See more at the movies Did I mention I race rally cars? Red Rocket Rally

Charger - Flash - Rally

Saturday, August 13, 2022
	HomeKit Drape and Shade Control by brian @ 22:18:02 - [perma-link] Today i got the right gendered RS-232 connectors to hook up an ESP8266 to my motorized drape controllers. Now my drapes and a few more window coverings are controlled through HomeKit. It will look better with some sort of case, but it seems to be working well. I copied one of the examples for controlling a Switch, and changed it to a WindowCovering, with more HomeKit Characteristics. That worked in one room, where all of the blinds are connected on the same circuit, and not individually controllable. My bedroom has drapes on two walls and a window shade, all on separate circuits. For that i needed to use a bridge and multiple accessories. I hacked together a hard coded version, rather than trying to make one that scales to the number of devices available. Now that I have both of them working, that’s probably how it will stay. It was frustrating trying to get it to work with virtually no debugging info available. I think it finally worked after I added a few more entries to each accessory information section. Or maybe having different names for the ummm…. Info and service sections? I don’t know. The devices would appear and disappear. Once i added manufacturer and model, they stopped disappearing.
Thursday, August 11, 2022
	New pancake technique! by brian @ 07:31:31 - [perma-link] Flipping the giant fake-fluffy pancake in the rice cooker! No more one side cooked, one side still drippy!
	Tesla Keyfob Fix by brian @ 18:29:46 - [perma-link] I went on a trip this weekend, and was minorly inconvenienced by my Tesla key fob not working. I changed the battery before I left because it wasn’t reliably unlocking the car. At the first charging stop, the key fob was no longer detected. I went the whole weekend having to use the phone app to unlock and enable remote start every time. Today i checked the new battery, and it was dead. I also noticed some corrosion in the battery area. I took the keyfob apart and cleaned all of the pieces with vinegar and a toothbrush. All of the blue flaky corrosion is gone. After letting the parts dry for a while, I put it back together, and it is working great!
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
	3D Printed Dyson accessory holder by brian @ 19:13:36 - [perma-link] I’ve wanted something to mount the extra accessories with the vacuum. I like this solution, but it doesn’t lock the accessories in. I wonder if a different model has the clip/button on the accessory instead of the vac.
Saturday, July 9, 2022
	New seat for the racing sim by brian @ 17:09:46 - [perma-link] The actual seat is an old one, out of one of my rally cars. The mount is new. I’m no longer driving a dining room chair. The seat mount is a different brand than the wheel stand, so they don’t connect together. I have a 25lb dumbbell on the front to balance the wheel with the steep angle for this less-upright position. I don’t have anywhere to mount the other hand brake, so I’ve set up the shifter as a handbrake instead. The old handbrake was on a separate riser that interferes with the seat and the shifter in this position. I only use the handbrake in Dirt, and I use the paddles to shift anyway, so I’m all set. I just raced around the Red Bull Ring in Assetto Corsa. I like sim racing the F1 tracks on race weekends, to get a better feel for the track, and know where things are happening when I’m watching the real thing.
Thursday, July 7, 2022
	Getting Some Beans by brian @ 14:33:44 - [perma-link] I ordered 14lb of green beans from Sweet Maria’s. The package arrived today, sooner than I was expecting. Almost a year ago, I ordered 17 lb, and didn’t quite run out, so I should be good for about another year! I’ll roast one of these new ones today, instead of the last of last year’s Espresso Monkey Blend. I can do a comparison one day with this new stuff. 5lb Espresso Monkey, 5lb Rawandan Honey Process Kanyege, and 2 lb each of Yemen Al Qafr Hawari and Mexico Communidad de Coatepec.
Sunday, July 3, 2022
	Basil Growing Buddies by brian @ 08:40:10 - [perma-link] I noticed these little mushrooms growing under my basil. I think that means the soil is “happy”.
Friday, June 24, 2022
	Moulting in Action by brian @ 12:41:48 - [perma-link] I was watching the dwarf crayfish just now and one of them was looking weird. It was laying on its side, rocking back and forth. I thought it was sick, then noticed the shell peeling away from the head. It very slowly pulls the head back out of the front, then it seems to jump out the back between the head and tail. If you pause the video and step through at the end, you can see it pop out, swim a stroke away, pause and then jump out of view with another stroke. So cool!
movie (click to play)
Sunday, June 19, 2022
	New Addition to the Small Tank by brian @ 10:19:14 - [perma-link] A Brazos Dwarf Crawfish! The pH in this tank doesn’t promote the blue color. I am setting up another tank for a lower pH (and higher maintenance), but this critter arrived sooner than the tank cycled. I don’t know if this one is male or female, but, uh, it’s one of a dozen (I ordered 10, which is kind of a lot, it turns out), so I probably have some of each. I’ll figure it out in a few weeks when they are big enough to distinguish. This will turn into an informal pH experiment eventually. I really want some blue ones. I think I’m going to need a bigger tank. Ooooh! Upside down thumbnail, so its not just a landscape portrait thing! There must be an EXIF for phone orientation, because I had my phone flipped with the lenses on the low side (shutter button to the left) to take this pic at the bottom of the tank. Width and Height used to be enough on the Danger Sidekick!
Friday, June 17, 2022
	Organized the Print Farm by brian @ 17:33:52 - [perma-link] I’ve had this on the back burner for a while, only using the 3 printers I had hooked up, and dealing with the loose cords tripping up the robot vacuum. Now all 5 printers and 3 Raspberry Pis running Octoprint are connected and usable. The Anycubic is printing great with the 0.8 nozzle. Maybe .567 layers needed too much volume. I lowered it to 0.486 and the problems seem to have vanished. Prusa was working fine, but I haven’t been using it for the last few weeks. I got more food-safe filament, so I’ll get it going again. The MPMD up top still runs like a champ. I had a firmware scare and thought I had bricked it. It turned out to be the wrong formatting on the SD card. I’ll load it back up with flexible filament and put it to work again, too. “Reilly and Jonesy” on the bottom, both controlled by the raspberry pi “Katy-kat”, probably need some maintenance. Extruder calibration (because I finally did that on the others and wow what a difference), and software upgrades. And recalibrate the beds.
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