mastodon 4.6.6Self-hoster, engineer, RVer living in Vermont building our own energy-efficient, sustainable and healthy Passive House.
My digital microscope, hot air station and tweezers arrived. They made it much easier to swap the two 0402 resistors on my board - thanks to advice from folks here on how to do it. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that I guessed I didn’t get the board totally dry after cleaning it with 70% IPA and I fried my ESD protection device. But, I can replace that now. And otherwise the board works. I’ve flashed it with ESPHome.
It may not look like much, but I’m really proud of this. I wanted a mounting plate for our silcock and the ones I found were uninspiring - bare steel, multiple holes to fit different silcocks, etc. $15 + tax.
So I decided to design my own. I designed this in Fusion, then sent it off to SendCutSend who laser cut it from 3/16” 316 stainless steel, tapped the holes and powder coated it. $66 for 2, so $33 each. I’m very happy with that! First such project for me.
We’ve implemented new measures to protect our compost bins from the black bear. Our new electric fence is measuring 8.9kV. Per the recommendation, we’ve baited it with peanut butter. That should tickle when he comes back!
#vermont #bear #blackbear #compost #garden #gardening #electricfence
Not today, bear. Not today.
After he managed to open one of the supposedly bear-proof compost bins last week, we put them under the tractor rock bucket as a temporary measure until we get the electric fence setup.
This is the first time he's been back since, and he wasn't very impressed.
He isn't easily scared away though. Our floodlights and car alarm last week did nothing. He refused to move for the UPS truck for about 10 seconds today too.
A couple of weeks ago I placed an order with JLCPCB for some PCBs - my first real such project of any significance. I ordered 5 boards, fully assembled which in hindsight was a mistake because it cost me a fortune in both tariffs and shipping.
The good news is today they finally arrived and look amazing. The bad news is they don't work. 🙃
I knew I was taking a gamble, but it's still disappointing.
1/N
Reached a big milestone today - I got the transfer switch wired up to the electrical panels, so we finally have real power in the building. No more extension cords everywhere!
And as a result, our GreenEye power monitoring system is now active too, so I can see power consumption for every individual circuit in Home Assistant.
#building #electrical #diy #greeneye #homeassistant #selfhosted
@ironicbadger@techhub.social a lovely outdoor tap 😂
Really happy with my new setup for self-hosting public websites. I have a VPS running HAProxy as a Layer 4 proxy with Proxy Protocol to send packets over a WireGuard VPN tunnel to a VM inside my network. This is running Caddy for TLS termination and routing to a VM managed by Coolify that's handling the website deployments.
Traffic is encrypted until my network. VPS hides my IP. HAProxy for SNI checks and VPN tunnel bandwidth limits. 9ms latency.
Really enjoying my 3D printer for useful functional prints like these - a jig for aligning door trim, and some 135° brackets for my cabinets. I don’t expect the brackets to add a ton of strength, but while I’m moving them around on my own to get them installed, they help keep things in place. Worth a few cents of filament.
I have been re-architecting my self-hosted setup for public-facing websites, including my Mastodon server and my own personal website (linked in my Mastodon bio and verified). Watching the logs, I am getting a ton of traffic to my personal website from Mastodon clients, presumably due to the verified link in my bio. I'd never realized it was so much! Not a problem, just interesting (to me).
@smallsolar@techhub.social right, but it doesn’t need to fully charge the EV, just absorb what the solar panels have produced that day so it doesn’t go to waste.
The challenge is that $0.80/day over the course of the summer is only going to be around $150 so I need to avoid spending too much to make this happen else I lose my savings.
For context, we’re mid-build on a custom all-electric Passive House in Vermont and plan to add solar / batteries to it in future so this would only be short term
@diver300@mastodon.social that's an interesting thought. Humor me though, why add a resistor and not just replace the one that's there with the correct value?
On Sunday I finished painting the our new mechanical room, which means I can finally finish up all the wiring - both electrical and networking. There are over 20 power outlets, and just about as many CAT6 ports in this one small room. I have a second patch panel on the way so I can get the rack tidied up too.
@Natanox@chaos.social wow, that really sucks! I got my first ever 3D printer, a Bambu P2S, about 2 months ago. Got something like 150 hours on it now. I’ve had a few failed prints and one spectacular spaghetti session, but otherwise it’s been pretty reliable for me. I did seriously consider a Prusa, and philosophically I struggle with Bambu, but so far I have to say it’s working well on the whole.
@smallsolar@techhub.social I’m not sure about plug in solar around here. If I were prepared to invest the time (and probably some money on interconnects), moving the 5kWh of LiFePO4 batteries, 3kVA inverter and charge controller out of our RV would be the best route. Just don’t know if the savings would justify the cost / hassle.
@txtechnician@mastodon.social I'm using the Brultech GreenEye Monitor which installs with CT clamps on each circuit you want to monitor.
On the plus side, it has an open, documented protocol for which a Home Assistant integration exists, and it can monitor 32 circuits for current, plus a voltage sensor, pulse sensors and DS18B20s.
But it's pretty clunky and old - like something from 20 years ago.
So far it's working just fine, but I wouldn't say I'm ready to recommend it yet. Emporia Vue is an alternative.
@txtechnician@mastodon.social We've been using Sonoff S31 smart plugs for 5+ years now and have been very happy with them. They are WiFi-based, can be flashed with ESPHome, work great with Home Assistant, and include power monitoring as well as simple switch control.
We've installed around a dozen smart switches in our new building - Z-Wave switches made by Zooz. Some simple on / off, some dimmer, some heavy duty (septic pump, well pump). Been very impressed with them so far - very good build quality.
Really happy with the Bambu P2S so far. I was up and printing within an hour of getting my hands on it. Already printed a benchy, scraper and some spool rings.
It’s printing a poop chute right now and I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to make the layer lines less prominent. Or is this just normal? I’m using the recommended settings from the model, and Bambu Basic PLA filament.
My first ever 3D printer, a Bambu P2S, is due to arrive later today. I've put two rolls of Bambu Basic PLA in my filament dryer. They did sit outside in the cold for a few days so I hope they're OK.
@lemgandi@mastodon.social yeah, I'm hoping so, but it did get very cold - about -2°F (-19°C). I wasn't expecting Bambu to ship the filament so quickly, so it arrived before we got home from our travels.
The box stayed dry though, and everything inside is fine. The filament was vacuum sealed and it should get ~8 hours at 50°C in the dryer today. Fingers crossed!
@sky@better.boston very cool!
@blacsmit@techhub.social @ironicbadger@techhub.social well that's very kind of you both to say! We have a lot of footage for parts of the build that we never edited, and I know Diana is interested in publishing them one day so never say never!
But for now you'll have to make do with my ad hoc and infrequent posts on here instead 🤣
@stevenhorner@mastodon.social haha, so true!
Fortunately there's plenty of space in my (second) electrical panel if I need more. This room actually has 5 separate 20A circuits, and the server rack is going in that far corner so plenty of access to add more networking if I need it.
@stereo4x4@techhub.social that's what I'm debating. There are a lot of little electronics projects that I'd love to build, and so I think the answer is yes.
For reference, I already have a lot of stuff for through-hole - Pinecil soldering iron, helping hands, a few boxes of components, etc.
But this is my first foray into SMT.
My gut is telling me that another round of PCBs will cost me $100, and it wouldn't cost much more than that to get a hot air station, USB microscope, and a few other bits.