Dream it. Design it. Make it.
That's the rhythm that drives everything here.
Not every build needs a reason beyond curiosity. What they share is that someone had an idea, figured out how to make it real, and learned something along the way. Museums, parades, Maker Faires and home automation — that's where these projects live. Take what's useful, build on it, and reach out if you want to know more.
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recent projects
Oct
2026
2026
Furnace Filter & Status-LED Monitor
An ESP32 ESPHome device in the furnace room reads a differential-pressure sensor across the filter and watches the furnace control board’s status LED. Home Assistant turns the raw pressure into blower speed, filter loading, and a replace-filter alert. The threshold comes from a real clean-filter-vs-old-filter experiment, not a guessed limit.
Sep
2026
2026
Zigbee Chair Occupancy Sensor
A stock Zigbee door/window sensor, with its Hall-effect chip desoldered and two wires brought out in its place, becomes a cheap, battery-powered interface for any simple contact: reed, pressure pad, or float switch. Built to stop Home Assistant from switching off the office lights while sitting still at the desk; the same trick already covers a toilet tank float and a Christmas tree water level.
Sep
2026
2026
Zigbee Toilet Flush Sensor
A 3D-printed clip mounts a submersible float switch on a toilet tank’s overflow tube and wires it into the same desoldered-Hall-effect Zigbee mod used for the office chair sensor. The result: Home Assistant catches a stuck fill valve before it turns into a running toilet, and gets a flush count for free.
Sep
2026
2026
Smart Dehumidifier Controller System
A basement dehumidifier whose built-in control restarts the compressor within 30 seconds of finishing a cycle. Two ESPHome boxes replace that with a wide, adjustable deadband and an anti-short-cycle timer, no Home Assistant, no cloud. Ships as three config pairs: a learning-only simple pair, a full pair for a home Wi-Fi network, and a full pair for buildings with no Wi-Fi at all.
Aug
2026
2026
One Diode to Read a 5V Wiegand Keypad on a 3.3V ESP32
Wiegand data lines idle at 5V, and the ESP32 is not 5V-tolerant. You don’t need a level-shifter IC or a resistor divider. A single signal diode does the job, and it does it better.
Mar
2026
2026
Inside My Home Assistant Setup
A look inside a fully local, cloud-free Home Assistant installation: 1,900 entities, 66 automations, 20 rooms, and a Raspberry Pi 4 running the whole house.
Mar
2026
2026
Mousetrap Car: 7 Improvements Over Thingiverse Original
Physics project redesign built for school STEM experiments. 7 measurable improvements over the Thingiverse baseline, including solid-spoke wheels, universal chassis cradles, and an axle string-release mechanism.
Dec
2025
2025
MicroPython Giant Calculator
MicroPython rewrite of the Impression 5 giant calculator. 9-digit NeoPixel 7-segment display with 20 physical buttons, running on ESP32 or Raspberry Pi Pico.