Announcing new new project: Modular Rack-Mount Power Supply System (mrps)

Normally, when working on a project that I plan to release, I’ll do all work in a dedicated private repo until the project reaches a certain level of maturity and stability.

Once ready to release / share with the world, I’ll make the repo public and write a blog post about it if it’s deemed interesting enough.

Usually, the blog post gets published here as a summary of the project with a healthy dose of personal/editorial commentary on the project, while the detailed technical documentation resides in the project repo.

Converting a PurpleAir Classic to ESPHome

I still don’t 100% know what the issue is but for the past several months, my PurpleAir Classic sensor has been incredibly flakey when it comes to reporting data. Home Assistant would report random bouts of “timeouts” while trying to poll the sensor and that would result in gaps in the data. In the best case, the gaps were only a few minutes long but sometimes they would last for hours at a time.

Loading a certificate onto Avigilon without using CCT

I recently won an auction for a used Avigilon camera with the intention of replacing my cheap Reolink cameras with something a bit more “pro” and that would integrate better with Home Assistant.

This isn’t going to be a “review” of the camera or an analysis of the firmware, just a quick “I googled, found nothing so now I’m sharing how I did it for the next guy” post.

Two Minute Teardown: USB-C charged AAA battery

First, these things have existed for quite a few years now but people still seem to be discovering them. If you are one of todays lucky 10,000 people to find out about them, you’re welcome. I hope these can change your mind about rechargeable batteries; they’re good, now!

One of mine started failing with intermittent output voltage so I decided to take it apart and see what was inside.

Corporate Systems Engineering SSHAAC00-S041911

Electric utilities can employ “load shed” devices throughout their grid to manage load. These devices are usually found on air conditioners, water heaters, pool pumps and other large electrical loads. Typically they’ll offer you a small financial incentive to allow the utility to cycle your device off for short periods of time during peak demand events.

The Corporate Systems Engineering SSHAAC00-S041911 is one such device.