++ ATOT official NEF thread part IV ++

[sdifox]

This is a bold move, equivalent to doing an IT change on a Friday.

Just finished virtualizing my home automation server, I moved the USB devices over to the host and setup pass through to see if it works in the VM. Was actually fairly easy and it picked up properly in udev so device names didn't change. Then I have a set of 12h day shifts so if something goes wrong well I can't do anything.

The hvac controller seems to be working great so far, the arduino that monitors environmental stuff seems to die after a while so I will need to deal with that. That one is less critical and I can live without it.

I have to keep the physical box running because it powers the sensors, but I wlll buy a DIN 5v PSU and throw that on the DIN rail and rerun the power that way then I can shut down the server. I may even just wire in a 5v adapter and call it good. I'll have to measure the draw but don't think it's much. The hydrogen sensor does have a heater in it but don't think it draws more than like a watt.

I'm suspecting maybe the Arduino is failing due to power, maybe the USB port on the host is not delivering as much power as the other server did. So I will deal with that after my shifts. Long term goal is to actually build new sensor/controls that use POE ethernet instead anyway so I don't need to rely on USB or pass through anything.

Home Assistant+ ESP32 FTW get ones with USB connector and you can setup the wifi easily that way.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I plan to move to a POE ethernet solution soon. These sensors need power anyhow so it makes sense to go wired. Current devices are serial and it seems they don't play nice with pass thru. I tried to pass the whole port instead of the device, will see if that helps.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I do eventually want to play with Home Assistant at some point though, as if I can make my POE devices play well with it, it saves me from writing a front end for them.

 

[sdifox]

Just build a VM for it and you can play with it ESP32 UART can talk to your serial sensors. Having a network stack eliminates a lot of problems. Setup a VLAN for HA and you are laughing. You can integrate a lot of IoT stuff with HA.

I had it controlling my hydroponic setup with scheduled water pump and lights.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Already doing that, for some reason the USB pass thru is not playing nice, it works for like 5 minutes then stops. The serial connection just stops passing any traffic.

I will probably end up reverting back to the physical server for now. This is a really old legacy setup, so I want to build new sensors/controls that use ethernet instead of serial and will build a whole new VM for that. The devices will sit on their own vlan.

 

[sdifox]

Already doing that, for some reason the USB pass thru is not playing nice, it works for like 5 minutes then stops. The serial connection just stops passing any traffic.

I will probably end up reverting back to the physical server for now. This is a really old legacy setup, so I want to build new sensors/controls that use ethernet instead of serial and will build a whole new VM for that. The devices will sit on their own vlan.

that is why I said UART to sensor from ESP32, then wifi from ESP32 to controller virtualising serial is always a problem.

 

[bigboxes]

moo

 

[Red Squirrel]

Moved the VM and USBs to another host, did the same thing. Decided to just move back to the physical machine for now.

I plan to retire this setup once I build my new automation hardware anyway. It will be based around Atmega and use ENC28J60 for the ethernet phy. I have all the parts to start prototyping. That will probably be a winter project.

 

[sdifox]

Moved the VM and USBs to another host, did the same thing. Decided to just move back to the physical machine for now.

I plan to retire this setup once I build my new automation hardware anyway. It will be based around Atmega and use ENC28J60 for the ethernet phy. I have all the parts to start prototyping. That will probably be a winter project.

Why? HA is open source. You are not going to code better than a team of volunteers.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Why? HA is open source. You are not going to code better than a team of volunteers.

HA is software, the sensors are hardware, that's the part I'm building. Then I will see how easy it is to integrate with HA and go from there. Temp sensors, relay controllers, voltage readers, dry contacts etc. Once I perfect it I'll get PCBs made. Goal is to have it fit in a DIN enclosure kind of like PLCs.

 

[sdifox]

HA is software, the sensors are hardware, that's the part I'm building. Then I will see how easy it is to integrate with HA and go from there. Temp sensors, relay controllers, voltage readers, dry contacts etc. Once I perfect it I'll get PCBs made. Goal is to have it fit in a DIN enclosure kind of like PLCs.

Never build if you can buy

ESP32 HOME AUTOMATION – Smart Home Automation | KinCony

www.kincony.com

32 CHANNEL DI/DO ETHERNET RELAY WIFI MQTT MODULE – KC868-H32BS

www.kincony.com

 

[bigboxes]

moo

 

[Red Squirrel]

Been watching police bodycam videos and I already knew that the average person is as dumb as a bag of bricks but holy crap these videos really reinforce that fact lol. Some people are just so delusional and lack situational awareness or any common sense. This one woman lit a car on fire then called 911 because the car was on fire and showed them a video of the fire starting, which showed her starting it. The whole time she was denying it while she was literally on video doing it. A video that she herself showed them. Like, wow lol. The police didn't even have to do an investigation because the criminal did all the work for them lol.

 

[sdifox]

Started refreshing my anime series that are in H264 to H265 or AV1. This is going to take a while. 307 series...

 

[sdifox]

not all need refreshing of course

 

[sdifox]

will definitely save over a TB of space

 

[sdifox]

Attack on Titan is currently sitting at 142GB

 

[Red Squirrel]

Been meaning to do this for a while... went from having a single DNS server to having 3 DNS servers. The DNS server was on my environmental control server and that server itself keeps randomly losing the IP stack so it would take out the whole network. Now I have 2 VM DNS servers on two different environments and a physical DNS server on a RPI. Obviously should figure out why the environmental server keeps losing network stack but now that it's not doing DNS anymore it's less pressing. It still continues to run so the environmental stuff still works. I will retire it when I rebuild the entire automation system.

Having one of the DNS on a physical machine is also really important, I learned that the hard way years back when I had a single virtualized DNS server. That's why I had moved it to the environmental box.

Testing failover right now I have 2 DNSes offline and can still surf.

 

[bigboxes]

5-meat pizza! Italian sausage, half-pound of bacon, ground beef, hand-sliced pepperoni and Italian salami. (My own) tomato sauce, fresh grated Parmesan, fresh shredded mozz and provolone. 🎤

 

[bigboxes]

Started refreshing my anime series that are in H264 to H265 or AV1. This is going to take a while. 307 series...

Sounds good. However, I'm under the belief that H264 looks as good/better than H265. If you don't have 4K source there's no need to go through all the trouble. Would you mind sharing some pics of your Attack on Titan setup?

 

[sdifox]

Sounds good. However, I'm under the belief that H264 looks as good/better than H265. If you don't have 4K source there's no need to go through all the trouble. Would you mind sharing some pics of your Attack on Titan setup?

more about storage space. no comparison yet since it is still 3 hrs to go xd Some things are from broadcase/stream source, just updating to BRD source.

 

[sdifox]

might start putting my home theatre back together again.

 

[Red Squirrel]

TBH I never bothered to convert any video, I just drop it in my folder for Jellyfin to pickup and leave it in whatever format it came in originally, but I suppose it could help to have everything in the same format especially if I pick a format that does not require any transcoding at server side. Once in a while I'll run into a video that stutters a lot then I have to play with the client side settings to lower the quality to get it to play. Could probably prevent that if I pre-transcoded it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

1 hour and I'm off for 4 days. Going to be nice to sleep in tomorrow. Day shifts are a killer. I have 2 more sets coming too. Lot of people on vacation so not getting as many nights right now.

 

[bigboxes]

moo