This is my blog for projects, electrical, programming, home automation, woodworking, and just general around the home.
I am an electrical engineer by trade, working mainly with servo controls on metalforming presses, although I complete a variety of tasks related to automation using tools such as Siemens TIA portal, Siemens Simotion Scout, Rockwell Automation, Mitsubishi, Beckhoff Automation Twincat, C++, C#, VB .NET, and python. I also develop solutions on Virtual Machines and using clonezilla. In May 2022, I graduated from Miami University in Oxford with my BSEE.
At home, I have a small homelab with home automation and quality-of-life improvement services. Home Assistant, Gitlab, Nextcloud, and Plex are the largest services. The servers run natively on Proxmox, with more services in Linux and Windows VM’s as well as Docker containers. NGINX proxy manager and LetsEncrypt provide reverse proxy and SSL while Cloudflare provides DNS and CDN capabilities for the lab.
I also have some automation equipment in the lab, including a Beckhoff CX-9020 Twincat PLC and a Twincat 3 (BSD) runtime operating as a VM. Home assistant ADS integration allows the industrial automation enviroments to be used for home automation.
One of my current projects is digitalizing my grandfathers extensive historical document collection. Most documents have to do with New Idea farm equipment. These files will be posted here when available.
As a teen I was a member of several organizations that helped spark my interest in electricity and engineering. One of these was an appropriately named 4-H club: Fusebusters. I completed several electrical projects with the Fusebusters club, ranging from a simple circuit demonstration board showing series and parallel circuits, to a lamp, to a full five-foot tall micro controller controlled, solar powered lighthouse that won the Auglaize County Fairs “Best Electrical Project” award. The annual electrical safety live wire demonstration given by our host organization – Midwest Electric Cooperative also sparked my interest in electrical grids. Another organization that kept my interest in electricity was Boy Scouts, where I earned my Eagle Scout and completed several badges related to Electricity and Engineering.