What it is

From the Workbench is more of a joke, really. These are just small things I made at home when I was bored or had a little problem to solve. There wasn't much thought behind them.

Automatic door lock

This one is a bit strange, but I made an automatic door lock purely because I was bored and thought it was funny. I wanted to see what I could make with the parts I had at home, and it actually went pretty well.

I designed and 3D printed a gear mechanism for a servo motor. A servo only rotates, so the gear pushes a toothed bar that slides the lock. An ESP32 at the door talks wirelessly to a second ESP32 in my desk, which has a button on it, so I can lock or unlock the door from my desk.

Later I added an LED strip to the outside of my door that can show any colour. For example, it's off when the door is open and blue when it's locked. The whole thing is pretty sturdy, and it was a fun project.

Tesla coils

At some point I got really into Tesla coils, because I find them really interesting. I made about 15 of them, but none of them really worked. I got no plasma out of them, or only a tiny bit, because they're so complicated to build. That was a real shame, but I still want to keep building until one works. We'll see.

A Tesla coil is a transformer that works through resonance. A transistor switches current through a small coil very quickly. When that rhythm matches the natural frequency of the long coil, the voltage at the top climbs very high, and that's what should give you plasma.

What I learned

These projects mainly taught me how things work and how to make them better with the materials I already have.