I’m a big fan of the Portal series, so I had to have a GLaDOS robot mounted on my pegboard. This is what I came up with:

The head is 3d-printed and hand-painted. The rest of the build is made of servos, metal brackets, a PWM servo driver, a QT PY ESP32, and a motion sensor.

I just added a Binary Watchface option and a “Pipboy Green” color scheme option for my Pipboy Mini.

Github has been updated.

I love Fallout’s Pipboy (wrist computer), but the truth is it’s too big and clunky to actually be a daily worn device. I wanted to see if I could make a smartwatch with a similar vibe, but in a form factor small enough to be worn daily in the real world.

I decided to build this around Adafruit’s ESP32-S2 Reverse TFT board. This board is fairly tiny, and it has built-in features that I needed

• on-board wifi
• tft screen
• battery charging capability
• accessible buttons

I designed, 3d printed, and painted a case for the board that I think captures some of the Pipboy aesthetic. It’s held together with heat-set inserts and allen screws. Inside is a rechargeable lithium battery and a tilt sensor. The tilt sensor automatically turns the screen off when you’re not looking at the watch in order to extend battery life. The USB port can be accessed on the side without removing the case. The case can be used with any 22mm watch strap, but I had some nice scrap leather, so I just made my own leather cuff band.

The way the watch works, is that on reset it gets the time and date from online NTP servers while connected to my home wifi. Then the ESP32-S2’s internal clock handles keeping track of time until the time is updated via NTP servers again. This seems to work well. (Traditionally, you would use a Real Time Clock or GPS module to keep accurate time, but that would have made the watch bulkier.) Likewise, I use OpenWeatherMap’s API to get weather data to the watch daily. I plan to add additional functionally in the future, but for now I’m happy with my Pipboy Mini.

CODE
Case STL File

I’ll be taking PLC programming classes soon as I complete a degree in Industrial Electronics, so in preparation I decided to set up a PLC for tinkering at home. I chose a Siemens S7-1200 with TIA Portal as the automation software. Everything is mounted on din rails with pegboard brackets that I 3d printed.

Then I just needed to build the Input/Output trainer. I ordered all the parts from China via Aliexpress to save money. Everything went together smoothly, and it gave me an opportunity to use my new Knipex Ferrule Crimpers (they rock). The trainer has 4 Inputs (pushbuttons and switches) and 4 outputs (LEDs and an alarm). I also added a 24v fan to a rail as an additional output.

I found this beautiful antique wood radio at an antique store for $12. The electronics were pretty far gone, so I thought it would be a great choice for a mp3 project.

I cleaned and oiled the wood case, and salvaged what radio parts I could for future projects. From Temu, I purchased a fine copper mesh to use as speaker cloth ($2) and a DFPlayer Mini ($2). I loaded an SD card up with music from the 1920s to 1940s, then I wrote a simple script that will continuously play random tracks from the SD card. Using an Arduino and a 3W speaker I already had, I wired the circuit up. I decided to use the original radio knobs to control the Arduino, because that’s a lot more fun. I had to make a custom speaker mount out of some salvaged aluminum sheet I had, which turned out well. Finally, I put a couple of LEDs behind the dial to replace the original incandescent bulbs, and assembled everything. Here is the final result:

I found this awesome vintage Eagle Traffic Signal at an antique shop; It’s solid aluminum with glass lenses. I wired it to a controller that allows me to program the light pattern. I also found used mounting hardware on eBay, so I could wall mount it in my workshop. How cool is that?

I found this very early Bipolar Electric Motor (circa 1800s) at an estate sale last week. It was in poor condition and non-working, but still an amazing find. Since I love vintage technology, and am especially fascinated with electric motors, I decided to restore this piece of history to working condition.

I started by disassembling the motor and soaking the cast-iron parts in Evapo-Rust for a couple days to remove the rust. Afterwards, I painted the iron black to restore the original color. The gaskets that separate the coils and the base were made of paper and were disintegrating into powder, so I cut replacement gaskets out of rubber. Next, I turned my attention to the bottom coils. The original coils were cotton sheathed copper wire with paper dividers, and both the sheathing and dividers were badly deteriorated. I rewound the bottom coils using enameled copper wire, and I used electrical tape to divide the layers. This was a tedious process, but I just listened to an audiobook about Nikola Tesla while I worked, and the time flew by. I noticed that a couple of brass screws were missing, but I found matching screws in my hardware collection and just had to cut them down. Lastly, I oiled the armature and tried running power to it using my bench power supply (30v). You can see the result in the video below.

I passed my Amateur Radio Technician license a couple of months ago (N4NEC), and I’ve just completed making a proper ham shack for myself. I installed a vertical dual-band 2m/70cm antenna on my roof, on top of a 10-foot mast (using a chain link top-rail). I built a window pass-through using pvc board to route the coaxial cable (LMR-400) into the house, and I grounded it with 8ft of copper grounding rod. I have a mobile Yaesu with an Astron RS-20A power supply, and I bought a WW2 Jeep Field Speaker at a local hamfest for $5 that I re-wired it to use as my external speaker. I also have an SDRplay setup which is great for scanning frequencies visually.

My favorite EDC screwdriver is the Victorinox Cybertool, which uses 4mm bits. I wanted a way to carry around extra bits for it and I couldn’t find anything on the market, so I decided to design my own solution. This is what I came up with. It’s an insert for a standard zippo shell that utilizes a spring/hammer closing system similar to the original lighter insert. It even sounds and feels like a regular zippo.

You can find the STL file here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6570806