Circuit Boards (PCB)

I’ve done a few Arduino projects recently, and I’ve had to spend a bit of time figuring out a good workflow to edit my code in Visual Studio Code instead of Arduino IDE, and then use it to load the code using an ISP (in-circuit programming) header. Why Visual Studio Code?  Arduino IDE works for…

I’ve been looking at the best way to control relays using Home Assistant. My husband wanted an automated garage door opener, but something harder to hack than the average remote control and that we could remove in the summer when we’re not using it. It could be done with a few smart plugs, but it…

I needed to add a simple temperature and humidify sensor to add to Home Assistant, both for my information and for various automations. At first, I went with the Aqara temperature and humidity sensor, but they were too unreliable with my setup. Even if I can get them to pair, they often will drop after…

I’m building an Arduino project to automate growing oyster mushroom in a box. I can’t vouch for the results of growing the mushrooms yet, but the electronics are now complete, so I wanted to do a little writeup on it while it was fresh into my mind. For this project I was aiming to use…

It’s been up for a while, but I gave a (virtual) talk at Woman Techmakers Montreal in April 2020 about creating your own circuit board. I wanted to show that creating your own circuit board is not that hard and expensive with KiCad and a good PCB fabrication house. It was not supposed to be…

I have plans for a small weather station that’s been lying on my hard drive for a while. The basic design includes ESP8266 modules that send data over to a Raspberry Pi base station that logs all that data and can create graphs. I’ve done a good deal of prototyping and breadboarding for the electronics,…