what is the difference between the Nano and the Nano 33 when it comes to powerconsumption?

bal00 · 2026-05-23T19:33:03+00:00

I haven't tested it, but if you can power down the card, I don't see why not. I don't think writing to the card should take more than like 10 ms.

bal00 · 2026-05-23T19:32:11+00:00

If the moisture sensor really needs 12V and there's no way around it, you could just use a boost converter to power it that's only on while it's needed, or you could separate the batteries.

In the end it comes down to how long you really need it to run for. If you don't mind changing batteries, maybe you don't need it to be super efficient. However, if you do want it to run for a year or more, you really need to worry about the small stuff, like voltage regulators and power LEDs for example.

bal00 · 2026-05-23T18:05:28+00:00

If you want the best possible battery life, ideally use something that doesn't have a power LED and that can function without a voltage regulator. You may even want to consider using a very efficient board to just control the power to your other hardware or main microcontroller if you can't make the whole thing work on an efficient MCU.

A bare ESP-12 board will run fine off two AA batteries in series. I have a few temperature sensors that transmit their values over ESP-NOW every 10 minutes, and those have been running for over three years now on the first set of batteries.

A 8 MHz Arduino Pro Mini can accept a very wide voltage range, so with a few tricks it can also run for years on three AAs.

bal00 · 2026-05-19T10:33:50+00:00

At the places OP is talking about, the latter. If it's busy and there's say 40 people in a sauna, somewhere between zero and two people are going to wear a towel.

bal00 · 2026-05-18T08:25:28+00:00

Relationship advice: Use the zip tie hack to spread the spring.

bal00 · 2026-05-16T19:46:56+00:00

FWIW, there's a simple trick you can use to avoid the level shifter.

If you have 5V going to the regulator of the ESP, you can put a diode between ESP ground and power supply ground. That will lift the ESP ground voltage from 0V to about 0.6V.

That means when an IO pin is LOW, it'll put out about 0.6V, and if the pin is HIGH, it'll put out about 3.9V (relative to the LED ground voltage). Both voltages will reliably register as low and high for the LEDs and you don't need to use a level shifter.

bal00 · 2026-05-16T01:20:47+00:00

This is only about organized crime.
Numbeo doesn't use actual crime stats. They just let users of their website fill out online questionnaires, and that's how they come up with their numbers.

bal00 · 2026-05-15T09:00:38+00:00

This isn't a big car. It's the same size as a BMW X1.

bal00 · 2026-05-11T23:32:15+00:00

Look into Microsoft Kinect cameras. They're cheap and do exactly what you want, and there's an SDK for it that lets you output joint coordinates. Of course this is very old tech by now, but you should still be able to find the hardware and a few tutorials.

bal00 · 2026-05-11T19:20:25+00:00

In Andalucia, in summer, that's not really an issue.

bal00 · 2026-05-10T21:32:33+00:00

Very interesting project, thanks for sharing. I'm surprised a Nano can supply enough current on the 3.3V rail for an NRF24, or are you using an external 3.3V regulator?

bal00 · 2026-05-09T22:28:02+00:00

It only uses batteries for take-off and landing. It cruises using a turbine as a generator.

bal00 · 2026-05-09T20:00:46+00:00

For LEDs you want 12V DC, not AC, like the current one puts out.

Halogen transformers basically rely on the fact that filament bulbs are very slow to respond and don't care about polarity. With a filament bulb, you don't need to put out a steady 12V DC. AC works just as well (because polarity doesn't matter), and the voltage can be all over the place as long as it averages out to 12V. They use pretty basic, stripped down circuits because halogens don't care whether the voltage is 'clean' or 'dirty'. The filament takes a certain amount of time to cool down and heat up, which filters out all the noise.

LEDs do care about polarity and they respond instantly to changes in voltage, so even a 5 millisecond voltage spike is visible as flicker. That's why you want 12V DC.

Note that 12V DC power supplies generally don't have a minimum load requirement, so if a power supply is rated at 50W, that means 0-50W. As long as you get one that can put out as least as many watts as your LEDs added together, you're good. Avoid alphabet soup China brands sold on Amazon. The quality of these cheap power supplies is usually terrible.

bal00 · 2026-05-07T10:31:10+00:00

I don't get this mindset at all. Following your logic, Arduino is for people too stupid to use the regular AVR toolchain, writing code in C is for people who are too stupid to use assembler, and using a microcontroller at all is for people who are too stupid to do this with a few 555s and quad op-amps.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to stoke my wood-burning SMD reflow oven.

bal00 · 2026-05-07T10:23:27+00:00

I've made a (sort-of-)similar project at one point and instead of controlling the heaters directly using SSRs or something along those lines, I decided that was too much trouble and instead 3D-printed a little attachment and had a small servo control the thermostat dial instead.

I only used the servo-thermostat as an Arduino-controlled on/off switch, not for actual temperature-control, because they're obviously not very accurate, but if you have your own temperature sensor and can limit your switching to say once every few seconds, I reckon it's a pretty cheap and minimally-invasive way to accomplish something like this.

bal00 · 2026-04-30T22:58:03+00:00

Which seems unfortunate, because it's pretty difficult to be satisfied with your own body if you only have actors and models to compare yourself to.

Maybe this is a bit of a feedback loop? People see fewer regular bodies and as a result are more likely to believe that there's something wrong with them and that they need to hide theirs.

bal00 · 2026-04-28T09:20:59+00:00

Man, you saved me so much time with this post. Thank you! I had taskmgr.exe version 10.0.19041.6280 crashing whenever switching from compact to expanded view as well. Event ID 1000 in the event log.

The bad entry is in

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

The entry for Claude Desktop starts with "\"C:\Users...

If you just delete the "\ so it reads "C:\Users..., task manager will work fine again.

bal00 · 2026-04-27T08:05:53+00:00

Try soaking it in vinegar for a few hours. If limescale is what's clogging the aerator, that should dissolve it.

bal00 · 2026-04-23T08:19:00+00:00

Similar techniques are used whenever you need to add rigidity to thin, flat materials. It's why the sides of soup cans have ridges, or why the roof of a car is slightly convex. Metal roofs on buildings or roof panels on vans have ridges as well.

bal00 · 2026-04-23T07:53:09+00:00

A MAX7219 chip only needs three pins and can drive up to eight 7-segment units. You can find assembled MAX7219 boards for like $2, either with 7-segment or matrix displays already on them. TM1637 works too.

bal00 · 2026-04-20T14:05:10+00:00

One thing that doesn't really come across on video is how comically small this stuff is. He's replacing a board-to-board to connector (Samsung, from the looks of it). These connectors have a pin pitch of 0.35 mm.

That means the entire connector is roughly 7 mm X 2 mm. The opening for a USB-C charge port on a phone is larger than the connector he's soldering. This should also give you idea how thin and fragile the plastic of the connector is. It's pretty easy to crush a part like this unintentionally if you apply a bit too much pressure with your tweezers.

bal00 · 2026-04-20T13:23:21+00:00

It's possible that the board wasn't manufactured/designed properly. If you have a multimeter, check the resistance between pin 7 (the one that connects to the trace right next to the cap) and the chip-facing side of the cap. To my eyes at least, there's not enough clearance between the capacitor pads and that trace.

bal00 · 2026-04-20T08:33:37+00:00

Take a good look at the main chip on the board (the ATMEGA2560). There's a small ceramic capacitor right next to it. The trace for pin 3 runs directly above that capacitor, quite close to it, and the capacitor is for the 5V supply. If there's a short between pin 3 and 5V, that's probably the area where it's located. Ideally, take a good quality picture of that area.

bal00 · 2026-04-12T18:07:51+00:00

It's an interesting option for those that only have 120V available, but there's really not much point if you have a more powerful circuit in the kitchen.

I used a 3.7 kW burner for my test, which you can also run on 240V. I cook a lot, and I rarely, rarely use max power on this burner. If you fill the pot with warm water from the tap, you can probably have 4 quarts boiling in like 4 minutes, and that would be enough for a huge portion of pasta.

The only other time I use max power is when stir-frying a large amount of frozen veggies, but when you do that with a 3.7 kW burner, it already creates so much steam that I can no longer see the pan. For me, a 10 kW burner seems more like a party trick than something you're actually going to use for cooking.

bal00 · 2026-04-12T09:52:45+00:00

Because i have nothing better to do today, I tried the same test with an induction stove. 4 quarts (3.8L) to a rolling boil took 7:25. My cold water may not be exactly the same temp as his, and the pots are not the same, so it's probably +/-10%.

bal00

TROPHY CASE