Jay and Jaimie start learning how to automate the workshop, starting with the dust collection! Alexa, go!
As a tech-savvy couple, the idea of automating the workshop is definitely attractive. In this video, we set out to learn how to DIY our own automated dust collection as our initial leap into home workshop automation. We used an ESP8266 board, which is very similar to an Arduino, to create our own “smart plug” that can be turned on and off by Alexa.
Our long-term plan is to automate our entire workshop! Lighting, music, AC, dust collector, blast gates, everything! It’ll be called the #WickedSmartShop. 🙂
This is definitely a prototype build and the electronics and wiring are far from code compliant. It works, and it’s been working for quite a while now, but we’re intending to rebuild it in a later video with much safer methods.
Working with electricity is dangerous. Don’t mess around with relays if you don’t know what you’re doing!
Check out the EASEL CNC software, it’s awesome: https://bit.ly/2vJwRzV
We used a lot of fun tools in this video but you can definitely get by with less to make the exact same thing. Here’s the list of what we used.
LINKS:
– Sinric GitHub Repo: https://github.com/kakopappa/sinric
– Amazon Developer Portal – https://developer.amazon.com/
Please remember that working with electricity in ANY capacity is DANGEROUS! Do not attempt to build this at home unless you’re confident in your abilities and understand the dangers of working with high voltage and relays.
