTION (snapshot 2026.09.13)

- 2,703 board and device listings
- 575 maker listings
- 3,504 reference entries
- 1,549 board pinout source images
- 74 brands and source groups
- 320+ IoT device records

It covers ESP32 boards, Arduino, Teensy, Raspberry Pi, RP2040/RP2350, SBCs, LoRa and radio modules, displays, sensors, expansion modules and more.

SEARCH

Search is forgiving about model names, so "ESP32-S3", "esp32 s3" and "esp32_s3" all find the same board. You can filter by manufacturer, MCU variant, family and review status.

REFERENCE VIEWER

- Zoom, pan and rotate pinout images with a trackpad or keyboard
- Browse PDFs and datasheets locally, with touch scrolling and page rotation
- Save files at their original resolution
- Every reference shows its source link and revision info

POWER PLANNING

This part came out of my own projects. The guide includes 13 sourced voltage and current profiles and 22 published operating observations. The observations are kept separate from manufacturer guarantees, because what a board draws on someone's bench isn't the same as what the datasheet promises. You can also compare adapter ratings and estimate battery runtime.

YOUR DATA STAYS LOCAL

Bookmarks and your own measurements are saved on your machine. You can back everything up with JSON export and import. There's no cloud sync and no account.

UPDATES

Version 0.14.0 has a built-in update checker that downloads updates and restarts the app for you. Files are checked with checksums, and failed downloads retry automatically.

PLATFORMS

- Windows x64: setup EXE (unsigned for now)
- Linux x64: DEB package, tested on Ubuntu and Debian
- macOS: build from source
- Browser: a live web version you can try without installing anything

OPEN SOURCE

The app code is MIT. The guide content is CC BY 4.0, so you can reuse it with attribution and a note about what you changed. Manufacturer diagrams belong to their original owners, and the guide doesn't grant any new rights to them.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

If you spot a wrong pinout, a missing board or a bad source, open an issue on GitHub or edit the wiki. Corrections are how this thing gets better.

LINKS

- App repo: https://github.com/valleytechsolutions/BWM-Technical-Reference-Guide
- Desktop releases: https://github.com/valleytechsolutions/black-wire-desktop/releases
- Pinout collection: https://github.com/valleytechsolutions/black-wire-pinouts
- Browser version: https://valleytech-black-wire-guide.pages.dev/
- Wiki: https://valleytech-black-wire-guide.pages.dev/wiki/
- YouTube: @valleytechsolutions

Built by your pal Kal at Valleytech Solutions