Advice The Home Improvement/Automation Thread

How's that thermostat? Is it easy to navigate? How's the app and voice control integration?
It's fine. It works as a thermostat near as I can tell.

It integrates with google home, so I can fiddle with it on my phone, but I haven't tried to set up any schedules yet. The voice integration through google home is fine, I just tell it to increase or decrease the temperature.
 
It's fine. It works as a thermostat near as I can tell.

It integrates with google home, so I can fiddle with it on my phone, but I haven't tried to set up any schedules yet. The voice integration through google home is fine, I just tell it to increase or decrease the temperature.

Register as having a smart thermostat with your power provider. They usually give discounts and rebates for that kind of stuff.

GA power also offers to be part of a program that fiddles with your thermostat when there's surge usage. It lowers you bill by a small amount.
 
  • Gravy
Reactions: Josh
Register as having a smart thermostat with your power provider. They usually give discounts and rebates for that kind of stuff.

GA power also offers to be part of a program that fiddles with your thermostat when there's surge usage. It lowers you bill by a small amount.
I'm going to be registering for all the rebates I can, but since I have 7000 KWh of net-metered energy banked, I'm not in a big hurry to sign up to let them monkey with my AC remotely.
 
  • Love
Reactions: wetwillie
I'm going to be registering for all the rebates I can, but since I have 7000 KWh of net-metered energy banked, I'm not in a big hurry to sign up to let them monkey with my AC remotely.
im sure every company is different, but in the 7 or 8 years ive been signed up for the rewards program with my company which can turn off my AC and water heater during high demand, ive only ever noticed it to so once (the ac) and it was it was back on an hour later.

The rewards are as much as 80 bucks a month though, so its very very worht it.
 
im sure every company is different, but in the 7 or 8 years ive been signed up for the rewards program with my company which can turn off my AC and water heater during high demand, ive only ever noticed it to so once (the ac) and it was it was back on an hour later.

The rewards are as much as 80 bucks a month though, so its very very worht it.
yeah, but the rewards are all based on rate around here, and my rate is effectively 0.
 
im sure every company is different, but in the 7 or 8 years ive been signed up for the rewards program with my company which can turn off my AC and water heater during high demand, ive only ever noticed it to so once (the ac) and it was it was back on an hour later.

The rewards are as much as 80 bucks a month though, so its very very worht it.
Our power company requires you to use their shitty tstat for their tiered shit. So I hooked it up to power (only) and put it in a cabinet. Fuckers.
 
Looney Tunes Florida GIF
 
Got logged into the Lennox site and started poking around with their performance reports, and now I'm gonna have to figure out how to replicate it at home so I can integrate the room-by-room temp/humidity stats from the sensors I stuck in each (made from esp8266's).
 
Finally put together one of the Dewalt 20V battery cases I bought off aliexpress.

I used 18650s scavenged from old laptop batteries, giving about 6.5aH of capacity. Laptop cells don't handle high drain loads like cordless tool batteries do, but since there's 3 strings of 18650's in parallel and sharing the current, I'm not too worried. The tab welder at work isn't the greatest for doing 18650s so there's lots of little dots holding on the tabs, but it'll do.

Outcome: enh, does the job, I'm happy having a decent sized battery for the leaf blower that cost me fuck all.

I've got another battery case but pretty much all the good 18650s I had went into this pack. Eventually I'll source some cells and build another one.



20210329_213010.jpg
 
Last edited:
  • Gravy
Reactions: fly and wetwillie
Finally put together one of the Dewalt 20V battery cases I bought off aliexpress.

I used 18650s scavenged from old laptop batteries, giving about 6.5aH of capacity. Laptop cells don't handle high drain loads like cordless tool batteries do, but since there's 3 strings of 18650's in parallel and sharing the current, I'm not too worried. The tab welder at work isn't the greatest for doing 18650s so there's lots of little dots holding on the tabs, but it'll do.

Outcome: enh, does the job, I'm happy having a decent sized battery for the leaf blower that cost me fuck all.

I've got another battery case but pretty much all the good 18650s I had went into this pack. Eventually I'll source some cells and build another one.



View attachment 13982


How much time and money did that cost you?
 
I really hope you aren't serious.
I bet I could build a really badass pack by hitting up a vape shop for a bunch of INR's and throwing those in. And end up with a $150 CAD pack that's about as good as a genuine Dewalt pack is, for about the same money.

18650's were free, salvaged from old shit. Took me a couple days to capacity test and charge enough batteries but that was "put shit in battery charger, press buttons, walk away" effort. And assembling the pack was <1hr and I got to play with a battery spot welder. Fuck it.