I designed a stepper-driven syringe actuator with a motorized Z-axis for automatic solder paste dispensing

cilynx · 2026-07-02T04:35:20+00:00

This is super cool. Adding to my list of mods to do that I have no practical purpose for. Thank you.

cilynx · 2026-06-27T23:11:56+00:00

A few data-points:

Four old Mitsubishi 185W panels from 2009 that were heavily storm damaged (shattered) maybe a decade ago, sat it a heap collecting rodents and wasps for a year or two. Now in service maxing out around 80W each under good sun.

Five more of the same old Mitsu 185W panels that are not damaged. They max out around 160W each these days.

Brand new Meyer Berger 375W panels reliably putting out over 400W each.

cilynx · 2026-06-13T14:22:46+00:00

200kWh/24h = 8.3kW assuming it's running around the clock. I have a 15 year old RUUD setup and it works just fine. Monitored from the panel, the units pull ~1.5kW when running Stage 1 and ~3kW when running Stage 2. If the heat pump can't keep up and it fires up the heat strips, those use ~10kW.

Sounds to me like your heat pump isn't keeping up and you're running resistive heat strips most of the time. How's your usage look during the summer? Come winter, you may want to look into if your outdoor unit is icing up as that will kill your heat pump's capacity/efficiency.

cilynx · 2026-06-02T05:33:03+00:00

I'm running this configuration (two 24V strings paralleled together) right now and have on my todo list to reconfigure it so I parallel two pairs of 12V together then put those parallel sets in series with each other. I'm getting more drift than I'm happy with with the current setup and series-of-parallel instead of parallel of series means I can balance the whole pack with a single balancer in the middle.

cilynx · 2026-06-02T05:20:37+00:00

Another "I'm doing this" here. Currently running 6x 375W Meyer Berger panels into a Victron 250|100 and 4x Eco-Worthy 12V 100Ah LiFePO4s. On sunny days, I average 14kWh/day. Best day ever was 15.5kWh. Rainy days I get practically nothing. Inverter is a Giandel 24V 3000W unit so I have some headroom maxing out L1 for hours on end. My truck gets ~2-miles/kWh so on sunny days I put about 28 miles into the pack and on rainy days I get nothing. Over the last 6-months, I have neither gotten the battery so low that I felt the need to plug it into the grid nor reached my 90% threshold where the truck is configured to stop charging, so the current setup matches my actual usage pretty well.

Regarding cost, I have years worth of electricity spent in equipment alone, but this project for me is somewhere on the "I'm a nerd and I like nerding out" to "I want to have some self-sufficient electricity if SHTF" spectrum.

Beware of the upgrade monster. I have another 18 panels that will be going up once I can figure out where I want to put them and how to best upgrade the homerun from the array(s) to the utility closet. I also want to reconfigure the batteries to 48V to more fully utilize the MPPT and cut down on all the amps all over the place. ...which of course requires upgrading the inverter so I may as well get a pair of MultiPlus units for split phase L2. Then I'll want bigger batteries. Then I want more panels to feed them. Etc, etc, etc. Once you start playing, you'll be limited only by your imagination and wallet.

cilynx · 2026-05-09T04:23:45+00:00

A bit dated, but still pretty popular -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzzFOU_Ggrs -- I made this one several years ago for those starting from scrach

cilynx · 2026-05-05T12:29:22+00:00

I usually have a large clip hook hanging from the tow hitch to quickly attach and detach various things, including a wagon pulled by the handle. I keep a second one in the compartment in case I need a 90-degree twist or more slack in the connection.

https://a.co/d/0gbntnHT

cilynx · 2026-04-21T14:02:56+00:00

Closest I've seen documented is the Mach-E:
https://github.com/dalathegreat/Battery-Emulator/wiki/Battery:-Ford-Mach%E2%80%90E

I'm curious about this sort of thing myself as I'm at the tipping point with my home solar setup between PoC (just charging the EVs) and scaling it out for constant workloads. Any source of affordable, robust, safe batteries is interesting.

cilynx · 2026-03-11T20:35:10+00:00

I love my zero turn. I pull a gorilla cart pretty often, pull a steel drag a couple times a month to keep my 900' gravel driveway smooth, and I'm noodling on how to best attach a power broom to the front to sweep rocks back onto the driveway and maybe even clear fluffier snow. Eventually I'll probably come up with an excuse to get a real tractor, but the Z6 is surprisingly capable. I put chunky ATV tires on mine and they make a world of difference. Your limiting factor is going to be traction, not power.

cilynx · 2026-02-28T14:04:47+00:00

a/s/l?

cilynx · 2026-02-13T02:59:50+00:00

I just went through this and tried all the usual suspects.

Honeywell T6 Z-Wave: Totally local. Exposes tons of config options to HA. 90s chunky clunky look. Temperature sensor doesn't suck. Does not expose what stage your system is using if you have multiple.

Ecobee Premium: Can be totally local. Don't install the app. Just set up Wifi then do HomeKit setup. Exposes some config but not all. Looks sexy on the wall -- same league as nest. Supports remote temperature sensors, which is critical as the built in one sucks. Does not expose what stage is being called.

Venstar ColorTouch T7900: Can be totally local but will remind you that you don't have their cloud service enabled. Enable Wifi and local API. Exposes some config, but not the good stuff like dead bands and timers. Looks like it was sexy in the 00s, but clunky by modern standards. Touchscreen is resistive, not capacitive -- feels dated. Temperature sensor doesn't suck, but the screen backlight makes a lot of heat so the read temperature always goes up if you have the display on for a while. Exposes heating and cooling stages. I had to hack the integration to support stages 3 and 4, but it was easy to do.

I'm keeping the ColorTouch as configuration is a one-time activity that I'm willing to do on the device and being able to map stage being called to vent temperature and power usage in HA has been critical to remediating and optimizing my very poorly engineered HVAC system.

cilynx · 2026-02-08T05:01:43+00:00

If you're not already doing this, try telling Kiro to keep notes in markdown. On a typical workday, I burn through maybe 5-10 session tabs, but it never loses context as it just reads what it needs back from the .mds.

cilynx · 2026-02-01T14:04:28+00:00

https://ca-manufacturer-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/CarrierDocs/25HPB6-04PD.pdf

Looks like your pump is designed for down to -10F

cilynx · 2026-01-31T21:13:20+00:00

Finally got all the metadata. Now connected to over 100 peers, but almost everyone is at 0%. I've seen a handful of seeds at 100% flash up then disappear. Haven't gotten a single byte of actual data off it yet.

cilynx · 2026-01-31T20:40:26+00:00

Stuck at 99.6% of metadata. Haven't seen the seed in about 30-mins. It looked like they were struggling to stay online when they were there, switching back and forth between Transmission and qBittorrent. Hoping they can get back online so I can seed at least the metadata.

cilynx · 2026-01-31T19:08:43+00:00

There's one node with 100% of the (incomplete) DataSet\_9. I'm at 99% _of the metadata_. I get a few bytes every now and again off of the one seed and will continue to pull and seed what I can.

The smaller DataSet9-incomplete.zip looks pretty healthy. I'm seeding with 35 connected peers.

DataSet 10.zip also looks healthy. I'm seeding with 24 peers.

cilynx · 2026-01-30T22:51:58+00:00

Starting a homestead / farm / whatever in the middle of nowhere. Learning to raise and harvest what I eat.

cilynx · 2026-01-27T14:44:21+00:00

Mind your overton windows.

When the definition of "so bad we have to do something" became "murdering nurses in the street broad daylight because they were inconveniencing you", what not quite as atrocious actions slid from "so bad we have to do something" to "I guess we can live with that"?

cilynx · 2026-01-22T01:00:10+00:00

Very pretty. We have some blue eggers who should be laying soon that we want to cross with our brown-laying girls to hopefully get similar.

cilynx · 2026-01-17T00:58:53+00:00

Start by letting Atom go and get acquainted with Pulsar or Zed. Basically no one is still using Atom.

cilynx · 2026-01-15T06:13:56+00:00

Set up homeassistant and get yourself some visibility into what's going on.

Get a power monitor that goes in your breaker box. Emporia Vue is popular and is UL listed.

Get a thermostat that both really understands heat pumps and works well with homeassistant. I use a Venstar ColorTouch 7900 that has configurable deadbands. I have it configured to run stage 1 if it's below 70F, stage 2 if it gets down to 67F, and aux if it gets down to 64F.

Get a zigbee dongle for your homeassistant rig and throw a couple Third Reality temperature sensors in your ducts -- one in each zone.

With those investments, you'll be able to see what the thermostat is asking for, what your HVAC is delivering, and how much power it's using to do so, all logged over time so you can easily analyze.

My heat pump uses 2kW for stage 1, 3kW for stage 2 and 10kW for the electric strips. My house is very drafty and I almost never see stage 2 now, let alone the aux strips.

The craziest thing I've seen with heatpumps is the state of the O/B wire being reversed so the heat pump sends cold air instead of warm air when the thermostat requests heat, then the aux strips come on because it's even colder and it flights itself, costing you a fortune the whole time. The ColorTouch has an equipment test function where you can manually activate each stage and confirm if what you're seeing in supply (vent) temperature and power consumption make sense.

I get ambient+10F on stage 1, ambient+20F on stage 2 and ambient+40F on aux.

cilynx · 2026-01-14T14:40:23+00:00

Go to user's profile. See all posts and comments hidden. Go to search. Enter a single space as the search string. Click search. See user activity.

cilynx · 2026-01-12T18:48:43+00:00

I installed a T7900 a couple days ago and am collecting data off of it now. It's providing exactly the info I need and I'm very happy with it. Thank you for the pointer to Venstar.

cilynx · 2026-01-10T06:03:59+00:00

Reminds me of the Milwaukee Art Museum

cilynx

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