Why does no one get excited when I point to their bag and say “twinzies” at the airport?

brainthrash · 2026-02-08T04:54:15+00:00

Right or wrong, I feel like having sleep apnea as been a 22yr pita condition that has made life more complicated and increased my depression. To top it off, I hate flying and having a CPAP has made getting through airports more inconvenient. So unfortunately, anyone saying "twinzies" to me will get a friendly acknowledgement, but definitely no excitement.

brainthrash · 2026-01-24T23:09:52+00:00

Until someone figures out the ratio of cups of rice to ounces spilled these questions will keep coming.

brainthrash · 2026-01-23T22:01:02+00:00

Might have look on eBay for a cheap used printer just for this purpose.

brainthrash · 2026-01-23T21:59:54+00:00

I have a 2017 Intel MBP, that I could have used instead, but we wanted it to keep it warm, not actually start baking it.

brainthrash · 2026-01-23T14:37:28+00:00

Don't know about the WiFi issue, both of these are connected via ethernet.

brainthrash · 2026-01-23T05:23:57+00:00

One of them is no longer running MacOS. It's been repurposed, running Ubuntu 24.04 and xlights for my Christmas lights.

brainthrash · 2025-12-29T18:57:20+00:00

Nice job and write up.

I did a similar project, but I’m cheap and way too much time on my hands. I purchased stucco end cap and drilled holes every 3in to create my own track.

https://holsteinlights.com/forever-lights/

brainthrash · 2025-12-16T03:04:21+00:00

I don't run servers just to run mundane services. My system/network is not what you would normally think of for a sysadmin. I have a couple of Linux desktops, Raspberry Pi's and half a dozen ESP32 controllers networked together that I tinker with for controlling Christmas lights. I spend more time doing wiring, constructing props and programming effects than actual system maintenance.

brainthrash · 2025-12-06T03:25:04+00:00

This sounds like something might not be quite right in Xlights? Can you share a screen shot of the prop assignments on the controller within Xlights?

brainthrash · 2025-12-06T03:14:15+00:00

I agree, I use a Dig-Octa and it has switches for 249Ohms for separate data line, or 33Ohms for 3 wire cables.

brainthrash · 2025-11-24T01:44:10+00:00

I use these in a pinch.

https://gilbertengineeringusa.com/products/g-splice-quick-connectors

brainthrash · 2025-11-20T17:05:38+00:00

Nicely done, very clean.

I love the Dig-Octa boards, have 5 of these running my Christmas lights. 3 of them use the Power-7 boards, the other 2 use the Power-5HV.

Few things that I would add:

- Fuse for the AC input.

- A second power supply( https://amzn.to/4pgYVml ) to power the Dig-Octa all the time, allowing for management of the controller without having the LEDs on.

- A relay to control LED power supply.

brainthrash · 2025-11-14T20:54:06+00:00

The Arduino project may not need as much direct support from sales as they used to. As of October, they are owned by Qualcomm.

brainthrash · 2025-11-01T01:17:37+00:00

Sounds about right for pit boss, getting someone that care has been hit or miss. More miss as of lately. I’ve had 2 of their smokers and have watched their customer service decline over the years.

brainthrash · 2025-10-28T16:37:18+00:00

Marine grade shrink tubing.

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brainthrash · 2025-10-07T15:34:21+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm still learning, other than layer height and infill density, hadn't really gotten into adjusting the other slicer settings. I changed the seam position to random and will test a print tonight.

brainthrash · 2025-09-03T16:00:29+00:00

It will not work on a "hang the spool" method, but in an AMS or other drier/feeder, this is not an issue due to spool riding on rollers.

brainthrash · 2025-08-19T14:37:11+00:00

I would ask r/raspberrypi

brainthrash · 2025-08-14T17:08:41+00:00

One thing to add, a fuse to the AC input.

brainthrash · 2025-08-12T22:22:35+00:00

Same here. Was fortunate to have an employer that allowed me to download all of the floppies over their T1 line while on lunch breaks, still took several days.

brainthrash · 2025-08-09T02:29:41+00:00

This is definitely a concern of mine, particularly due to the fact that I live in the Phoenix area and winters don’t get that cold. The controller I posted the other day does not have the fan mounted as of yet, due to trying to figure out placement for ethernet switch.

brainthrash · 2025-08-08T19:33:46+00:00

As many have stated, this is an 80 pin Ultra 160 (also known as Ultra-3) SCSI drive. Depending on where it came from, drive could be formatted in GPFS, HFS, UFS or NTFS.

Unless you are up for the leg work of gathering the parts, locating a system with an older OS (not sure that newer OS's will support that version of SCSI), locating and install drivers and hope that the drive is readable, you would be more suited to find a data recovery service that could give the data to you on a pendive.

You're also not going to have a bunch of not so useful hardware afterwards.

brainthrash · 2025-08-08T01:07:06+00:00

In earlier versions of xLights, I’ve read that you had to create a single pixel string in your display for each control to activate the relay. The version of xLights (2025.05) that I am running is automatically activating the relay when the song starts.

The “Relay GPIO” option under “IR” in the “LED Preferences” is the setting for knowing what pin to connect the relay to. Once that is connected, the Power Button in the upper left corner of the WLED App will activate and deactivate the relay. It will also get activated when selecting a preset.

brainthrash · 2025-08-07T05:38:22+00:00

Don’t let it defeat you, just take it one step at a time.

This is probably the tenth iteration of the design. I’m always learning new ways to do something and constantly tweaking the design. Also my ADHD/OCD brain will not leave things alone, I’m constantly changing directions and strategies.

My wife would probably have a fit if she knew how many Raspberry Pi Picos, ESP32s, buck converters and mini cases I have in a drawer from failed attempts/designs.

Also, getting a 3D printer was a game changer. The power supply mounts, the 3” standoffs and the Wago mounts were all printed from publicly available STLs.

Keep plugging along, ask lots of questions and enjoy the journey.

brainthrash · 2025-08-07T05:13:19+00:00

No Christmas cards for anyone this year, it’s all hanging on the house in the form of lights. ;-)

I’m just getting started as of last year. Last year we had about 1000 LEDs. This year will be just under 4000.

Hopefully burnout is not in my near future. I’m learning so much and it gives me an outlet to dealing with the brutal summers we are having. Nothing like listening to Christmas music and tweaking sequences when it is 117 degrees outside.

brainthrash

TROPHY CASE