u/TheProffalken

My wife just asked me if I had something on the smoker.

What she can see and smell is smoke from a forest fire about 20 miles away... 😅

Hey folks,

I'm working on a system that uses RS485 as the "command layer" to connect various microcontrollers on a bus back to a central control station.

I want to be able to move some 6v servos but the stall current can be up to 2.5A.

My plan is to use Cat6 and RJ-45 connectors everywhere because it gives me strands for the RS-485 with plenty left over for a 12v run, and then step the 12v down at the "end node" to power the servo.

The bit I'm having trouble working out is whether cat6 will handle that stall current if the servo demands it?

As you can tell, I'm pretty new to this, so pointers to recommended articles/videos that teach me this stuff instead of direct answers are more than acceptable!

Hey folks,

I'm UK-based and when we get a chance to sauna we couple it with a wild swim early in the morning at a local lake (the sauna is next to the lake!).

If I travel for work in the UK and there's a sauna at the hotel then generally they're available whenever the gym is open (from about 6am) so I do that as part of my preparation for the day.

When travelling for work in Europe I've noticed they saunas in hotels don't tend to open until 3pm which means that because I'm usually at a client until around 6pm then either travelling to my next destination or going out for dinner with colleagues and clients then by the time I get back to the hotel the sauna is closed again.

Is there a reason why the hotel saunas in Europe are only available during these times?

I know with the Crafter-style vans the shape of the inside can be a bit of a pain to work with, and that others (Transits?) you have to add "pods" either side at the back to get a "proper" bed.

From talking to folks who own one, the Relay, the issue seems to be getting a bike rack that you don't need to dismantle just to open the back doors.

I see loads of delivery drivers out there with Iveco Daily vans, and many "commercial" campers that are based on an Iveco truck of some kind, but very few Daily conversions.

Is there a good reason to avoid this particular model? I mainly ask because they seem to be slightly cheaper in the UK than the other base models and cost is definitely a concern for us!

I know with the Crafter-style vans the shape of the inside can be a bit of a pain to work with, and that others (Transits?) you have to add "pods" either side at the back to get a "proper" bed.

From talking to folks who own one, the Relay, the issue seems to be getting a bike rack that you don't need to dismantle just to open the back doors.

I see loads of delivery drivers out there with Iveco Daily vans, and many "commercial" campers that are based on an Iveco truck of some kind, but very few Daily conversions.

Is there a good reason to avoid this particular model? I mainly ask because they seem to be slightly cheaper in the UK than the other base models and cost is definitely a concern for us!

Other than growing them in the greenhouse that is?

I see BBQ recipes of all kinds calling for different types of fresh chilli, but no matter which supermarket I go to (I've looked everywhere from Lidl to Tesco, Waitrose to M&S) all I can find are "green", "red", "finger", and Birdseye.

Are there good stockists online for buying a specific type?

Hey folks,

I'm planning to redecorate my office and a big part of it is going to be using WLED to improve the lighting throughout the day and evening.

I already have a Elgato Keylight on my desk and zigbee-controlled downlights in the ceiling (both integrated with Home Assistant), but I can't get any cool effects out of them, nor can I adjust them to get the light levels right.

The plan is to panel the wall behind my monitors with the wood/acoustic baffle panels and run LED strips up at least three of them.

At the moment I plan for these to be controlled via a Gledopto controller, probably with the two outside strips on one channel and the middle strip on the second channel. Power will come froma 100W Meanwell PSU attached to the underside of a smart shelf that I'm building which also houses a control panel for home assistant.

Behind me, on the wall, I indent to mount some hexagon shelves that I'm in the process of building. Each shelf will have it's own LED strip and WLED controller inside it, with various things displayed on them.

The idea is that if I'm on a video call then the background can be serene and tastefully lit with warm light from the wall behind the monitors working with the keylight to make sure I'm well lit, whereas if I'm writing music or hacking on code then I can have sound-reactive lighting bouncing around the shelves and up the back wall.

I'll probably daisychain the power between the shelves from a second meanwell 100W PSU, but have I missed anything that will make this look even better or easier to wire up?

I'm more than handy with a soldering iron and have written my own plugins for Home Assistant, so I'm not worried about getting my hands dirty, I just want to make sure that I don't get bored of the lighting fx etc. in a short space of time!

=== EDIT ===

The comments are clear - I'm just giving another excuse to avoid things or pick something else.

Thanks for all the feedback, I'll try and think of something else!

============

I'm trying to motivate one of my kids to do "stuff".

This ranges from getting up at a reasonable hour through to chores and filling in paperwork along with stuff that they actually enjoy doing.

I've tried all kinds of things over the years from bribery to shouting, but none of it really seems to work.

I'm now wondering if I build a wheel in the kitchen that they can spin each morning with a list of tasks they don't want to do.

They spin the wheel, it lands on a task, that's the only task they have to complete that day.

I'd test it on myself but I've got the "organisation-driven" part of my AuDHD along with 40-odd years of masking so I don't really understand why they're not just "getting up and getting on with it" like I've had to do every day of my life since starting school.

Yes, we've talked about it. Yes, we've tried everything else.

I'm not looking for advice on other solutions or options, I just want to know from the ADHD purists if something like this would work for you?

So I've managed to get myself into a bit of a situation with my Pi 5 8GB and I'm hoping someone here has seen this before.

It started when I noticed the only LED coming on was the red power LED. I'd previously migrated Home Assistant from SD to NVMe, and at some point something went wrong.

I've read the boot problems sticky and the subreddit FAQ and worked through everything in there that's relevant to the Pi 5, so hopefully this post has enough detail to avoid the usual back and forth.

Here's what I've tried so far:

• Booting from a fresh SD card - no joy, still solid red
• Reflashing the bootloader using Raspberry Pi Imager - got two orange flashes and solid green first time, which seemed promising, but it didn't stick
• Downloaded the correct 2712 recovery image directly from the rpi-eeprom GitHub releases page (after discovering Imager may have been flashing Pi 4 files), verified the README confirms it's the Pi 5 image, flashed via dd with wipefs beforehand - still only one orange flash then solid red
• Built rpiboot from source (the apt version is from 2022 and doesn't know about recovery5 or bootcode5.bin)
• The Pi does enter rpiboot mode when I hold the power button on plug-in - dmesg shows BCM2712 Boot being detected with the correct VID/PID

The problem is it consistently drops the USB connection after around 200ms, before rpiboot can transfer anything. The verbose output shows "Device located successfully" followed immediately by "Failed to open the requested device":

[144241.586487] usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 25 using xhci_hcd
[144241.710467] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0a5c, idProduct=2712, bcdDevice= 0.00
[144241.710472] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[144241.710473] usb 1-2: Product: BCM2712 Boot
[144241.710474] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: Broadcom
[144241.710475] usb 1-2: SerialNumber: becc6523
[144242.243537] usb 1-2: USB disconnect, device number 25

I've tried different USB ports, a udev rule to set permissions on the device, running with -l to loop, and different timing on the power button release. I'm aware that the ThinkPad USB port may not be supplying enough current during the boot ROM phase, but I don't have a powered hub available to test that theory.

The Pi is running off a MacBook Air charger for testing (although I see the same thing with multiple other PD PSU's), no NVMe attached, no SD card, nothing else connected to either the Pi or the ThinkPad I'm using as the host.

Is this recoverable, or am I looking at a dead board? Any suggestions welcome.

So I've managed to get myself into a bit of a situation with my Pi 5 8GB and I'm hoping someone here has seen this before.

It started when I noticed the only LED coming on was the red power LED. I'd previously migrated Home Assistant from SD to NVMe, and at some point something went wrong.

I've read the boot problems sticky and the subreddit FAQ and worked through everything in there that's relevant to the Pi 5, so hopefully this post has enough detail to avoid the usual back and forth.

Here's what I've tried so far:

• Booting from a fresh SD card - no joy, still solid red
• Reflashing the bootloader using Raspberry Pi Imager - got two orange flashes and solid green first time, which seemed promising, but it didn't stick
• Downloaded the correct 2712 recovery image directly from the rpi-eeprom GitHub releases page (after discovering Imager may have been flashing Pi 4 files), verified the README confirms it's the Pi 5 image, flashed via dd with wipefs beforehand - still only one orange flash then solid red
• Built rpiboot from source (the apt version is from 2022 and doesn't know about recovery5 or bootcode5.bin)
• The Pi does enter rpiboot mode when I hold the power button on plug-in - dmesg shows BCM2712 Boot being detected with the correct VID/PID

The problem is it consistently drops the USB connection after around 200ms, before rpiboot can transfer anything. The verbose output shows "Device located successfully" followed immediately by "Failed to open the requested device":

[144241.586487] usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 25 using xhci_hcd
[144241.710467] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0a5c, idProduct=2712, bcdDevice= 0.00
[144241.710472] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[144241.710473] usb 1-2: Product: BCM2712 Boot
[144241.710474] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: Broadcom
[144241.710475] usb 1-2: SerialNumber: becc6523
[144242.243537] usb 1-2: USB disconnect, device number 25

I've tried different USB ports, a udev rule to set permissions on the device, running with -l to loop, and different timing on the power button release. I'm aware that the ThinkPad USB port may not be supplying enough current during the boot ROM phase, but I don't have a powered hub available to test that theory.

The Pi is running off a MacBook Air charger for testing (although I see the same thing with multiple other PD PSU's), no NVMe attached, no SD card, nothing else connected to either the Pi or the ThinkPad I'm using as the host.

Is this recoverable, or am I looking at a dead board? Any suggestions welcome.

Heading to near Ilfracombe (specifically near Combe Martin) in a few weeks time, just wondering if there are any recommended spots nearby?

Hey folks,

Five years ago I asked about unlocking my head-unit to allow Android Auto.

About 18 months ago, the touchscreen started to fail in the middle, so I figured I'd finally bite the bullet and order one of the £50 "unlock" SD cards.

This worked really well in the sense that I can now see two buttons when I connect my phone (Android Auto and SmartLink).

Unfortunately, my phone doesn't support SmartLink and the Android Auto button is right in the middle of the dead-zone on the screen.

Is there any way to say "I don't care about SmartLink, always use Android Auto" when the touchscreen is damaged like this?

We love the Yeti, it's a fantastic car, but I don't really want to spend more money on a new head-unit and then take the dashboard apart to fit it!

At school I was obsessed with Shakespeare (I still am tbh), but especially the prologue to Henry V.

There's a line in it that goes something like "Then should the war-like Harry, as himself assume the port of Mars, and at his heels, leashed in like hounds, fire, sword, and famine crouch for employment".

More recently I've been listening to "Drinking song for the socially anxious" by The Amazing Devil (who both happen to be RSC actors when they're not playing music!) with the lyrics "Cause though my jokes are my armour, And my kindness is my sword", and it's made me think about all the times I've "donned my armour" to get through the day, whether that's a suit, a nurses tunic (thanks ADHD for such a random career path!), or patterned shirts to make sure I fit in and there's some kind of talking point that isn't my awkwardness.

So what's your armour? What do you take with you into battle on a daily or frequent basis, and do you have a specific thing for the end of level boss?