These are projects I built in my own free time, from my first retro computers in high school to tools for my bench in Munich. Most of them have a write-up on the blog or code on GitHub.
2022 to 2023
I got my hands on an unknown old factory PLC and set out to reverse-engineer and document all of its boards. Later, I reused the boards in a live demo at the RT-Thread conference in 2023, driving their I/O with a RISC-V microcontroller running RT-Thread.
2022
An 8052 microcontroller-based computer that runs BASIC. I built this as a gift for a friend, and while doing so I designed the circuit board and learned about bus systems and peripheral chips.
2023
A DIY Z80 computer which I programmed in C. Through building this system, I learned more about bus systems, assembly, memory banking, and interrupts.
2021
A VGA signal generator based on a brilliant design by Ben Eater. Using two GAL chips, I replaced 14 logic chips, so the whole circuit fits on 1.5 breadboards. It generates a VGA signal from a 10 MHz clock, which gives 200 horizontal pixels.
2026
One 3D-printed box that replaces the pile of loose programmers and converters on my desk. It has a Raspberry Pi Pico with Picoprobe for SWD, an STM32 Blue Pill with dirtyJTAG for JTAG, two CH340N chips for UART, and labeled pinouts.
2026
A discrete motor driver for the DFRobot Devastator tank kit, built on perfboard with no ICs besides the microcontrollers. An STM32 drives the motors through MOSFET H-bridges with 20 kHz PWM, and an ESP32 takes commands from a DualShock 4 controller over Bluetooth.
2021 to 2025
I always wanted to build a power supply for my lab bench (since 2021) and finally finished it in 2025. It’s built around an 80 W buck converter module powered from a laptop charger, in an enclosure I designed in SolidWorks and 3D-printed.
2022
A PIC16F1705 thermometer with an MCP9701 sensor. The PIC’s internal 2.048 V reference gives about 0.1 °C resolution. I ported a TM1637 driver to C for the 7-segment display, and it usually reads within 0.5 °C of a mercury thermometer.
2023
My entry for an RT-Thread IoT contest. A Wi-Fi server controls multiple client nodes, each with its own UV-C LED, built with the Raspberry Pi Pico W and ESP32. It has low-power sleep and multiple safety features.
2022 to 2023
With the PIC16F1459 I made a USB-MIDI converter, a dual-voltage USB-UART converter and an EEPROM programmer. The USB-MIDI converter sends SysEx from a PC to a Yamaha DX7.
2023
A bidirectional two-channel USB-MIDI converter built with a Raspberry Pi Pico and programmed in Python.
2022
A 4-digit display controller built out of discrete logic, with its own refresh, RAM and parallel interface.
2020
My project for the GNOME Community Engagement Challenge, where it was a Phase One winner. It teaches kids programming by building video games in the Godot engine with GDScript, and I wrote a short guide book for it, laid out in InDesign.