Other Pojects

Below are are various other projects (both work and fun) that I have worked on - this page is a work in progress

Project Payphone

This project sparked from a late night rewatch of Mad Men where I thought how cool it would be to have a payphone in my house. A quick trip to eBay, and I am now the proud owner of an early 2000s era payphone. 

My goal for this project was to have they payphone serve as a smart home hub to control the lights in my house as well as other smart devices (roomba / tv / xbox). I wasn't sure on which controller I wanted to use going in, so I started by wiring the keypad, coin reader, and headset switch to an Arduino pro-micro and mapped each switch as a keyboard press. This allowed me to plug the phone into my windows computer / linux system / android / IOS device and I could map the buttons as shortcuts to run functions.

I had an old Pixel 2 (with sim) that I ended up using for the controller. This allowed easy google home integration using google assistant. By assigning the handset switch to a google assistant trigger keystroke (and by wiring up the microphone and speaker to the headphone jack in the phone,) I now have a google assistant prompt in the handset when it is picked up. This allows for turning on the lights via voice command, turning on the tv, or even playing a spotify playlist on one of my home devices.

New Electronics

Keypad Wiring

Power Functions

Once I had the Pixel working consistently, I went ahead and installed complementary items such as a 12v PSU, a 12v to USB converter, a USB C hub (with headphone jack) and a shelly smart relay. The USB hub provides power to the phone as well as serves as a DAC for the headset audio. 

The last thing I wanted to get working was the ringer in the phone. These phone ringers are designed on running on 90VAC / 20hz which is not the friendliest signal to generate, so rather than re-invent the wheel, I found a small converter module from Israel that converts 12v to a suitable voltage and frequency for the ringer. I have this wired up to a shelly smart relay which allows me to ring the phone via web-hook for future integration (such as the door bell). I would also like to have a dedicated google voice number for the phone which will receive and make calls (with the ringer), although that function still is in the works. 

This has been fun basement project and I look forward to continue to add functionality as my smart home evolves. It is quite the conversation piece (pun intended). 

Egg Printer Prototype

In 2014 we were approached with a very interesting application for printing on the tops of eggs. 

The project consisted of 6 x HP45 style inkjet cartridges mounted on spring loaded arms. The arms would articulate around the shape of the egg, spraying "US" on the top of each egg as it passed under it.

For this project, I worked with our inkjet  development specialist  to create  a print module that could be installed on a Moba egg grader. While this project never made it to production (couldn't meet customer cost requirements) , it was a still a very challenging and fun project to work on. 



TV Console



I wanted a TV Console designed around my equipment and something that would last. With our Ikea coffee table console near collapse, I set up designing something my wife and I could build together. 

The console was designed using 1/2" Maple plywood with 8" pine board runners used for dividers. I also designed this project for minimal tool usage (circular saw  and pin nailer. 




T-Shirt Printer

This was a project that I put together for a tradeshow we were attending that had a large textile printing customer base. 

Using the canon printhead I developed, I sourced a conveyor and and custom made some mounting hardware to elevate the printer from the conveyor belt. We then sourced some T-shirt holding platents and coupled everything together for the worlds fastest t-shirt printer. 

While this project was mostly for demonstration purposes, it was a huge hit at the tradeshow. 

Fun with 3D Printing

Just some fun with 3D printing around the house.