I've always been fascinated by the interface between the software world and the physical world. In fact, that's how I got started in my career. In high school, I took a CAD/CAM class, culminating with a Human Skull Model where I placed 3rd in a national competition. I had so much fun, I started college in the computer engineering program at Cal Poly thinking I might work on robotics. Once I got there, I realized that computer science was a better match for me, but I've always enjoyed tinkering with electronics and the hardware/software boundary.

Irrigation Control

I'm continuing to develop a "smart" sprinkler control system based on a Raspberry PI, and 2 banks GPIO driven relays. Hooked up to the relays is the 24 volt transformer from an old donor sprinkler controller, which in turn drive the individual valves. These can then be turned on/off from a web app, as well as automation taking temperature, humidity, and rain-fall into account to adjust the level of watering. Source available at github.com/dhiltgen/sprinklers
  • Raspberry PI's
    I've built a number of raspberry PI's to do various tasks. Some are headless monitoring environmental sensors, others are hooked up to monitors and display NOC dashboards for Netkine.
  • Environmental Sensors (1-wire)
    I've soldered up a number of 1-Wire based circuits from scratch for the PIs, and hooked them up to temperature, humidity and rain sensors to monitor the external and internal environment around our house.