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Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

1901 points l2silver | 3 comments | 27 Apr 23 15:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.483s | source

Maybe you've created your own AR program for wearables that shows the definition of a word when you highlight it IRL, or you've built a personal calendar app for your family to display on a monitor in the kitchen. Whatever it is, I'd love to hear it.
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stasmo ◴[28 Apr 23 16:48 UTC] No.35743855[source]▶
I made a wagon with an electric motor to carry my things to the park and at music festivals. It has a 1000W brushless DC motor and a drive train for a go cart. It’s controlled by an ESP32 that is attached to a hand throttle on the handle for the wagon. This ESP32 also has a temperature sensor attached to the batteries in the wagon to make sure they don’t overheat. It controls a relay that powers another ESP32 that controls the Neopixels I’ve attached to the wagon using LED channels with a milky white diffuser.

It was a very fun project and I learned a lot about electricity, batteries and the pitfalls of aliexpress.

replies(1): >>35746194 #
1. maherbeg ◴[28 Apr 23 19:46 UTC] No.35746194[source]▶
If you ever get a chance, a blog post about the build, software, and pitfalls would be awesome. I'm thinking about building something like this as our toddler gets older and we start to do longer day outings in a wagon.
replies(2): >>35749656 #>>35818599 #
2. RulerOf ◴[29 Apr 23 03:09 UTC] No.35749656[source]▶
I'll second this. I was really hoping there'd be a link at the end of the post.
3. stasmo ◴[04 May 23 16:59 UTC] No.35818599[source]▶
Ask and you shall receive. I’ll put some time into making a blog post with the technical details this weekend.

In the mean-time, here’s a lunch and learn video I made to show it to work people.

https://youtu.be/qo97UxPTYRA