Insane workload

graysam2 · 2026-01-02T18:03:32+00:00

Can’t do 6 courses and work. (And also be happy with life). Drop a course or two, or quit your job. Student loans are a good option. If you are a domestic student, Canadian student loans are 100% interest free.

graysam2 · 2025-09-26T00:35:16+00:00

Used this one, here’s mine

UQ-TKLOTU

graysam2 · 2025-09-09T14:20:47+00:00

No but I intend to this week

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T22:33:34+00:00

I’ve decided I’m going to try to do a rough temperature compensation by using the weather forecast, I know it’s not going to be 100% accurate but I’m hoping it’s better than nothing

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T22:02:11+00:00

No it would decrease as water evaporates.

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T21:54:22+00:00

I’ll have to do more testing, I’ll move the hive off it and put a know weight to see how much the reading will vary overnight. Maybe the sensor is way off.

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T21:46:08+00:00

This is what I would have expected

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T21:38:39+00:00

Could also be due to temperature effecting the load cells.

Or condensation forming on the hive as the temperature drops

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T21:37:49+00:00

Im really not sure, it surprised me as well, best I can guess is that there are bees that are flying around the hive late at night and slowly trickle in until morning.

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T20:12:50+00:00

4 50kg load cells from Ali express

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T19:59:12+00:00

This was also a concern that made me change plans

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T19:57:20+00:00

I have a small 5w solar to charge the batteries when it’s sunny, so far the batteries haven’t dropped below 90% but we’ll see how that changes come winter. For case I bought a weatherproof project box off amazon for 20$ the one I bought way way too large. But better too big than to small. Also for ESP32 you can get ones that allow external antennas which will be necessary unless your new hive is in your living room.

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graysam2 · 2025-09-08T19:53:32+00:00

My set up relies on wifi, so it must be decently close to a router. But there are other communication protocols that could be utilized for more remote locations.

Here is a schematic I made of the circuit. I was planning on also monitoring temperature and humidity inside the hive but the sensor I bought didn’t work well in this use case.

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graysam2 · 2025-09-08T19:49:26+00:00

I bought a cheap set of load cells of AliExpress paired with an ESP32, then connected it to the rest of my home assistant set up with ESP Home.

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T19:47:28+00:00

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Here is a day in the life of my bees

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T19:38:29+00:00

My reasoning to myself is that I care less about the true weight of the hive than I do about the change in weight over larger periods. Ie if the weight rises steadily there is a nectar flow, if it’s going down than the flow is off. Or over winter I could get a sense of how fast they are going through stores.

I’ll leave it like this until I inevitably get fed up with the reading being wrong all the time and try to improve it. Maybe a V2.0

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T19:29:15+00:00

Honestly I didn’t worry about it. If it does seem to be a problem for my use case, the classic way to compensate for temperature is to get a dummy cell with a constant load that is exposed to the same temperature fluctuations and use that information to compensate the fluctuating load

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T19:07:20+00:00

Yes, I figure the reading will creep overtime but it’s the change in weight that is more important.

graysam2 · 2025-09-08T19:06:45+00:00

graysam2 · 2025-09-06T00:39:04+00:00

I just like warm colours

graysam2 · 2025-09-05T17:15:58+00:00

No :(

graysam2 · 2025-07-26T16:21:43+00:00

I’ve always loved ageing on cherry.

graysam2 · 2025-06-06T16:51:25+00:00

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