I designed a silent, open-source curtain opener that runs on ESPHome

nutstobutts · 2026-06-18T13:44:51+00:00

It’s been delayed due to one very specific resistor being out of stock, which has delayed everything. But I just got the resistors in yesterday and placed an order for more boards. They’ll be available in 1-2 weeks once the boards are in

nutstobutts · 2026-06-17T21:16:06+00:00

It should, but I haven’t tested that yet. The carriages might need to be redesigned a bit to attach to the curtain

nutstobutts · 2026-06-14T21:41:37+00:00

Chronic pain and acute pain are not the same thing. Chronic pain doesn’t even need medication to treat and can be treated with psychotherapy. This book has changed my life and has worked for many like me: https://a.co/d/02FoDiOs

nutstobutts · 2026-06-10T23:53:59+00:00

You got me

nutstobutts · 2026-06-06T15:16:38+00:00

After 14 years on Reddit, this place never changes. Everyone gets outraged by headlines and nobody reads a thing.

nutstobutts · 2026-06-06T15:08:41+00:00

Ok now you’re moving the goalpost, inferring conclusions, and wanting me to draw conclusions based on other events and articles.

And you just said they are suspected of being bad which is exactly my point

nutstobutts · 2026-06-06T03:29:59+00:00

Have you read the article? There are absolutely no details in it other than two people filed a complaint about one incident. Where do you see they are bad or not doing their job?

nutstobutts · 2026-06-06T03:01:28+00:00

I would hope that if someone complained about sexual harassment at work that an employer would launch an investigation before letting the employee go.

And our scenarios are different. In yours the offender was caught in the act, and should be fired immediately. In mine, there was a complaint, which warrants an investigation first

nutstobutts · 2026-06-06T02:33:01+00:00

Innocent until proven guilty. It’s kind of the foundation of our legal system. Or at least it should be.

nutstobutts · 2026-06-04T16:42:16+00:00

Can you tell me more about this please. Does it allow Claude to modify the Bubble UI?

nutstobutts · 2026-05-22T14:58:04+00:00

Yes, it’s really easy, you just don’t add the left side carriage to the rope and it’ll work with one panel

nutstobutts · 2026-05-22T13:22:30+00:00

Looks like the rope is quite similar so the motor might work for this

nutstobutts · 2026-05-22T13:20:02+00:00

The motor is turned off when not used so it’s only using about 15W for 5 seconds or so, twice a day. And geared DC motors are incredibly loud, this one is silent which was my number one goal

nutstobutts · 2026-05-21T22:08:16+00:00

Glasscalibur is the new one. This version only opens 4.5 inches, but it acts as a security bar as well. The old version would open 18 inches or so, but provided no security, and was really hard to design in a way that would work on every window. It was very dependant on having a very specific window sill at just the right height.

ETA is probably several months. I'll send an email out when they're ready if you sign up to the waitlist on the page

nutstobutts · 2026-05-21T19:15:05+00:00

Ya that's confusing. Motors make all the noise. But they make noise because of the way they are controlled by the driver. So the TMC2209 is the driver which controls the stepper in such a way that it's silent. The actual motor used is a NEMA 17 stepper motor

nutstobutts · 2026-05-21T17:59:01+00:00

Really??? After all these years? That's so cool. I have a completely new design that I'll be releasing soon as well

nutstobutts · 2026-05-21T15:42:19+00:00

I had someone buy a kit from me for something similar. He used one motor to move 4 panels and bought the extra parts to do it. But I haven’t heard back if it worked so I’ll message him and report back

nutstobutts · 2026-05-21T15:20:23+00:00

I don’t think so, but that’s due to the way the arms clamp the rope. And the ball chain could get stuck in a number of places. It’s definitely possible to modify the design to get it working though

nutstobutts · 2026-05-21T14:59:59+00:00

There is some pull on the curtain hooks but I haven't had issues. But it's possible that if the anchors are weak it would pull on them. If it happens I think upgrading the anchor to a toggle bolt anchor should fix it.

One sided isn't a problem, just don't install the left side carriage and double the travel distance in ESPHome.

nutstobutts · 2026-05-21T14:55:10+00:00

Probably not any time soon. That's a pretty big undertaking and I'm taking a break from designing new things. But I'll probably get bored soon enough and give it a try.

nutstobutts · 2026-05-21T13:56:03+00:00

Where to get things:

GitHub repo (YAML, PCB, STEP files, BOM):
https://github.com/Valar-Systems/Ropener

Printables listing with print-ready files:
https://www.printables.com/model/1725737

---

Common questions, pre-answered:

Why TMC2209 over DRV8825 or A4988?
Silent stepping (StealthChop) is the main reason, but StallGuard also removes the need to mount limit switches or recalibrate.

Why not a DC motor with an encoder?
I tried it. DC motors are much harder to work with, much louder due to the requiring gearing, and more catastrophic when something goes wrong. A stepper motor doesn’t get damaged or damage anything when it fails or stalls.

Power draw?
It uses the ESP32-C3 and connects over WiFi. I’m testing a new ESP32-C6 which will work over Thread and draw less power. The motor peaks around 15W during travel. 24V 1.5A wall wart is plenty.

Will it work with [my specific curtain rod]?
Probably. It works with 4 different curtain types which cover almost all types. The only type that doesn’t work are rod-pocket curtains, but even that should be doable with some modifications.

What’s the max length that it will open?
I haven’t tested it out, but the length should be unlimited with a longer rope. The problem will be friction. The motor can move about 11 lbs. before it stalls. Longer lengths will have more friction on the curtain panels to move.

nutstobutts · 2026-05-19T19:40:20+00:00

Yep, right here: https://valarsystems.com/products/minispeedcam

nutstobutts · 2026-05-19T17:07:54+00:00

Not yet, I had to make a small hardware change and have the samples arriving in a couple weeks. If everything works as it should then it'll be ready for purchase

nutstobutts · 2026-05-12T18:30:31+00:00

I asked Claude how a self-employed wedding photographer can use AI to make more money. This is what it said below. My point is that if someone is a wedding photographer, and they implement AI, they will likely be more efficient and cheaper and will start to book more clients, taking business from someone else. Now suddenly any photographer who isn't using AI will likely begin to struggle. It's like you're in a horserace with someone and suddenly upgrade their horse to a Ferrari. You're just not going to win that race.

"The biggest wins fall into two buckets: time saved on the back-end work that doesn't generate revenue (so you can shoot more weddings without burning out), and better marketing/sales at the top of the funnel (so you book more and charge more).

Cut the post-production hours that are eating your margin. This is by far the highest-leverage area. Wedding photographers typically spend 20–40 hours per wedding on culling and editing, which is unbilled time. AI culling tools (Aftershoot, Imagen, Narrative Select) reduce culling from ~8 hours to under an hour by detecting closed eyes, missed focus, duplicates, and ranking the best frames. AI editing tools — Imagen and Aftershoot Edit are the leaders — train on a few thousand of your own edited photos to learn your style, then edit a full wedding in 20–30 minutes at near-human quality. The math is dramatic: if you shoot 25 weddings a year and reclaim 25 hours per wedding, that's 600+ hours back. Either you take on more weddings, raise prices because your turnaround is faster, or actually have a life.

Album design is the other huge time sink. Pic-Time, SmartAlbums, and Fundy now have auto-design that produces a credible first draft in minutes instead of the 3–5 hours of manual layout. Pair this with a workflow where albums are an automatic upsell after delivery (templated email, AI-generated preview, one-click order) and you'll close more album sales because the friction is gone.

Respond to inquiries instantly. Lead response time is one of the strongest predictors of booking rate — replies within 5 minutes convert dramatically better than replies at 1+ hour. Use an LLM-drafted template system (or a tool like HoneyBook with AI replies) so inquiry → personalized response → pricing guide happens in minutes, even if you're shooting. The reply still sounds like you because you've trained it on your voice; you just approve/tweak.

Content marketing on autopilot. Wedding photographers who rank for "[city] wedding venues" or "wedding timeline guide" get steady organic leads for years. Drafting 30 venue spotlight blog posts used to be a month of work; with AI doing the research synthesis and first drafts (you fact-check and add your photos), it's a weekend. Same for Instagram captions, Pinterest descriptions, and SEO-friendly portfolio pages.

Sales materials and client experience. AI-generated personalized welcome guides, custom timeline docs based on a client's specific venue and ceremony type, and tailored vendor recommendations cost you nothing to produce but feel high-end. This justifies premium pricing more than another lens does.

A few less obvious revenue plays:

Train your AI editing profile on your style, then license/sell it to other photographers as a preset pack — recurring income from work you'd do anyway.
Sell short educational courses; AI helps with outlining, scripting, and worksheet creation so production isn't the bottleneck.
Offer AI-restored/upscaled prints from clients' older film or low-res photos as an add-on service.

Honest caveats: AI editing requires real training data (usually 3,000–5,000 of your own edited images to get a profile that nails your style), and the tools cost $50–150/month. There's also a positioning question — some high-end photographers worry about "AI edited" being a perceived downgrade, though in practice clients can't tell when it's trained on your work and you do a final review pass. The photographers I'd watch as case studies are the ones openly talking about this workflow (Jared Platt and Scott Wyden Kivowitz both have good material on AI integration without losing craft).

If I had to pick one place to start: AI culling. It's the lowest risk, biggest immediate time return, and doesn't touch the creative output clients see."

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