Field notes from the bench
Embedded systems, control, firmware, and the messy seams between hardware and code — written up as they come off the bench.
Closed-loop control on a $5 microcontroller
An ESP32 has no business running a chemistry lab. Here's what it took to make one hold a saltwater tank's water parameters steady — and where cheap silicon stops being the bottleneck.
Embedded Systems · Control Systems · ESP32
When to reach for an RTOS (and when bare-metal wins)
An RTOS is not a maturity badge. It's a tool with a specific job. Here's the decision I actually run through before adding a scheduler to a firmware project.
Firmware · RTOS · Embedded Systems
The bug was never in the firmware
The hardest bugs in connected hardware live in the seams between disciplines — where the firmware engineer blames the board and the board engineer blames the code. Here's how I work the seam.
Debugging · Hardware · Firmware