One thing that’s always tripped me up as an IoT developer is figuring the best way to transmit data. There are many different kinds of radios and mediums. On top of that, there are…
2020.8.2 · 14 Minute Read
I was a complete failure. My prototype wasn’t working. I spent at least an hour trying to rework a frustratingly large LTE module on an impossibly small circuit board. It wasn’t…
2020.7.23 · 4 Minute Read
One of the cool things about Zephyr is its modularity. It’s also one of things that makes development on the platform difficult. This is especially true if you’re not use to the…
2020.6.20 · 8 Minute Read
This week, the nRF9160 Feather got some more attention. I even got it to roll over. 😇 To top it all off, my hardware validation list is looking good! In this post i’ll discuss the…
2020.6.11 · 6 Minute Read
In this post, i’ll be outlining my first experiences with Zephyr and nRF Connect SDK. If you’re not familiar, Zephyr is an up and coming RTOS for embedded devices. It brings things…
2020.6.3 · 12 Minute Read
Whenever I design a board, I optimize as much as possible. Layer count, part count and even part location can play a big role in how much assemblies cost later down the road. In…
2020.5.20 · 9 Minute Read
Populating (or stuffing) circuit boards can be a messy process. Its fraught with high heat, chemicals and teeny tiny parts. What could go wrong? In this post you’re learn how I…
2020.5.11 · 11 Minute Read
Wrangling your bill of materials can be rough. I’ve seen many engineers fall before the great three headed spreadsheet of doom. It’s tedious work and it’s often filled with…
2019.12.23 · 9 Minute Read
Business success in a hardware world is centered around the concept of a part. You track inventory by part. You organize your bill of materials (BOM) by part. You track assembly…
2019.8.19 · 5 Minute Read
No matter how much you research and design a circuit board, sometimes things still go wrong. And nine times out of ten, it’s due to human error. In part two of Dimming AC lights…
2019.3.14 · 7 Minute Read
I was stressed out. The startup I was working for just closed its doors. Having a family to take care of, I was on edge. I had a tightness in my chest that didn’t quite go away.…
2019.1.27 · 7 Minute Read
In this post I’m going to talk about how to control AC circuits from a DC powered device. You can go crazy when it comes to this stuff. So my main goal was to keep it simple. Be…
2019.1.10 · 10 Minute Read
If your product isn’t lasting as long as you want to, it may be time to do a current profile on your product and see where you can optimize power. This is a must for battery…
2018.11.1 · 7 Minute Read
Wire wrapping one of my favorite prototyping techniques. Used previously for making the interconnections between integrated circuits on motherboards in the 60’s and 70’s it has…
2018.5.24 · 2 Minute Read
In my previous article, I went into detail about the short range possibilities for connecting a device to the outside world. But sometimes you need to go the distance; and when I’m…
2017.6.19 · 9 Minute Read
It’s been a while since i’ve played with Bluetooth and I’ve been researching every connectivity technology that exists to create a IoT. After some laborious searching reading and…
2017.6.12 · 4 Minute Read
Over my past few posts there has been a common theme of “using things that already exist.” This stems from a mindset of building things from scratch whether or not they’re actually…
2017.5.13 · 10 Minute Read
It’s stressful to be on the front lines of a pre-production effort. It’s even more stressful when you are the only person that is responsible for the majority of the design,…
2017.5.8 · 9 Minute Read
Interviewing at a hardware startup, especially early stage, is a different experience. Founders often have no protocol or rubric for bringing on talent. They will often make a…
2017.3.27 · 12 Minute Read
In my 4+ years as someone who has lived and breathed startup, I’ve seen some interesting trends. In this post, I wanted to bring some of these trends to light for people who may…
2015.10.10 · 11 Minute Read
As humans, we tend to collect things and organize them. In this post, I organize some of the most useful information revolving around entrepreneurship and living a purposeful life.…
2015.6.16 · 2 Minute Read
The engineering world can sometimes needlessly be sprinkled with acronyms that leave everyone else on the team asking: “What the heck are they talking about?!" Now you can find out…
2014.8.9 · 9 Minute Read
Bluetooth Low Energy is awesome. The problem, even in 2019, it’s still can be tough to work with. In this article, you’ll learn the in’s and outs of Bluez. It’s Linux’s answer to…
2014.4.14 · 6 Minute Read
More tinkering happened today. I also had time to make an organizer for my prototyping setup. More details after the break! There are a bunch of ways that you can do measure liquid…
2014.3.21 · 4 Minute Read
Sometimes, negative life altering events are blessings in disguise. They’re usually hard to think about and easily ignorable until they’re looking you right in the face. Sometimes…
2013.11.15 · 5 Minute Read
For an upcoming project I realized I needed something that wasn’t readily available (and cheap): a DC electric pump. If you have ever used a Swiffer before you will know that when…
2013.10.23 · 4 Minute Read