Make. Break. Fix.

This is where I share what I’m building, what is broken, and what I wish I knew earlier.

From side projects and debugging battles to workflow tweaks and technical deep dives, this blog is my running log of life in tech.

Some posts will be tutorials. Some will be lessons learned the hard way. Some will just be ideas worth exploring.

Thanks for stopping by, feel free to explore

AI generated representation of the PMSA003I and ESP8266

An Air-Quality Adventure: ESPHome meets the PMSA003I Sensor

If you’ve ever tinkered with DIY IoT devices, specifically air quality monitoring, you know that not all sensors are created equal. My recent project, an air quality monitor built on a NodeMCU v2 (ESP8266), taught me a humbling lesson. What should have been a simple plug-and-play integration turned into a “dead as a doornail” scenario involving reverse polarity, almost smoke, and a sensor that refused to speak until it had a 30-second warm-up period. ...

April 16, 2026
AI generated image of a computer on a workbench

A Date With the Night

Late nights with server upgrades and troubleshooting When your homelab becomes a production server and your users come to expect those services, it’s hard to find a good time for maintenance. In addition to that, when server hardware is being upgraded and parts being swapped out, downtime is a bit more extensive than simply spinning up services on new hardware. That was the situation that I ran into. Previous Hardware: ...

February 19, 2026