Project Ideas

[Eric_the_EE]

I love designing. I love building. I love making cool stuff.
By day, I am an industrial automation electrical engineer; by night I am an electronics hobbyist.
But I am in a slump and cannot find my next project goal.
Either I cannot find a problem to solve that interests me enough to spend time on, or there is already an existing solution so inexpensive that I cannot justify spending time on a redesign.

What are interesting projects you've worked on? Do you have any interesting ideas for me and other forum readers?
The sky is the limit.
Help save my soul from the fate of dust-gathering capacitor bins. 

[jonovid]

one for U.
use two cheap solar garden lights as a garden gate monitor. with a RF Link Transmitter back to the house over say 100m. or 300 feet.
the idea is to use a 1.3v or use two units 2.5v 300ma as sleeper circuit with a mosfet transistor as a soft start latching circuit.
with a pull up . but a pull down is to a Microswitch buth the NC & the NO are linkd, its the break before make that triggers the mosfet to run the circuit.
the idea is to power a step up inductor circuit 2.5v upto say 5v for 10 sec in one hr. and use it to power a doorbell RF Link Transmitter - 434MHz
back to the house over 100m. or 300 feet. the soft start latching circuit must also reset its self in say 10 to 20 sec.  use a cap on a slow time circuit.
a note that the Microswitch can be held on or held off .as its the change that's the trigger. the tiny blip on the gate pin.
inbetween NO and NC on the Microswitch. also two Microswitchs can work back to back with both sets of NO and NC tiyed .  NO to NO and NC to NC.
try this idea if you like.
concepts for the bored electronics engineer
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/my-oddball-concepts-for-the-bored-electronics-engineer/msg1047668/#msg1047668

10: the Solar Powered Letter Box, has two motorized rollers top & bottom that pull Mail inside the Letter Box, out of the weather.
battery charged over time. the Solar Powered Letter Box also has a LED light box for the street number at night. can add wifi alert link to phone.

11: Driveway Turntable, rotates car 180 degrees in your driveway, just park on it, & use special remote.
may take upto 30min, its a steel Disc set in to the Driveway on industrial roller bearings,
with motorbike chain looping below deck, to a 500W AC motor with 100:1 Ratio gearbox.

[NiHaoMike]

How about a 120V or 240V single phase in, split phase out VFD for retrofitting existing residential HVAC systems?

[MattHollands]

I can never follow through with a project unless I really want to do it which is why I often spend a month messing around with small things for a month between projects. I pick a few electronics basic topics (or not-so-basics) and breadboard some circuits and I usually think of a cool bigger project after not too long

[neo]

could always do what i do when i get bored, build another power supply, granted in my case i have a half ton of transformers lying aroud

[rstofer]

What interests you?  Robotics might not given that you are working on industrial automation.

Any interest in code based projects?  Build and code a PLC?  There's a PC based project around for implementing sophisticated Halloween effects.  I extended it a bit to add lighting control (on-off, ramping, that kind of thing).  Serial over RS-485.

How about analog circuits?  Interested in analog computing?  This has captured my attention recently.  Differential equations were a PITA in EE school but they are actually fun on an analog computer.

Maybe revisit some of the things from school like transistor amplifiers.  Load lines, biasing, that kind of thing.  Lab projects, really...  I know there are gaps in my retention of stuff over the last 40+ years.  Mostly this is because I never really worked in electronics, I spent my time in the electrical side.