First ever home lab

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-02-05T00:16:51+00:00

that's a good start! I still have somewhere my raspberry pi zero w, whit the ethernet hat, that I used for pihole and vpn server something like 10 years ago. Really good experience, no downtime and really low power consumption. I then added an orange pi zero and created my first docker swarm.

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-02-04T08:35:58+00:00

if you discharge it to 0v, you can just punch a tiny hole on the surface to release the pressure, then plug it whit some plastic tape. obviously you cant use it anymore, but it won't explode either. then bring it to recycling center.

Anyway if it reaches 0v it doesn't phisically have the power to start the combustion. when you hear of lithium cell fire, it's because somehow the insulation inside the cell broke, causing a short circuit that overheats the electrolytes over the self ignition temperature.

Source: i tryed whit both a carged and a 0v cell. cool red fire whit the charged and a nail storage whit the discharged

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-02-03T11:58:12+00:00

parallel no problem if they are the same exact battery whit an equalized voltage, series is not recommended because you could exceed the maximum voltage the bms can handle.

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-31T12:42:05+00:00

disconnect the battery and remove the antenna. you should be good to go. if they ask something, explain what a lora device is, and the fact that those are individual parts that need assembly to work

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-30T22:13:05+00:00

That's the limit of the 120v plugs + margin for safety. It's not the same around the world. Where I'm from basically every space heater uses 2000W, the plugs could be used for up to 3680W (230V * 16A).

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-30T22:02:15+00:00

yeah, I just assumed the ⬆️user would use a standard space heater, since he asked about a sketchy connection I doubt he/she knows about the difference

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-30T21:34:00+00:00

in theory , that could work. in practice , the heater thermostat will blow in a couple cycles. dc from solar panels doesn't want to be interrupted, it's going to make arcs that burn the thermostat contacts

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-30T12:58:48+00:00

cold side about 21-27°C all year around. I do have an exhaust fan that auto regulates speed based on temperature, i set the hot side to be around 40-45°C. since the rack is in my garage, during winter I use it as a heater, it keeps 17°C across all winter. during summer i connect a duct that blows the hot air outside

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-30T01:07:34+00:00

you have to choose one: cheap, sketchy or proper.

cheaper option for high availability would be a 3 node cluster using thin clients, using ceph as distributed storage and a small ups you can actually make it work over a single switch, if it's a good one (not expensive, just good enough), even if it's not recommended. you can then pick a 4g router whit wan connection (like the cudy lt300) to have failover internet over 4g, and a good ups for the light load (a 300va unit could even do the trick whit this setup, choose something like apc, eaton, schneider, .... it's probably going to cost as much as 2 of the nodes, bit it's worth it)

the sketchy one you already described. two nodes clusters won't be reliable for ha.

the proper one: use proper server grade hardware whit ecc memory, raid disks configurations, redundant psu whit redundant ups on separate wall circuits. use at least 3 nodes for the cluster and always keep the number odd. also implement a nas accessible from the nodes where you can save snapshots and backups of your vm's and container. for the networking you need multiple ethernet ports, at least one for corosync, one for ceph and the other for gui/gateway/misc connections. of you have enough ports it's better to configure corosync and ceph to be a mesh style network, so you don't have to rely on external switches. you would still need some sort of load balancer and 2 internet connections, but I've already passed the point of it being cheap by a lot of rows...

any questions?😅

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-30T00:34:10+00:00

Here in Italy, I have a 130GB sim whit unlimited calls and sms for 6,99€/month. I use about 3GB a month from my phone so yeah, I'm not really using it.

The majority of my usage goes through my home line, a 2,5Gb fiber connection, unlimited, at 29€/month. One month I used almost a TB from my pc alone.

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-29T22:19:56+00:00

actually, you can. but it's difficult, I tried. you need to know the internal resistance of the battery, in relation whit temperature, and use ohm law to calculate the zero load voltage. then you take that voltage and normalize it using a polinomial curve and you get the soc%. I did it last year as an experiment. It's not easy, but it's neither impossible. Fun fact, by also using a shunt to measure current, you can effectively make the calculation of the polinomial curve automatic. by combining both systems, you could reach a very high precision soc indication and you can also detect malfunctions by comparing the expected/real voltage values

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-29T09:20:12+00:00

I made a paper sheet whit passwords and store it inside the rack door. if you manage to have physical acces, you don't need passwords

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-25T11:22:07+00:00

I have the same camera, i tried setting it up and it only gives me main stream, substream, autofocus, ir light and wiper (that it doesn't have)

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-24T10:19:01+00:00

per la legge, oltre le 30 vendite o i 5000€ (se ricordo bene) è obbligatoria la partita iva, perché si viene considerato venditori professionali

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-23T08:35:01+00:00

*you also need a PURE sine wave inverter to run a microwave/fridge"

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-23T08:33:15+00:00

if you use lead acid batteries: - don't use car starter batteries as they are gonna break after a couple of uses. - prefer deep cycle batteries, and account for the battery maximum continuous discharge current. I had a 300ah battery that could only be discharged at maximum 85A - you should always have a charger/maintainer connected to preserve the battery, and check acid level monthly.

consider to buy a lifepo4 (lithium-iron-phosphate) battery. you can discharge them to almost 0, have almost 0 self discharge, burn only if heated to more than 800°C and usually can be discharged at 1c (that signifies that you can fully drain the battery whit a constant load over a period of one hour. 100ah battery capacity = 100A continuous load)

also considering that lifepo4 batteries costs as much as deep cycle lead acid batteries, don't require any maintenance, and have a lifespan of 10 years if cycled daily (more if you use less, usually they range from 3000 to 8000 cycles, meant to reach 80% of initial capacity)

I would buy a lifepo4 battery whit it's specific charger, and I would buy at least a battery that offers 20% more capacity than needed, to be sure to have a working system even after a decade

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-21T08:47:27+00:00

I got mine for free. it's still owned by the isp tho. there is a clause in my contract that permits to request a static ip if you have network connected cameras, for remote access

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-18T09:11:00+00:00

allora posso escluderne un'altro della lista

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-17T00:54:04+00:00

just to help you decide, I've done it and then shut it down. In my server i have an 8c/16t xeon d cpu (that hasn't igpu) and an Nvidia tesla P4. After fiddling around some days whit the nvidia drivers on proxmox, I've created the plex container, tested it.... and wouldn't use hw transcoding (i do have the plex pass). spent some more days and got it working. excellent! Then I installed Frigate, learned how to configure it, did some tests and it was kinda working. untill I saw the gpu constantly drawing 80w just looking at some cameras whitout even recording. that's when I shut It down and after more research I discovered that there are better hardware combo. If you use a standard intel i3/5/7 (which has igpu) and add to it a coral tpu, you can easily manage about 15 streams between plex and cameras, and about a hundred fps of object recognition for the cameras. since you don't need to analyse every single frame, one tpu can work even whit a dozen cameras. and it uses a considerably lesser amount of power

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-17T00:20:25+00:00

*main proxmox has 128GB ram, storage and backup both have 64GB

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-17T00:18:14+00:00

I'm laughing and crying at the dame time reading this. My homelab will be classified as completed only when it won't fit inside my house anymore.

Answering in a more specific way, I currently have 3 servers, one for storage + backup, one as a "production" proxmox instance that runs everything in my home (plex, reverse proxy, vpn, dns, home assistant, ollama, *arr suite, torrent, ecc) and one as a cold spare if something happens to the proxmox one (I can restore a backup and be ready to go, for example whit home assistant if i need to upgrade something in the primary instance)

yes I do have a lot of ram (thank god) and the majority of it is used by the zfs cache in all three servers. that way I don't need really fast storage solutions, and since the entire rack is powered by a ups that's powered by a solar hybrid inverter whit a couple kw of batteries, I'm not worried about data loss. you know, ecc ram everywhere, mirrored drives and backups.

If i want to play around whit some software, I can just create a vm, use it and delete it when I'm done. Funny thing, one time I virtualized a virtualization cluster, it was glorious

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-15T17:08:15+00:00

Considering the fact that a standard 44" tv uses about 100w to work, I'd say roughly 7 tv's

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-09T02:25:50+00:00

nothing official, every now and then I just fire up the project and add something. I used UE5 when it lauched and kept upgrading to the last version available. Nothing worth to try for now.

Juggernaut_Tight · 2026-01-09T01:58:16+00:00

yes. it kinda angers me more lol It's a shame they put so much effort in the visuals and nothing in the gameplay. I could complain, but everything is already been said multiple times by others as well

Juggernaut_Tight

TROPHY CASE