About Me
About Me
Hello there!
I’m James Kincell, a Creative Technologist and Electronics Design Engineer based in Manchester, UK. I design and build interactive systems, embedded electronics, lighting, IoT devices and prototypes that bring creative ideas to life.
I graduated from The University of Manchester with an MEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2014, and since then I’ve worked on everything from high-reliability instrumentation and FPGA-based hardware to large-format LED installations, sensor-driven systems and outdoor event tech. I enjoy turning ideas into real, testable hardware — especially when the solution involves some mix of electronics, lighting, software and a bit of playful invention.
When I’m not designing or building things, I’m usually climbing, hiking, snowboarding, or tinkering with another daft side project. My Sprocker Spaniel, Oscar, supervises most activities and takes the credit when things work.
About Current Sauce
Over the years I’ve learnt a lot from other people’s blogs and open projects, and I’ve always wanted to give some of that back. Current Sauce is my place to share the things I make, fix and experiment with — partly to help others, and partly because writing things up helps me think them through.
As for the name… I’m a sucker for a bad pun. Current Sauce is a play on an electrical current source and fruity currant sauce. It’s the best I could come up with — and I’m sticking with it!
How it’s built
I didn’t want to use a drag-and-drop website builder — it felt too easy! So I put this together using Jekyll, hosted on GitHub Pages, and written in Notepad++ on Windows. The theme is Bulma Clean Theme by C.S. Rhymes, which I love for its simplicity and clarity.
Launched
August 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown — what better time to start building things?
Software I Use For My Projects & Current Sauce
2D & 3D Design
- Microsoft Visio - 2D Designs and Diagrams
- OnShape - 3D Design for Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing)
- UltiMaker Cura - Slicing of 3D Designs for 3D Printing
Electronic Design
Electronic Simulations
Embedded Design
- MPLABX - Microchip PIC Development
- STM32CubeIDE - STM32 Development
- Arduino IDE - Arduino & Teensy Development
- PlatformIO - Arduino & Teensy Development
Signal Analysis
- SigRok - Logic Analyser
Software Design
- Python - For general Python Scripting
- Microsoft Visual Studio - Visual Basic and Visual C Applications
Graphics
Misc
- Notepad++ - Writing this website and miscellaneous editing
…Plus more that I have probably forgotten in this list!