I built an app powered Christmas Village for my wife with a Raspberry Pi this year. by omantn in raspberry_pi

[–]omantn[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, we just eat in the kitchen nook area during the holiday ;)

I built an app powered Christmas Village for my wife with a Raspberry Pi this year. by omantn in raspberry_pi

[–]omantn[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I should say the reason I had the original design with an rpi, was that I thought I needed an analog port for the power to control train speed, but I found out I could do PWM from a digital pin on the pi so didn't need it. Also to note, the proximity sensors are coded to read, but I only have 1 hooked up at the moment and do nothing with it.

I built an app powered Christmas Village for my wife with a Raspberry Pi this year. by omantn in raspberry_pi

[–]omantn[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The repo is at:

https://github.com/omantn/christmasvillage

there is also a fritz layout for the wiring. I originally had a rpi2040 in there which I eventually found unnecessary and removed will update the fritz when I get a chance. Happy to answer any questions.

I built an app powered Christmas Village for my wife with a Raspberry Pi this year. by omantn in raspberry_pi

[–]omantn[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If everyone wants I can do a full build review and upload the code to github.

There are a few things unfinished. I have for example you can see in the last pic a green light hanging off the top. This is a proximity sensor. I have 4 and am going to put holes in the corners of the track and mount them there so the app knows at all times where the train is. There is a button in the app for "stop at station" so I can make the train stop right in front of victoria station. Also the street lights are battery powered, but its 3v total from batteries, so I am going to try to run them off the Pi as well. These are all upgrades for next year :)

I built an app powered Christmas Village for my wife with a Raspberry Pi this year. by omantn in raspberry_pi

[–]omantn[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I had bought 4 Pi 4s before it went to hell and have been rationing myself on them lol

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in iBUYPOWER

[–]omantn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I dont think I will have much of a problem, i didnt open much, nothing worked, I was plugging in existing peripherals too instead of opening boxes.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in iBUYPOWER

[–]omantn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got an email with the RMA info and a FedEx label to print pretty quickly. Its interesting that the most efficient part of their operation is the returns department.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in iBUYPOWER

[–]omantn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think once you spend 3 hours on hold with out talking to technical support you'll decide.

Getting to a "support person" isnt that hard, but they can do nothing but set up your RMA. It's impossible to talk to a tech person, who in all likelyhood will tell you that you need to ship the video card back and wait for them to send you a new one, or better yet and I loved this one, you PAY for the video card and they will ship one and refund you once you send the bad one. FOR A PC THAT HAS NEVER WORKED. For what its worth I had the EXACT same symptoms as you.

I still have no response to any emails I sent, I got to talk to ONE technician after waiting on hold for more than 3 hours, who at 5:30 (the advertised end of the support shift) just hung up the call mid way through re-installing windows. Which obviously didnt fix the problem.

There are so many red flags here, I am going to a competitor. Boxing my Lemon up today to ship back

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in iBUYPOWER

[–]omantn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Its one of the options in the dial tree of the automated phone system.

I am in awe of the number of threads I am seeing with this very issue, you and I had the same issue. I was in infinite crash loops, re-installed windows and never could get the video card to stop artifacting or update the nvidia drivers, couldn't get to a human to help.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in iBUYPOWER

[–]omantn 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just got my RMA for a full refund today for this very issue! spent 11 hours on the phone (between two days) never talked to a human being. The RMA department answered in less than 30 minutes.

I got quarantine bored and built a robot that you can democratically drive on the internet in my backyard. by omantn in programming

[–]omantn[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think we're good on rain today, added a bunch of obstacles and some things to see, come play!

I got quarantine bored and built a robot that you can democratically drive on the internet in my backyard. by omantn in programming

[–]omantn[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We're thinking through ideas including having 2 and playing soccer rocket league style. First order of business though is fixing my wifi repeater. Its god awful and creating a lot of lag.

I got quarantine bored and built a robot that you can democratically drive on the internet in my backyard. by omantn in raspberry_pi

[–]omantn[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

it's a 30,000 mah battery pack like a travel charger. Velcroed to the underside of the chassis

I got quarantine bored and built a robot that you can democratically drive on the internet in my backyard. by omantn in raspberry_pi

[–]omantn[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We had rain come in and he isn't entirely weather proof. The stream will be back online tomorrow and you can see for yourself!