Month: March 2024
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Mailbag Monday
I got 100 magnets in the mail today! 50 are 10mm x 1mm and 50 are 10mm x 2mm. I plan to insert these into 3D prints of robot chassis. I’m not entirely sure how to do that yet.
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Rogue 433MHz Transmitter
There’s a rogue transmitter broadcasting a carrier signal on 433.92Mhz somewhere in my neighbourhood. It went on the air around 4:15am yesterday. How do I know? Well, you remember my temperature/humidity sensors for my seedlings I wrote about a few days ago? I already have an entirely different system working. A few years ago I…
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Garage Door Opener
Last year the radio on my ~40 year old garage door opener quit working. Because the opener used simple dry contacts to trigger the open or close cycle, I was able to buy an aftermarket receiver and remote and wire it to the existing opener. Well, last week the motor in the opener quit working.…
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Dead Wine Cooler
I bought a used wine cooler a while back. It worked great. It holds 12 bottles and uses a peltier cooler rather than a vapor-compression cooler. This makes it less efficient, but it is quiet and relatively simple for an electronics guy like me to understand. I kept some wine cool in it. Then, one…
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Doorbell Camera
I love the idea of a doorbell camera. A doorbell is in the right location to see anyone coming up to your door, and it is low enough that you can generally see a face rather than the top of a ball cap. They make a lot of sense to me, except that the most…
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A Flood!
Around a year ago I installed a Reverse Osmosis filter system under my kitchen sink. Recently, the drinking water faucet sprung a leak. Well, actually, it had been leaking from the valve stem occasionally for a while now, but that always ran safely into the sink. This time it started leaking beneath the sink… enough…
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Peppers
And tomatillos. I had planned to do this on the weekend, but I ended up spending too many hours clearing snow and ran out of time. So, today I made the time to start my peppers and tomatillos. I usually use jiffy pellets. They might not be the best option, but they’re certainly convenient. Now…
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Snowstorm!
So, Montana sent a low pressure system north to pay us a visit. This storm is still supposed to go on for one more day, but I figured I should try to find the sidewalk to the front door before it’s lost until May. I might not get to planting my peppers today. It’s kinda…
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Waking Up My Carnivores
No, I’m not talking about my cats. My carnivores have been hibernating since early winter. Last year I bought a couple venus flytraps. I had no prior experience with these. I read that they need a dormant period and one way to do that is to put them in a dark, cool place for a…