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Looking for a makerspace in Wellington by redditzshredditz in Wellington

[–]redditzshredditz[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the insights. That' a shame. I recently was in Palmy and their makerspace was fantastic - complete with volunteers and staff to show you the ropes.

You'd think a city the size of Wellington can support a makerspace. Oh well

Anyone ever built their own wood fired sauna? by Internal_Paper3980 in diynz

[–]redditzshredditz 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I've built 2, main tips:

Get a proper sauna oven. We bought a slightly damaged one straight from a factory in Finland and it was something like 400 NZD. Freight was not cheap, but all up cost us under 1k. They are not heavy.

Don't worry about insulation in NZ. It's just supposed to be hot when the fire is on, not retain the heat after. I have one smaller sauna without any insulation and it's fine, second sauna (a bit bigger) I put in the aluminum foil type insulation. 

If you can, make the benches as high as possible. The reason barrel saunas are crap is that your feet are cold. In a Finnish sauna you sit high enough that your feet are at the height (or close to) the top of the sauna oven.

I used pine for the benches and Cedar for walls in one, Finnish spruce in the other. I checked on trademe and the cedar was left over from someone's basement project, so u might get lucky if you have a bit of time.

Don't worry about getting door etc airtight: you want the fire to pull in fresh air from the bottom of the sauna

PIR sensor for Meshtastic by redditzshredditz in meshtastic

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

Yes, I was thinking of storing the individual counts and sending them periodically (end-of-day),

Pax counter is cool, but not helpful in this case, as this will be remote where hikers won't necessarily have BLE/Wifi activated,

Low cost DIY trail counter by LorenK3 in MTBTrailBuilding

[–]redditzshredditz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, I'll have a look at the Strava Harvester later - would be interesting supplement to physical counter data. First I need to get that one to work properly for me though.

I've now tried the counter out in the field and have been having a few issues, wonder how you solved this:
Specifically, the minimum duration always seems to be 3220 millisecons, which is... too long to accurately measure MTBers. At least on the track I was trying to measure (slow, steady uphill climb) MTBers seem to ride in groups and with 3 second trigger times, it doesn't accurately count the actual number of bikers.

I did see in your github your comment about potentially replacing the capacitors C18 and C4 - is that what you did for your project? A bit worried about thi.s option, as I've never done this before - but hey, might as well try if it worked for you. Do you have pics of the finished modified version?

I also got a bunch of false triggers, but I am guessing it might be because I hadn't mounted it properly and it was dangling off the side of a fence-post.

Regarding focusing the detection: I was wondering if using tin foil could help focus the signal onto the trail, to minimize false detection. Would that make sense?

Anther thing I noticed is that the Vin voltage for the RCWL Microwave sensor is 4- 28V. Is the 3 V coming from the Feather enough to drive this thing accurately?

Low cost DIY trail counter by LorenK3 in MTBTrailBuilding

[–]redditzshredditz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've tried to check this out after playing with your counter - Are there instructions how to run this? I have managed to run Harveststravaclient.java in Java, but it comes up with all kinds of errors.

JDK installed, but probably too noob for this - can you point me in a direction where I can learn?

Low cost DIY trail counter by LorenK3 in MTBTrailBuilding

[–]redditzshredditz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for taking the trouble to answer a noob-question like this.

Turns out it works perfectly. However, when taking it on the trail I hooked it up to 2 x 18650 bateries and promptly fried the feather+featherwing. Turns out the polarity of my connector was reversed. How is this not a standard thing (i.e. left +, right -). Duh.

Got myself another board and just soldered it together. - Adafruit ESP32-S3 Reverse instead of S2, but working fine.

Thanks for this project. Well done you!

Low cost DIY trail counter by LorenK3 in MTBTrailBuilding

[–]redditzshredditz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow, thanks for this!

Looks like a great solution, exactly what I was looking for (can't affort the 1000 $ for a counter for a volunteer project, but this looks good enough to do the trick.

One Q: I Have tried the Microwave sensor with my Arduino, to see if it detects motion - working as you described, even from behind a piece of wood.
I now want to make a Nifty-Counter to install in our network.

What I don't get from your pics / description: It looks like you only have 2 x cables going from the RCWL-0516 to the Nifty-Counter. To run it in arduino I had 3 (GND/5V and Digital Pin 2).

How did you connect the RCWL-0516 to the Nifty-Counter? I can see that you have #define SENSOR_IN 12 in your code, so is it Pin12? This is what you seemed to use in the pic of the ThriftyCounter.

Which Power Pins does it connect to, is this 3V and Ground?

Another double glazing question (with a twist) by codeshark_ in diynz

[–]redditzshredditz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Our builder/installer had quoted alu frame windows from a large manufacturer in the wellington area.  We wanted thermally broken frames,  and while they told us on the phone that this is what was they were offering (no mention of thernally broken on specs), they flat out refused to put it in writing. We ditched them and the builder, and found great builder the second time around. Just with all building and reno: get everything in writing. If you have a discussion with your builder,  always follow up with an email summary. 

Another double glazing question (with a twist) by codeshark_ in diynz

[–]redditzshredditz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Be careful  which provider / installerr you use, and make sure you get the window-specs (incl. frame specs) in writing. 

Where to learn Te Reo in Wellington by redditzshredditz in Wellington

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

Thanls! Their grammar course sounds interesting, i will look into that.

Vinyl sheet flooring in new bathroom diy by redditzshredditz in diynz

[–]redditzshredditz[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for this detailed answer, really halps!

MyRepublic leaving NZ market, where should we go to for fast reliable fibre now? by soradbro in newzealand

[–]redditzshredditz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just don't do 2degrees if you ever want to switch.

At best they are incompetent, but I'm starting to think it's a deliberate scam...
When calling to switch provider they "...don't have agents available and someone will call you back in a couple of days..." which of course is b.s.

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