About
About the author
Hi, I’m Anton
Build Mode is a channel about building devices with your own hands: 3D-printed enclosures and parts, electronics, circuit boards and microcontroller firmware. I come up with these devices, put them together and show you how to build each one yourself — in the video and here on the website.
The channel draws on more than twenty years of practice: for ten years I designed and repaired electronics, and since 2014 I have been writing software. Below is the short story of how Build Mode grew out of that.
How Build Mode came about
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to make things with my hands: take something apart, understand how it works and build my own. I built my first homemade devices in my youth, so I went on to train as an electrical engineer, focusing on renewable energy: the sun, the wind and how to turn them into electricity. That gave my tinkering a theoretical footing — long before electronics became my job.
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10 years
Electronics and repair
After graduating, I spent the first ten years with a soldering iron in my hand. I repaired household appliances and car electronics, worked with industrial electronics, built and fixed computers and set up networks. And I designed devices to order — the whole thing, from the schematic and board layout to the microcontroller firmware.
Repair is a good school. When you spend years seeing where and why other people’s equipment breaks, you start designing your own differently: with headroom in the component ratings, with protection where it is needed, and so that the device can be taken apart and fixed.
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12+ years
Code and products
Since 2014, my main work has been software: mobile apps, web development, AI integrations and process automation. I founded a development studio, and over these years my team and I have launched more than 250 projects.
That work taught me something else: to see a job through to the result, to write code that someone else can make sense of, and to document things so that a project lives on without its author.
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Today
Build Mode
A modern homemade device is everything at once: the enclosure and mechanics, the board, the firmware, and often an app or a web interface too. It turned out that my two crafts add up to exactly that set.
That is how Build Mode came about — a place where I do what I have wanted to do all my life: design and build whole devices, from the 3D model of the enclosure to the last line of code. And show you how to build them yourself.
What this means for your builds
Experience matters not in itself but in what it brings to the projects.
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Circuits you can trust
Component values, protection and board layout are tested on the bench, not just in a simulator. Ten years of repair work taught me to think about what will happen to a device a year from now.
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Code you can read
I write firmware the way I write commercial projects: clear structure, comments, no magic. Figuring it out and adapting it to your needs is part of the plan.
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The whole cycle in one pair of hands
The enclosure, board, firmware and app are designed by one person and fitted to each other: parts drop into place and connectors line up with their cutouts.
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Everything to repeat a build — on the site
A parts list with component values, the schematic, print files and code are all on the project page. It is complete on its own: you can repeat a build without the video — in any of the six languages.
Watch, build, get in touch
New builds come out on YouTube and TikTok, and breakdowns of boards and modules go on the blog. Built one of the projects, found a mistake or want to suggest an idea? Write to me.