Area
Home Automation & Electronics
Home Assistant, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, sensors, control, measurement and simple circuits; photovoltaics, energy metering, self-consumption, RCE prices and heating control.
- Budding Controlling a Dimplex VFMi storage heater without its original controller Charging and discharging are two independent circuits: a contactor switches the heating elements, a thermostat runs the fan, and the ED signal only caps the charge.
- Budding Quieting a buzzing transformer in an APC Back-UPS CS 500 The charging transformer’s loose core was buzzing. A drop of cyanoacrylate in the gap, and now you can only hear it from a metre away.
- Budding A GPS module sent garbage instead of NMEA: it was RS-232, not TTL Repeatable garbage on the serial port and −5 V on a data line. An RS-232-to-TTL converter fixed it.
- Budding Fixing a tunable-white LED ceiling lamp by replacing its insides The driver in a Wofi tunable-white lamp died. Instead of hunting for the faulty transistor, I fitted a 24 V supply, a CCT controller with a remote and a COB strip – for about 120 PLN.
- Budding Zigbee flood sensors in Home Assistant Aqara sensors on ZHA with a SONOFF coordinator: they work, but need solid coverage and up-to-date coordinator firmware.
- Budding Powering a Raspberry Pi from a 24 V AC irrigation line Rectified 24 V AC gives about 35 V DC – too much for typical buck modules. And the under-voltage warning turned out to be the USB cable’s fault.
- Budding How much power a hybrid inverter burns while doing nothing Around 100 W just to stay on is 2.4 kWh a day. With a small PV system, in winter a home battery can cost more than it saves.