I Learned Electronics By Building A Motorized Factorio Factory (in 66 Hours)
June 26, 2026 · 28 min · 32k views · 66 hours on the build
A real-life Factorio factory that comes to life every time someone subscribes to my channel. Two conveyor belts run in a loop. Two inserters grab a tiny YouTube play button with a magnet and drop it further down the line. Two laser turrets slowly scan for biters that never show up. On top, an LCD shows my actual subscriber count, which an ESP32 pulls from the YouTube API. The diorama even serves its own web dashboard, so I can tune every position and trigger every part from my phone.
Why electronics
While working on a motorized Iron Man helmet, I realized I suck at electronics. When I hit a gap like that, I always do the same thing: find the best resource, read it cover to cover, then start a project that's way too ambitious so I'm forced to use it. Everyone on Reddit recommends Make: Electronics, so that was the book.
The project started as a wooden subscriber counter. A friend called it boring and told me to make it move. A fresh Factorio playthrough did the rest.
The book
Its analog flasher circuit did everything except blink, and I eventually gave up on it. Then, 300 pages in, I noticed the book never covers microcontrollers. Slightly concerning for a project built around an ESP32, servos and WiFi.
Servos, magnets and one wire
I only bought 360 degree servos, because 360 must be better than 180, right? Continuous rotation is perfect for belts and terrible for inserters that need to stop at an exact position. I also superglued shafts to servo horns. It didn't hold, and every jammed coupler cooked another servo. Twenty minutes in Tinkercad designing proper couplers with heat inserts and M3 screws fixed what hours of superglue and baking soda couldn't.
The permanent magnet picked up the play button fine, but you can't switch a permanent magnet off. So I had to learn electromagnets and motor controllers. The controllers shipped in sleep mode behind a solder jumper I'd never read about, and that cost me two days.
After that, everything still refused to work, and I came closer to quitting than on any project before. It was one ground wire that had popped off the ESP32.
The ESP32 was the best part
Soldering, for real this time, including that solder jumper. The ESP32, which ended up being my favorite part: it runs a web server and takes over-the-air updates, and I found both a week too late. Driving motors from a microcontroller, and why a stalled one dies in seconds. Enough CAD to stop gluing things. 3D printing every part I didn't have time to model myself.
The book taught me what resistors, capacitors and transistors are. I only really got them after two weeks of fighting them on this build.
16 days instead of 7
- 1 week planned, 16 days actual
- 66 hours total: 14 learning, 52 building
- 300 pages of Make: Electronics
- $200 of components for the book's experiments, about half of them done
Watch it
Watch the full build on YouTube.
Gear and links
The book is an affiliate link, which helps support me at no additional cost to you.
3D models, with thanks to all the designers: