As battery-to-grid and vehicle-to-home technologies become increasingly mainstream, the potential for repurposing electric vehicle (EV) batteries has grown significantly. No longer just a niche pursuit, using retired EV batteries for home energy storage has become more accessible and appealing, especially as advancements in DIY solutions continue to emerge. Last year, this project by [Dala] showcased how […]
We’re not sure exactly what Tulip is, because it’s so many things all at once. It’s a music-making environment that’s programmable in Python, runs on your big computer or on an ESP32-S3, and comes complete with some nice sounding synth engines, a sequencer, and a drum machine all built in. It’s like your dream late-1980s […]
Remote-controlled cars can get incredibly fast and complex (and expensive) the farther into the hobby you get. So much so that a lot of things that are missing from the experience of driving a real car start to make a meaningful impact. [Indeterminate Design] has a few cars like this which are so fast that […]
Using Bluetooth on a desktop computer is now such a seamless process; it’s something built-in and just works. Behind that ubiquity is a protocol layer called HCI, or Host Controller Interface, a set of commands allowing a host computer to talk to a Bluetooth interface. That interface doesn’t have to be special, and [Dakhnod] is […]
Most readers will be familiar with the ESP32, Espressif’s dual-core processor with integrated WiFi and Bluetooth. Few of us though will have explored all of its features, including its built-in encryption facilities and secure booting capability. With these, a developer can protect and secure their code, and keep their devices secure. That sense of security […]
For smaller microcontrollers, having enough outputs for the job is sometimes a challenge. A common solution is to do some sort of multiplexing with the available outputs or perhaps something more advanced such as Charlieplexing, but another good option is to use a specialized driver board. What’s even better is if you can daisy chain […]
If you move in certain shady circles, you may have noticed the crop of improbably cheap “pocket welders” popping up on the market these days. They’re all variations on a theme, most with wildly optimistic specs minimal accessories of the lowest possible quality. But their tiny size and matching price make them irresistible to the […]
Solar power projects have become, in general, a matter of selecting components like panels and batteries, hooking them together with industry-standard connectors, and sitting back to watch the free electricity flow. As such, solar projects have become a bit boring, so it’s not often we see one that attracts our attention the way this dirt-cheap […]
Over the years we’ve seen countless ways of displaying the current time, and judging by how many new clock projects that hit the tip line, it seems as though there’s no end in sight. Not that we’re complaining, of course. The latest entry into the pantheon of unusual timepieces is this ESP32-powered desk clock from […]