Hi, I'm Dillon Nichols
I’m an electrical engineer who loves to tinker with electronics, especially hardware design and writing microcontroller firmware. My passion is taking a project from an idea, to a design, to a physical product. Nothing beats having a functional device that you've worked on from start to finish.
Siemens
I work in the Control Development group of the R&D department creating controller boards for large drives. I've redesigned multiple circuits by replacing obsolete components and adding new features. These tasks have involved FPGA development with high-speed transceivers and processor intercommunication, EMI hardening, and digital and analog circuit design.
The Pennsylvania State University
For my Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, I primarily studied electronic circuit design. I also took courses in C programming and computer design. Those courses laid a foundation for me to pick up microcontroller firmware development in my free time and at work.
MSP430 Reaction Game
When the MSP430 series of microcontrollers were released, Texas Instruments offered their development board for $4.30. I ordered one and learned how to program it via tutorials on the internet. I developed the idea for a game based on arcade games where you have to stop a scrolling LED at a specific spot. This project was my first experience into creating a PCB and the supporting firmware.
Homebrew Gameboy Cartridge
Growing up, the original Nintendo Game Boy is what got me into video games. The translucent Atomic Purple Game Boy Color was the spark that ignited my interest in electronics. Being able to see the circuit board made me wonder how it worked. I designed this circuit to recreate the original hardware while allowing the user to switch the game by reprogramming the ROM.
The Open Bar
I’ve long had an interest in web technologies and have created simple static web pages in the past. My friend Tyler and I had the idea of creating an automatic cocktail mixer. He designed the hardware and I created the website to control it. This ambitious web development project exposed me to the Angular JavaScript framework for client-server interaction with a MongoDB backend.
Home Automation
Home Automation is one of my favorite topics. I’ve made an Arduino device to control water to a garden, a MSP430 device to trigger closet lights based on the door's position, a Raspberry Pi security system to alert me and take a photo of anyone entering the door, a device to turn on my coffee maker from bed, a device to control many bedroom lights via some buttons, and another project that automatically controls closet lights.
3D Printing
I built a Printrbot 3D printer from a kit in college and have used it often to create cases for my homemade electronics or to fix broken objects. It feels like the future when you can design an object to fix something without ever leaving the house.