• 30 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • Couple things to think about.

    Is the CPU supported? Anything 32 bit is pretty well done in the computing world.

    Why do you need caddy and SSL? Unless you plan to expose it directly to the internet which is a risk in and of itself is not needed. A cloudflare tunnel or VPN connection will give you access if needed with less exposure and risk.

    An SSD is great for speed but your going to spend twice as much for the same amount of storage and in most situations a hdd will work fine. So unless you intend to really do some thrashing on the storage with demanding high speed reads/writes or lots of read write operations you will have the ability to put in more storage for the same cost.

    Be wary of using USB drives to extend your storage. I’ve seen people do it and then deal with hassles and data loss. If you need more storage at some point build a NAS from a used server. My server is mostly used parts and has worked great. External drives are fine for offline backups.





  • As stated the outlet should be protected by GFCI so the moisture causing a short circuit or a personal electrical hazard shouldn’t be an issue.

    However from a humidity standpoint with the electronic components, most company’s will say something to the effect of no more that a certain humidity operating environment. Using the plug in the bathroom could theoretically shorten the life of the plug or cause undesirable operation.

    If you own your home you may be able to get one of the in the wiring box controllers like the Sonoff ZBMINIR2’s and use that to switch the outlet. This will absolutely depend on a couple factors and I am not an electrician. I also haven’t worked with the GFCI outlets much but regular outlets can have the plugs separated with one of them being always on and the other being switched. I have split an outlet and will probably do something similar in some others and plan to have one in my bathroom for charging my toothbrush and shaver. With the cover in place there should be little to no change in humidity in the box.

    I am using AFCI/GFCI breakers on all bedroom and wet location circuits so it’s not an issue for me. That is also an option since you would still keep the required protection and be able to use an old school outlet. I’ve seen and replaced the GFCI outlets that begin to catch fire when they are heavily loaded, I also wonder if they die seemingly for no reason due to bathroom humidity getting inside through the prong openings. Either way using the breakers let’s me use the heavy duty outlets in the bathroom since ladies and their hair tools have no issues with the outlets being loose all the time and they are rated for a full 20 amps for the flame throwing hair dryer.






    1. To “fix your life” you need to decide what is broken, make a plan, and stick to it.

    2. If you have mental health issues you need to address them. However an issue doesn’t just mean you can just blame that and do nothing, basically that means go to #1.

    3. Saying you are just bad at something and then not following through is a copout. You forget calendars and lists? You forget your cell phone in random places and then have to replace it too then right? No. Well any modern smart phone has a calendar and a to do list. Again return to #1.

    4. The next big one most people state is they don’t have the time. Again it’s a copout unless you are working 80 hours a week or have a multi hour daily commute. The truth is you don’t make the time, see statement #1.

    I’m dealing with the same stuff with my adult stepson. He works about 20 hours per week and complains about his job but won’t take the steps to learn new skills or get a driver’s license. There are 168 hours a week, in those 168 hours an average person sleeps 56 hours. That means there are 112 hours per week you are awake, subtract the number of hours you work and then figure out how many you are currently wasting to play games and watch TV or just goof off. Divide that time in half and dedicate that time to doing the crap you don’t like doing and get it done, then go learn a skill that will put you in a better job or make your life better.

    You have a lot of choices in life, but through action or inaction you make a decision. You can either make better decisions or accept the results of the decisions you make.

    It might sound harsh but the world isn’t going to hold your hand like a toddler, it is however going to kick you square in the face a few times. And believe me I know exactly how it feels.




  • Them sacrificing to have you is a copout. THEY made a decision and the result was your birth. After that they had a responsibility and I’m guessing they despised it. Then they took it out on you.

    I’m assuming that your sibling was treated better/differently from you and given me opportunities.

    Get some counseling and prepare to tell them that either the BS stops or you are moving on without them. This is especially important if you are already out on your own. All healthy relationships are give and take but the biggest key is healthy boundaries, if you set a boundary that abusive communication will to be tolerated and that you are prepared to move on without them they will be shocked and begin trying to argue with you and insult you. At that point walk away without saying a word. Break contact initially for at least a month and after that if they have contacted and seem apologetic make contact again with reinforce your boundary and the consequences.

    If they truly care they will make an effort to be decent. If they continue being abusive the odds they are ever going to change is low and you then need to make a decision on whether or not their being in your life is something you want to continue with.

    And go out and make some friends. Build a support system that will be there when you need it and understand that you also need to be willing to support them. I broke contact around 2002 and never got help or really made friends. I’m also very bad at dealing with people because of it.






  • Maybe that’s a thing where you area at then. I’ve worked with heating units that have a simple temp probe and a manual dial that I converted to be “smart” by taking the outdoor temperature into account and then ramp the supply temperature up as the outdoor temp went down. This was a system that supplied hot water to radiators in an apartment building that was converted from a hotel. We replaced a pair of steam engine sized steam boilers to a direct fire hot water system by replacing the steam to water heat exchanger.

    EVERY system I’ve worked on was the same, short the wires and it turns on. Anything beyond that is controlled by the heating unit. A simple thermostat just puts in the call by allowing the power to flow. When a system had multiple wires i.e. Heat and Cool plus fan you have 4 or more wires depending on the system capabilities. One supplies power or ground the others control fan, heat, or cool by being shorted to the power or ground wire. Sometimes there are multiple stages that are controlled by the thermostat sometimes they are controlled by the HVAC units built in controller. But MILLIONS of homes and businesses in the US work in a similar fashion and even without a thermostat installed a tech can short the needed wires and make them work.

    https://home.howstuffworks.com/home-thermostat.htm


  • The power being provided to the unit is just a side effect. More than likely 24vdc and a set of contacts. If you were to wire a simple toggle switch in and flip it on the heat would turn on.

    I’ve dealt with hundreds of thermostats they all work in a similar fashion the new ones just use multiple relays with a single power wire. The old school thermostats just used bimetal contacts or clock springs with a mercury relay. Modern ones use electromechanical or solid state relays. This includes things like the nest thermostats.



  • HomeAssistant will run on a Raspberry pi just fine but don’t expect to run a bunch of add-ons that way and things like Frigate with a few cameras will not work very well. So if you are not sure what you will be running in the future a mini pc is a good idea then you can install most any add-ons you like. The only thing you will need to pickup is a USB adapter for zigbee, z-wave, matter, or Bluetooth and if you decide to run cameras a Google Coral for object detection. You can run HomeAssistant using Docker however you will need to manage this much more than using HAOS. Unless you really want to deal with nitty gritty stuff you will lyrically want to use the HAOS version, https://community.home-assistant.io/t/home-assistant-installation-methods/207703

    While HomeAssistant has features for automatically doing things you will probably want to install NodeRed for more complex automations. It’s well worth it especially if you want something randomized. I use it to select my porch RGB LED strip sequences randomly as well as my RGB LED address light sequence. They come on automatically at sundown and change or turn off at specific times throughout the evening. The porch strip changes to a bright white when a motion sensor is triggered or when a tracked device comes into the home zone.

    I started of using 100% wifi based this and built all of my sensors based on ESP8266’s and ESP32’S using ESPHome. I’ve recently started adding zigbee since flashing stuff over is getting more difficult/nearly impossible outside of a few wifi based devices. I actually started using Sonoff ZBMINIR2’s for switches and plugs, the “switch” legs on the ZBMINIR2 can accept high voltage but when wired through a switch alone they are only 5v dc so I’ve used a couple to make in line cord switches with some simple push buttons in a hobby box for some lights I have. I’ve also installed them in receptacle boxes and turned a single outlet into a zigbee switched one. I’m using a sonoff zigbee dongle-e with ZHA as my coordinator and so far is been working perfectly.

    Adding a zigbee device using ZHA is as simple as opening up HomeAssistant going to the settings/devices/zigbee and clicking on add device. Set the name and location and you are done unless you need to change a setting in the device. The ZBMINIR2’s by default are setup to work with toggle switches but can be used with intermittent pulse buttons as well by just changing a setting for the particular device.

    My RGB LED strips are controlled using ESP32’s and WLED. My front porch strip is u hay under 1500 individual pixels and my address numbers are about 100.

    I currently track my power usage with ESPHome on an ESP32 with CircuitSetup’s split phase energy meter kit. But hopefully in the next couple months I will have an Enphase system in place that will handle the majority of that along with solar production. I also have a simple water meter with a pulse output connected to an ESP8266 that feeds data into HomeAssistant as well.

    If you are looking for premade sensors you can find a ton of different ones that are available for zigbee or z-wave but if there is something special you want search what ESPHome supports and add them in. I actually track vehicle battery voltage at home using an ESP8266 and ESPHome.

    One of the potential issues if you live in town with a lot of WiFi AP’s around you is that some of the zigbee channels can overlap with WiFi frequencies in the upper 2.4ghz range (channel 11 mainly) so that can cause some issues with stuff that is further from your coordinator, however many zigbee devices when hooked to mains power will also act as relays so it’s simple enough to add a ZBMINIR2 to a switch at an in between point. I’ve honestly never had an issue and I run multiple WiFi AP’s in my own home and have neighbors with a couple routers. Z-wave is not the same but I believe the devices run a bit more and z-wave is a part of the matter/thread ecosystem and has a much longer range (up to 800 meters) but runs slower as it’s in the 900mhz range. I highly suggest taking a look at the protocols and compare them for your particular needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-Wave#Comparison_to_other_protocols

    A small note about long range wireless signals. Having something that can operate 800 meters away since great, but remember there will be someone who also thinks it may be fun to try and hack stuff and the further your signal reaches the more chances it will be spotted. Years ago I used to encourage people to secure their ap’s by changing the SSID to something very colorful and change the passwords.