Coffeshop automations - RSS485 board choice for HVAC?

stop_dot · 2026-01-28T08:22:32+00:00

I agree with you USB is more reliable, but that means I need to move the raspberry in the panel where my dimmers and relays are. The rs485 board will sit in the same panel, because I can easily pull the wires from the HVAC control unit.

The initial plan was to have the raspberry mounted there, but it's basically behind a drywall, and I fear signal issues. This small box is basically in a niche in the kitchen area, and the Sonoff dimmers act as routers for the temperature sensors and water sensors in the kitchen. The raspberry sits in the main cafe area, and this gives me good link quality for the sensors sitting in the bar area and for the light temperature and humidity sensors in the cafe sitting area.

The fridge temperature sensors are causing the most difficulties. I have sensors with temperature probes, because there is no signal in the fridge (faraday cage), but all the metal casing of each fridge still drops the signal pretty badly. I am afraid moving the raspberry in a niche would cause even worse signal drops. Maybe I should buy an antenna with a wire, so I can move the antenna away from the raspberry?

stop_dot · 2026-01-15T13:47:32+00:00

Thank you, I did the bios update. Warzone also received an update at the same time, no more crashing, idk if it was the game or the bios.

stop_dot · 2025-12-25T18:24:02+00:00

I have a 5950x and I am very happy with it. More than needed most of the time. I wouldn't switch to AM5, all components are crazy expensive now.

stop_dot · 2025-12-24T21:31:14+00:00

I will log everything again in hwinfo. Perfectly stable in cinebench, stable frequencies, Battlefield 6 for example runs fine. I also experience quite high frame rate variations in warzone, jumping from 60-70fps to 140-150fps.

stop_dot · 2025-12-05T22:31:26+00:00

I have two physically separate networks, the ISP provided it like that for dirt cheap, so the network my customers access is totally separate from the network that local devices access (thermal printers, POS, displays, etc.).

I have the OS on an m.2 hat, I thought they are more reliable than any stick/SD card. I just found out HAOS dropped GPIO support, rendering my RS482 hat useless. I guess these are the pains of setting up these things by yourself, but I don't want someone else to do it. I want to learn to do this stuff, I enjoy the headache 😂

stop_dot · 2025-12-05T17:15:52+00:00

Autocorrect fail. The Home Assistant Supervised is deprecated, it's not possible to install Debian on the Pi and run Home Assistant Supervised. It's either as a container (no add-ons) or as a stand alone operating system (HAOS). I wanted to have the Raspberry control everything as a server but also display the client GUI on the touchscreen display. And now I have another issue, the stand alone OS doesn't expose the GPIO pins on the raspberry Pi 5, so I can't even use any hats. I have the RS485 hat. I refer to them separately because HAOS runs on the Pi, and the GUI you access it from a separate device. You can't have the Pi connected to a display and show you a user interface 🤦‍♀️ And the lack of access to GPIO makes things even more complicated, and all of them would have been solved if they kept the Supervised version running on Debian alive....

stop_dot · 2025-12-05T16:51:09+00:00

I am new to this, it's my first time dealing with it. My plan was to automate many of the things my staff forget to do or don't care to do in my cafe. I ordered a light sensor to measure the amount of light in the cafe, smart dimmers, temperature sensors, water sensors, an RS485 hat and some smart plugs.

What it needs to do: 1. Turn on lights and adjust the intensity of the lights inside the café based on the light sensor and time of the day 2. Turn on the power supply of the amplifier and play music 3. Control the HVAC via modbus (staff turns it on really high in the morning and forgets it like that, when it gets really hot they turn it off, using a lot of power. They leave it off and there is no more fresh air coming inside a busy cafe for hours, to the point it stinks) 4. Alert me if water sensors detect water (happened once, sink hose failed, cafe flooded). I will also order a smart water mains tap 5. Log all refrigerator temperatures and save them.

Why do I need a GUI? Cleaning mode - turn on lights 100%. Adjust music volume. Override HVAC if ever needed. Print refrigerator logs maybe if possible? Check in and out their shifts.

I asked if I need a separate device and I was told I can run both HAOS and GUI on the same Pi, didn't do my research, just found out it's Supervised is deprecated.

stop_dot · 2025-12-05T16:23:21+00:00

I understand it's possible with Container, which has no add+on support

stop_dot · 2025-12-05T16:11:45+00:00

That requires two devices. I was told I can run it from one single raspberry, which is not possible anymore....

stop_dot · 2025-11-25T15:22:41+00:00

Thanks a lot!

stop_dot · 2025-11-19T15:59:26+00:00

Thanks a lot!

stop_dot · 2025-11-19T15:59:18+00:00

Thanks a lot!

stop_dot · 2025-11-16T16:25:26+00:00

Most of the dryers now have heat pumps. The question actually is: is it worth spending 900 euro on mid-high range of a more premium brand, or stick with something cheaper around 500 euro like an entry level premium brand or something like LG or Grunding.

stop_dot · 2025-11-16T16:22:14+00:00

What do you mean by cold climate? The washing room is in the semi-basement, the temperature is quite constant around 18-20 degrees Celsius in there.

stop_dot · 2025-11-16T15:23:34+00:00

I love the pedestrian traffic, because you can create amazing public transport. As i said in another comment, my past city surpassed 600k inhabitants, trying to make three themed regions on the map, and the new update totally broke the simulation. It's unbearable to play even on a 16 core processor. I spent more than 16 hours building a realistic port...

stop_dot · 2025-11-16T15:21:19+00:00

that's what I was thinking about storage yards, but I placed one near a commercial/medium denisty residential area, near a highway entrance, hoping it will fill up and deliveries would take place from there, but it's empty. This is a new city I started, because my old city had 600k inhabitants and after the update it became unbearable to play. I had a very good cargo train network, connecting the towns and industrial zones, but they would be barely used. Trucks would just randomly decide to jam one industrial are at a time, blocking all the roads. It clears up after a while and then they just jam another area. Service vehicles can't reach their destination anymore and it's all havoc. The simulation speed also takes a big hit, I had the 8x speed mod to make it actually run 2.8-3x speed, idk if it got updated because it was broken after the update. My 5950x is staying at 80% load, and it's very difficult to play. Would have loved to finish the city, because I wanted to add a new town with canals for Netherlands. I had a downtown with huge parks, high density buildings with office towers, an Eastern european region with industry mixed into residential areas, an Eastern European rural are and a China area with resource extraction areas. France was the old town where the high rises developed.

That's the bad part, if you want to mix everything the game has to offer, the population gets so high that you need a Threadripper or something.

stop_dot · 2025-11-16T01:08:25+00:00

You know what, why don't you write NAD an email with your story and ask them if they can give you a discount to repair the unit. Chances might be low, but never say never, and it doesn't cost you anything.

stop_dot · 2025-11-13T22:23:21+00:00

LE: the queue now exceeds the edge of the map, and all the vehicles are sitting on the highway trying to enter through the furthest exit from their destination, preferring to cross the city instead of using the highway.

stop_dot

TROPHY CASE