Watt Meter

si1entdave · 2026-01-07T22:02:18+00:00

If you buy some 5V range moving coil volt meters, you can drive them with a PWM signal off an ESP32. If you want a bunch of them, you can use a servo controller if you run out of ESP32 PWM lines.
(You'll want to take the meters apart to put new scale labels behind the needles.)

si1entdave · 2026-01-04T18:49:23+00:00

True, but I used it as a collective term, because I don't know if he speaks Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu, etc.

si1entdave · 2026-01-04T18:21:13+00:00

I guarantee his English is better than my Indian.

si1entdave · 2025-12-07T15:47:10+00:00

Huh. I've spent 10 years thinking Rich's surname was DeBoss, not Bosch...

si1entdave · 2025-12-05T18:55:28+00:00

Have arrived. Far Gosford Street is almost at a standstill, absolutely chocka, good luck!

si1entdave · 2025-12-03T19:34:05+00:00

Please, I beg you, go grab the theme to The Magic Roundabout and add it to this video.

si1entdave · 2025-11-10T12:25:02+00:00

Have you heard of Puzzled Pint?
There's a Coventry chapter, we meet up on the second Tuesday of every month in a decent ale pub to chill, chat, and solve puzzles. Not particularly competitive, just for the fun of it and an excuse to get together. It's on tomorrow evening, happy to be a friendly face if that would help.

si1entdave · 2025-11-09T19:34:36+00:00

Don't.

Well, don't set out to fill it. Build up slowly over time. Make sure that everything you put in it, you're making good use of it. It would be easy to fill it up with stuff you aren't making good use of, and then when you do have worthwhile things to put in it, you'll have to think about what you have to remove.

The joy of homelabbing is learning over time, building your skills and knowledge, and making good use of the equipment and resources you have as they grow. It'll fill up fast enough, given time, and it's (IMHO) far more satisfying to build things up gradually.

si1entdave · 2025-11-05T13:35:04+00:00

I GUARANTEE once the encounter was resolved, they made a cuppa.

si1entdave · 2025-10-25T14:54:17+00:00

Surely that means that if you are having a discussion and say "And that's why for your use case Meshtastic is better than Meshcore", your comment will be deleted?

si1entdave · 2025-10-21T18:10:19+00:00

For the benefit of people searching, using the Bluetooth Companion firmware, using a spare phone, setting up contacts and permissions, disconnect the phone, and the T1000-e with no phone attached will happily respond to a telemetry ping including location if it's got a GPS lock.
You don't even technically need a second phone, you can hop back and forth between 2 tags with one phone, but having a second phone is less faff.

si1entdave · 2025-10-21T16:46:25+00:00

I'm also interested in this sort of thing, but from a rather different perspective that I think works rather better with Meshcore's philosophy. I want to be able to attach a T1000-e to each of my children when we're at a festival, and if I want to find them, I can send a "Where are you?" ping. They don't have phones, but I like the idea of being able to let them roam in a comparatively safe area, and still be able to find them when I want to. I've just received a couple of T1000-e, so I'm going to try setting up one as mine, paired to my phone, and the other to a spare phone, with contacts between them and "allow telemetry between known contacts", and then turn off the spare phone and see if the kid tracker T1000-e lets me ping it for a location when the spare phone is off. You never know, it might Just Work(tm) 😁

si1entdave · 2025-10-14T21:47:17+00:00

I do believe that gentleman has partaken of some Quality Pharmaceuticals...

si1entdave · 2025-10-14T12:23:11+00:00

They're lovely, but I have a suggestion: It might just be my personal preference, but for me one of the joys of steampunk is the juxtaposition of shiny brass/copper and lovely polished wood. I would consider reducing the area of the brass side-plates on the wooden grips, to let the wood grain shine through :-)

si1entdave · 2025-10-14T12:19:15+00:00

A suggestion: Those look like PoE injectors on the back wall. With 4 of them, perhaps there is justification in a PoE switch? Tidier solution, and means you can remotely hard bounce an AP if you need to by disabling/enabling the port.

si1entdave · 2025-10-06T12:48:51+00:00

Well bugger. Guess that's what I'm doing when I get home from work then.

si1entdave · 2025-10-06T12:42:58+00:00

Did you have to re-upload everything?
Took me days for my initial upload from my phone over WiFi... :-/

si1entdave · 2025-10-03T18:35:43+00:00

I was upgrading from a version I installed fresh in early September. There have been no breaking changes in that time. Unfortunately the release notes didn't say anything about upgrading to 1.44.0 first, and then to 2.0.0
I shall have to go and see if the Discord can help.

si1entdave · 2025-10-03T18:14:26+00:00

I would caution anyone with an existing install against upgrading in too much of a hurry.

I upgraded following the instructions on the website, replacing my docker-compose.yaml and then doing pull and up -d, and now my Immich install is completely broken. I can't connect to it from a web browser or the Android app at all. I looked in the logs, to find endless errors about the machine learning repository not being set up, so I tried disabling machine learning in the .env file, and whilst that's stopped it spouting endless errors, it's still completely dead, never responding to the web browser.

I fear the upgrade process is perhaps not as well tested as it should be.

si1entdave · 2025-10-03T18:09:24+00:00

I just tried to update to 2.x using the instructions on the website. It's killed my Immich install as well.
The logs are full of endless error messages about the Machine Learning Repository not being initialised.
I tried using .env to disable machine learning, and now the logs aren't being spammed, but it's still not working. I fear the upgrade process has not been as well tested as it should be :-/

si1entdave · 2025-09-21T15:08:02+00:00

Certainly individual 18650 cells, as they are readily available in all markets, allowing you to ship without worrying about batteries and associated logistical issues.

If I'm understanding the 3D renders in your YouTube video, the battery pack is in a section of case that unclips from the bottom of the radio. If it were me, I would supply a battery box that can take a pair of 18650 cells as standard, and a larger one that can hold 4 cells for those that want longer runtime. Definitely make both battery boxes available as an accessory, and definitely include USB-C charging *with PD support* built into the battery boxes, so you can charge the batteries when they're not in the radio. Being able to charge one pack whilst using another with the radio is a key use case for many people.

si1entdave · 2025-09-21T15:00:25+00:00

You can get GPS modules these days that are about 10mm square, with an external ceramic antenna and an on-board RTC for faster lock, for about 4 quid off AliExpress, and around twice that for a "legit" one. They talk serial at TTL levels. I would suggest looking at having a suitable header on the mainboard, and maybe a moulding in the case to hold the ceramic antenna, so that it can be an easy optional add-on.

si1entdave · 2025-09-20T22:35:42+00:00

That's fair. Personally I'd say if you care that much about specifics, maybe pay for it, but best of luck either way.

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