CH341A Programmer 3.3V Fix | Voltlog #318

Welcome to a new Voltlog, if you watched the previous mailbag video I showed getting this CH341 programmer tool for EEPROMS and FLASH chips and my viewers were quick to point out this actually has a design problem regarding the voltage levels it puts out. So it appears there is a 3.3V regulator on board for providing power to the eeprom or flash chip via the zif socket but the CH341 itself is running at 5V which means it outputs 5V signals on the SPI bus.

Someone has reverse engineered this little board and put together a schematic which clearly shows pin 28 VCC connected to 5V but I want to make sure nothing has changed and this still present. And checking with a multimeter, pin 28 is still connected to 5V USB.

Connecting a 3.3V rated part for programming might result in damaging that part. You might get lucky, you might have a chip that will tolerate that but in general that’s bad practice and so we’re going to attempt to fix it by simply cutting the 5V line going into the CH341 pin 28 and supplying it with 3.3V from the onboard regulator instead. And the datasheet also specifies that V3 pin 9 should be connected to VCC and 3.3V as well.