You read that right. Aceduino. The Aceduino is a brand of Arduino-board-clones produced and sold locally in the Philippines (buy local!). It’s compatible with most use-cases and comes with a cheaper price tag.
Back then, we had no cash and had to peso-pinch our way through projects. Unfortunately, we shorted it and had to buy the real thing.
tldr: Jason, Jus and I tried to build a smart electric meter on a shoestring budget.—and failed. Now though, we’re all working on Dashlabs. Jason runs our payments system. Jus runs our machine integration.
In 2018, Kevin Kho, a childhood friend, made short trip back to Manila from the USA. He organized a reunion with other guys from our high school. That’s when I reconnected with Jason and Jus.
Data science was the rave back then. A lot of the guys in that photo wanted to learn Python or R. (Some more serious than others—Jus brought his iPad along and did coding exercises in between rounds of beer) After subsequent meetups and more beers, Jason, Jus, and I decided to try working together on a hobby project—building a smart electric meter.
Problem
Measure the electric consumption of a room leased to a tenant in kilowatt-hours and send that data to a server
Context
- Lots of old buildings in Manila are leased on a per room basis—both residential and commercial
- Each room would have a single breaker box powering it
- Landlords charge a flat rate, or pay Meralco (a local energy company) to install an expensive electric meter per room
High level solution
- Use a current sensor to capture current flowing through a wire
- Use a bunch of resistors and capacitors, bring the current low enough through a piece of wire attached in parallel with the main supply line (mostly due to the constraint of working with cheaper and lower-rated sensors)
- Output the low current to a microcontroller (this is the Aceduino!!!), convert the detached analog signals into useable digital format.
- Transmit digital data to a server over a local network. (We had to integrate with an ESP8266 WiFi chip for this part)
- Display consumption on a separate graphical user interface linked to the server
- Calculate kilowatt-hour per room, and give a peso value
How far did we reach?
We were able to produce a working prototype built on basic breadboards and pin connectors. But because of the variance in data arising from using sup-par equipment, we could not reliably build accurate-enough devices at scale. We had to end the project.
I enjoyed working with Jason and Jus in this project. Both are very technical in their own right—we were able to convert analog current signals into machine readable data. In another world, we could have pushed this and expanded into other use-cases. But alas, that world is not for us.
The best part of all is they helped me understand all the work needed to be done. Early in the project, I told them everything I know about electrical engineering came from introductory courses. They promptly handed me a college textbook—and with their help, I’m proud to say I aced the sample exercises of Chapters 1 and 2. This is why I am CTO. Be scared, world.
Jason and Jus also did not have deep electrical engineering knowledge. They graduated mechanical engineering. They too, perfected the sample exercises of Chapters 1 and 2.
Fast-forward to 2020~2021. Dashlabs.ai was founded and we’re growing. First 2 engineers that came to my mind were Jason and Jus—and now they’re here in the team. Jason runs our payments system. Jus runs our machine integration.
None of us 3 studied computer science. I studied Industrial Engineering, Jason and Jus studied Mechanical Engineering. All 3 of us learned how to write code on our own or at work. (Eloquent Javascript for the win!) None of us are particularly smart too. So if we did it, so can you.
In the few days since our e-commerce launch (The Philippine Red Cross’s online shop here), Jason’s code has processed millions of pesos—making sure people get their tests. This 5-star software developer will make getting diagnostic tests easier and more convenient than ever.
On the other hand, Jus is building our machine integration. This beast of an engineer managed to integrate with laboratory equipment over TCP/IP and serial. When he can’t find the right hardware, he builds it. He’s going to get our box in every laboratory in the Philippines—making test result encoding as simple as a push of a well-designed button. He will free our country’s overworked laboratory technicians from the ever so oppressive clutches of the analog world.
While our success is yet to be seen, I am ecstatic that 3 fat nerds—who love to build stuff—are reunited with venture backing to solve more serious problems. Maybe we can finally build something worthwhile.
Special shoutout to sir Nilo Atienza of Shalom Labs. Thank you for being a design partner! With your trust in us and with your machines, we will digitize your laboratory.
Thanks to the Dashlabs team for helping me with edits.
