89 posts
Every gate on the prototype board was green, so we called it finished. Three of the six things that came out afterwards were holes in the very checks that let us say it.
Latest post: PCB Design Automation BOM Gaps: A Part With No Land Never Gets Counted
No new parts, just the beer lever again. The design looked elegant on paper and played badly, and the work was translating four vague impressions into four exact numbers - tension, fish stamina, hooking, and haptics.
Latest post: Fishing Game on the PLC HMI Arcade Cabinet: Translating "Not Fun" Into Numbers
Three wrong theories built on partial logs, and then a line-by-line comparison of the full record explained all thirteen uploads at once.
Latest post: LoRaWAN Sensor Network Uplink Loss: OK Every Time, Half the Data Gone
The human part was one line of symptoms, one arming, one line saying go ahead, and one line saying log it. Fifteen minutes later I had the root cause, a fixed ladder and a verification table, and writes only ever opened inside the range a human had allowed.
Latest post: Senbrix Devlog Part 6 - I Let the AI Diagnose the PLC
When the RP2350 Touch LCD 3.5 will not boot or the upload port cannot be found, unplug USB-C, hold the BOOT button, and reconnect the cable to enter USB download mode.
Latest post: When the RP2350 Board Stops Responding
An RP2350 touch LCD that reads two NTC 10K sensors and one PT1000, graphs motor temperature over time, and drives two relay outputs from per-sensor thresholds.
Latest post: Motor Temperature Monitoring and Alarm Screen on RP2350 with NTC 10K and PT1000
Finding where R6 R8-9 R22-25 sit on the board took longer than soldering them, so we built a helper that takes a board file and highlights every part of the same value on a drawing of the PCB.
Latest post: A PCB hand-soldering helper: find every same-value part on the board at once
Projects · PCB Automation
Finding where R6 R8-9 R22-25 sit on the board took longer than soldering them, so we built a helper that takes a board file and highlights every part of the same value on a drawing of the PCB.
Field · Motion Simulator
We built the software that makes a two-seat robot arm motion simulator follow the movement inside a game, from content selection and manual control to run-time logging.
Projects · Industrial AI
We planted a fault in a simulated boiler and cooling pump and handed the data to an AI that didn't know the answer. It caught all six events and named the root cause. Here's how, plus the product bugs the test turned up.
Field · Food Machine
We developed the control board, firmware and operator interface to suit the client’s mechanical design, connecting machine movement with operation and inspection.
Guides · SENBRIX
GO-Pi-Zero-M specifications: DC 24 V power, Ethernet, CAN, isolated RS-485, a 40-pin compute module header and a 16-pin expansion bus.
Guides · SENBRINO
GO-RP2040-CB08 specifications: RP2040, four digital inputs, four relay outputs, analog I/O, RS-485 and SPI/I²C expansion.
Guides · SENBRINO
PICO-IO8R specifications: RP2040, four digital inputs, four relay outputs, RS-232C and RS-485, DC 12 to 24 V power, operating conditions and GPIO assignments.
Guides · SENVAS
Specifications for the SV070: a 1024 × 600 touch display, BCM2711 processor, 2 GB memory, serial ports, Gigabit Ethernet, DC 12 to 28 V power and a 183 × 118 mm panel cutout.
Guides · SENVAS
Specifications for the SV100: a 1280 × 800 touch display, BCM2711 processor, 2 GB memory, serial ports, Gigabit Ethernet, DC 12 to 28 V power and a 253 × 167 mm panel cutout.
Guides · SENBRIX
ZPi-IO8R specifications: Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and RP2040, four digital inputs, four relay outputs, RS-485, OLED, network options and DIN rail mounting.
Field · Stage
A control system that moves up to 200 stage devices, from the revolving stage to the orchestra pit, from one console. Here is what it does from rehearsal to curtain call in nearly 20 venues across Korea, with screenshots.
Guides · SENBRIX
C# reads the outside world and writes it into a D register; the ladder decides. Four rungs and one C# method are enough to react to Seoul's temperature.
Field · Food Machine
The controller for a machine that presses grain in a hot mold and pops it open into a snack. Board package, ladder layout, and the issues we hit along the way.
Guides · SENBRINO
Wire power and buttons, then pick the main board and port in a new project. Inputs are P0 to P3, outputs P4 to P7. The addresses Part 3 uses are set here.
Guides · SENBRINO
One line in the Claude console, six symbols and four rungs come back, then Deploy and Monitor. Press the button and a relay clicks. Three seconds later the second one follows.
Field · Monitoring
Temperature inputs, relay outputs, Modbus communication and a touch LCD in a motor temperature monitor built with Senbrino.
Guides · SENBRINO
From Senbrino-win-Setup.exe to the first start screen. Get the PC side ready before the GO-RP2040-CB08 board comes in Part 2.
Guides · SENBRIX
One line in the Claude console, six symbols and four rungs come back, then Deploy and Monitor. Press the button and a relay clicks. Three seconds later the second one follows.
Guides · SENBRIX
From Senbrix-win-Setup.exe to checking the .NET 9 SDK and the first start screen. Get the PC side done before Part 2 puts the runtime on a Raspberry Pi.
Guides · SENBRIX
From flashing the OS to the runtime one-liner, then writing the Pi-SD16R pin map as XML and registering it in the editor. This is where a Raspberry Pi becomes a PLC.
Projects · RP2350 Motor Temperature
An RP2350 touch LCD that reads two NTC 10K sensors and one PT1000, graphs motor temperature over time, and drives two relay outputs from per-sensor thresholds.
Projects · GO Modular IO
A simulator that wires the modules on screen and runs a PLC program. The runtime is inside rather than imitated, with only the CAN wire's place made virtual, and RS485 devices such as inverters answer as their manuals say. First public release 0.1.0, current 0.1.1.
Guides · SENBRINO
Write your program in the ladder language PLC engineers already know, and Senbrino turns it into Arduino C++ and puts it on the board. A tour of the ladder editor, symbols, board packages, live monitoring, Modbus and AI integration.
Guides · SENBRIX
Ladder and C# share one class, one symbol table and one IntelliSense. Build on Windows, deploy to a Raspberry Pi, and when there is no hardware yet, let the simulator stand in for it.
Projects · GO Modular IO
One main board plus whatever modules you need, side by side on a rail. All four are 81.5 mm tall and the module bus is 16 pins.
Projects · GO Modular IO
Ethernet, CAN and RS-485 on one main module. Only the lines that go out to the field are isolated.
Projects · GO Modular IO
Four relays, four analog inputs, four analog outputs. All three carry their own MCU and run as independent CAN nodes.
Projects · GO Modular IO
The modular IO specification table in one place, plus the DIN rail expansion limits and the design rules for a new module.
Projects · PCB Automation
Every gate on the prototype board was green, so we called it finished. Three of the six things that came out afterwards were holes in the very checks that let us say it.
Projects · Senbrix Devlog
It started with the extra PC you always had to stand next to the PLC. It ends with an AI writing ladder and fixing a fault on a running controller. All six Senbrix devlog posts on one page.
Projects · Senbrix Devlog
Getting PLC data up to a server always meant standing up one more PC beside it. That grind, plus how easy AI has made coding, is why I decided to build a PLC that runs on a Raspberry Pi.
Projects · Senbrix Devlog
A ladder comes down to one question: does power get from the left rail to the output on the right? From pulling every path and ANDing then ORing them, to the two separate loops and the editor, AI, and runtime layout, this is the design.
Projects · Senbrix Devlog
The ladder counts, and calls a C# function only when it is time to report to the server. One rule ties ladder and code into a single program: a known name in the function cell is a ladder instruction, an unknown one is the C# I wrote.
Projects · Senbrix Devlog
A fixed period, download without powering off, values that survive a blackout, auto start, and not dying from one bug. I ran a sample app to see how a .NET runtime on a Raspberry Pi covers all five.
Projects · Senbrix Devlog
I typed four lines and got an 85-rung traffic signal controller. A language that writes ladder as text, a rule to use only what the docs confirm, and a human sign-off at every stage. That is the whole reason it works.
Projects · Senbrix Devlog
The human part was one line of symptoms, one arming, one line saying go ahead, and one line saying log it. Fifteen minutes later I had the root cause, a fixed ladder and a verification table, and writes only ever opened inside the range a human had allowed.
Projects · LoRa
Thirty sensors on one shared LoRaWAN gateway, and a node that would not join. With no CRC error to go on, the answer turned out to be the sync word set by a single toggle.
Projects · LoRa
The radio worked, but the sensors were in the field. A PC program that answers like one turned up four contradictions in the protocol document and a timer bug that split good frames in half.
Projects · LoRa
Calling each device in turn fixed the collisions but cost 42 seconds a round, until we stopped waiting for replies. Plus the uplink monitor and the configuration tool built along the way.
Projects · LoRa
Three wrong theories built on partial logs, and then a line-by-line comparison of the full record explained all thirteen uploads at once.
Projects · LoRa
From cutting the enclosure to data that never reaches the server, five posts on a LoRaWAN sensor network - every one of them starting with a signal that said everything was fine.
Projects · PCB Automation
Measure the same board with two rulers and you get two answers, and the wrong one was always ours. Ten disagreements found by changing how we measured rather than by fixing the tool.
Projects · LoRa
An automated clearance check that reads 0 mm3 is not the same as a case you can build. Five assembly failures, and the worst was a check that ran perfectly and reached the opposite conclusion.
Projects · RP2350 3.5″ Touch LCD
When the RP2350 Touch LCD 3.5 will not boot or the upload port cannot be found, unplug USB-C, hold the BOOT button, and reconnect the cable to enter USB download mode.
Projects · RP2350 3.5″ Touch LCD
An RP2350 touch LCD timer that starts its MM:SS countdown only when the inverter is confirmed running - not when START is touched - and handles the STOP command and actual-stop check when time runs out.
Projects · RP2350 3.5″ Touch LCD
A horse-riding machine controller built with the 3.5-inch RP2350 touch LCD, with one manual mode, 11 program modes, 10-stage speed profiles, and RS485 Modbus RTU inverter control.
Projects · RP2350 3.5″ Touch LCD
RUN/STOP and speed control of an inverter over RS485 Modbus RTU, with the RP2350 touch LCD graphing only the speed the inverter actually reported - not the commanded value.
Projects · RP2350 3.5″ Touch LCD
Copying a TTF file into an Arduino project does not put Korean text on a TFT LCD. Here is how we converted only the glyphs and sizes the screen needs into bitmap data for the RP2350 Touch LCD 3.5.
Projects · RP2350 3.5″ Touch LCD
Instead of playing a video, we cycle three PNG frames and redraw only the region where the horse moves, cutting flicker on the ST7796 LCD.
Field · Kiosk
A practical overview of the touch displays, payment devices, RF reader, receipt printer, and connections used to build a kiosk pass and membership application.
Projects · PCB Automation
An unrouted net is not a conclusion but the starting point of the next investigation. Measuring in coordinates, suspecting the tool, unifying the pass criteria, and finally putting the placement choice itself inside the loop.
Projects · PCB Automation
Eleven posts on PCB design automation, from generating the schematic to a fully specified BOM, collected on one page in the order the problems appeared.
Field · Conveyor
A field installation connecting straight, curved, and inclined conveyors and controlling each module through Wi-Fi and a PC integrated control UI.
Projects · PCB Automation
Every time we scaled an 8-channel board to 16 channels, we had to redo the schematic and artwork. To cut the repetitive work, we introduced AI automation and built a library and pipeline.
Projects · PCB Automation
Reading PADS ASCII coordinates as 1nm made the parts, the traces and the board all 1.5× too large together, so every internal consistency check stayed green while the object was wrong.
Projects · PCB Automation
A backslash that invalidated an entire file, pad fields shifted by one slot, and a 3D model rotation we guessed wrong three times - what we hit while moving 1,214 footprints and 857 symbols into a KiCad library.
Projects · PCB Automation
The 45° rule, staircases and antennas - none of which DRC catches - each needed a checker of its own, and the per-layer routing directions had to be injected straight into the DSN file.
Projects · PCB Automation
If the measurement changes the subject, it is not data. How we caught a check command rewriting the board and a fixer script shaving trace widths to turn DRC green, then measured our own shipping boards for the real numbers.
Projects · PCB Automation
12.9 bends per net and a detour ratio up to 3.0× said what the gates would not: a 16-channel board was being crammed onto two layers. How we moved it to four and re-injected the per-layer directions.
Projects · PCB Automation
The longest stretch in automation is not the first 90 percent but the last single item. Ranking the metrics as shorts over unrouted over clearance, and solving a blocked spot with a transaction that moves the wall.
Projects · PCB Automation
DRC 0, unrouted 0, shorts 0, measured five times with the same result five times. The closing round that took arbitrary angles to zero, plus the seven ways our own tools lied along the way.
Projects · PCB Automation
The metrics we measured passing is no evidence that the items we did not measure are correct. The schematic, label and angle gaps a review exposed after we called the board done, and the gates built to close them.
Projects · Senbrix Devlog
Ladder on one side, screens on the other, and one rule holding them together - the values live in the PLC and the HMI only reads them and draws them.
Projects · Senbrix Devlog
A compact PLC where ladder and C# share the same memory, with AD-4, DA-4 and IO-8 expansion boards on a CAN bus - validated by four games running out of one project.
Projects · Beer Game Cabinet
No new parts, just the beer lever again. The design looked elegant on paper and played badly, and the work was translating four vague impressions into four exact numbers - tension, fish stamina, hooking, and haptics.
Projects · Beer Game Cabinet
From one lever to a cabinet holding four games, seven posts collected on one page - in the order the parts arrived and the games followed them.
Projects · Beer Game Cabinet
The input device picked the game again: an analog joystick meant a vertical scrolling shooter. Climbing a night sky, shooting enemies, and getting stronger on pickups - plus a memory remap, a broken cause and effect, and an interpolation fix.
Projects · Beer Game Cabinet
The ERM vibration motor promised in Part 2 is installed and buzzing, but pulling the lever further changed nothing. After two wrong theories we stopped guessing, logged the actual values, and found the output window was the problem.
Projects · Beer Game Cabinet
The title screen became a game select menu and blackjack became game two. A house rule deals the dealer a card every time you take one, and inheriting the first game's leaderboard and comms layer cut the build time in half.
Projects · Beer Game Cabinet
A full day spent making the HMI screen feel alive: five animations, a pub background drawn in code, and a bartender that took four failed shape-built bears before one AI handed the drawing to another.
Projects · Beer Game Cabinet
Part 2 of the arcade cabinet. A ball lever modeled parametrically in Blender and printed on a 3D printer, and a Pro Controller haptics transplant that failed - one photo of the real part overturned the whole design.
Projects · Lyra Zero W
The Pi Zero 2 W is sold out and the Luckfox Lyra Zero W is the substitute - but is it fast enough? Same benchmark, same .NET version, both boards. On paper the Pi should have won, and the clock said otherwise.
Projects · Lyra Zero W
The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W at the heart of ZPi Controller is sold out. We picked the RK3506B-based Luckfox Lyra Zero W as a replacement and actually moved onto it, from flashing the image to rebuilding the kernel and running real CAN control.
Projects · Beer Game Cabinet
Root Bear is a Playdate game about turning a crank to pour the perfect root beer. We moved it onto a physical potentiometer lever and a touch panel, and by the end of one day the inside of the cabinet was genuine plant equipment.
Guides · Going Connect
An IP tells you nothing about which Pi you are looking at. Here is the active scan that finds them and the MAC-keyed nicknames that survive a reboot.
Field · Stage
The real danger on a stage is not missing information - it is pressing the wrong channel or trusting a device whose link has dropped. The screens were designed around that.
Guides · SENVAS
An industrial HMI does more than draw screens: it talks to the plant floor, records what happens, raises alarms, and runs control logic. Here is the SENVAS Designer and SENVAS Runtime pair that does it on SENVAS Touch.
Guides · SENVAS
Port forwarding, TeamViewer and self-hosted OpenVPN each come with a catch. SENVAS Touch solves industrial HMI remote access with a WireGuard-based Tailscale mesh VPN and Funnel HTTPS that opens only on demand.
Guides · SENVAS
The foundation layer of an industrial HMI device, the touch management launcher, is a .NET 9 Blazor Server app. The kiosk welcome screen, the web console and remote access are all the same app; the operator HMI runs on top of it.
Guides · Going Connect
Devices work the moment you plug them in, but somebody still has to remember what runs where. One TXT convention and one tray app removed that chore.
Guides · SENVAS
An industrial HMI touch device you can carry into a factory, a farm, or a power plant, plug in, and use. Kiosk auto-boot, network discovery, remote management, AI integration, and automated app deployment at a glance.
Projects · Arduino Web Uploader
One Raspberry Pi turned into a shared uploader, so a firmware change no longer means carrying a laptop and a USB cable over to the machine.
Projects · AI Content Production
The design tools were never opened. The brochure was written in HTML, exported from Chrome, outlined in Ghostscript, and refined one instruction at a time.
Field · Smart Farm
Coil bit packing, a black MJPEG screen and a pump that ignored its auto-stop - the three troubleshooting stories behind an indoor smart farm on one touch panel.
Field · Energy
Four LDRs give the direction error as a vector, two servos follow it, and a 7-inch panel shows the charge. The jitter fix and seven deployment rounds are the interesting part.
Projects · Blender MCP
Three print-ready STLs and one design abandoned after seven rounds of corrections. The workflow, the parametric structure, and what went wrong.
Projects · Stage HMI
Press the wrong switch on a stage and a set misbehaves. Building a panel where a mistake is obvious took four visualisation rewrites and five rounds of GPIO conflict.
Projects · Modbus HMI Migration
A teaching kit becomes an industrial line: no phone in hand, cumulative counts on screen, and a wired link whose loss is actually visible.
Projects · Going.IDE
From an empty solution to v1.2.0.5 in seven days. The feature set, seven troubleshooting highlights, and the AI coding patterns that made the week possible.
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