Other hobbies

My day job is in software, so I tend to try to attach code to whatever I’m interested in at the moment. This means that I also dabble in electronics and have spent some time trying to automate things.

Coffeetron interface

I took a Gaggia Classic and Frankensteined it into something that could PID control temperature, pour to specific weights, and submit statistics to time series databases. I don’t think I ever got a good shot of espresso out of the darned thing but boy was it fun to automate! I used a Teensy 4.0 as the MCU on this project.

Boiler temperature tracking

This is a graph of the boiler data Coffeetron output.

Boiler temperature with set point

This was my attempt at tracking a set point. Turns out PID controllers are hard to do well.

Additionally, I used to fly airplanes! I love flying old tailwheels specifically. Got my private cert in Citabrias and have something like 100 hours in them. I’d love to get back into flying, but the FAA doesn’t have a great stance on mental health medications so it’s quite a long shot.