DIY

A small solar power system to run a LoRa water temperature sensor year round. Here's some pretty graphs of the data:

https://www.kaedon.net/mitigomish/watertemp

This is a project that's been running for almost 2 years now. Everything is still working with very little down time! The solar power system is way overpowered for what it's doing, but I wanted to make sure it works through the dark winters.

The temperature sensor is at the bottom of a bucket in the ground, because the water level gets pretty low in the winter and I didn't want the ice to destroy the temperature sensor when it drifts.

Any thoughts or suggestions for improvements are welcome!

This is DIY repair, not project.

Had some nasty MDF damage. Instead of looking for replacement parts ar sending table to indefinite storage, decided to fix it. I hope this will be useful to someone.

(compiled from the Wikipedia page on jugaad)

• DIY (US)
• jugaad (India)
• hack
• frugal engineering
• kludge (US)
• bodge (UK)
• urawaza (裏技) (Japan)
• tapullo (Italy)
• tǔ fǎ (土法) (China)
• Trick 17 (Germany)
• gambiarra (Brazil)
• système D (France)
• jua kali (Kenya)
• Number 8 wire (New Zealand)
• ’n boer maak ’n plan (Afrikaans)
• izenzele (Zulu)
• iketsetse (Sotho)
• itirele (Tswana)

I wrote this for !zerowaste but it kind of feels like a better fit for diy.

https://i.imgur.com/oBgXyBW.jpg

I don’t have any in-progress pictures of this one, but it’s such a simple design I doubt you'll need them. I responded to a post on the local Everything is Free page where a guy was cleaning out all the lumber left under his porch. At the end of the week he had a dumpster coming and anything that hadn’t been taken he would throw away.

I loaded up my car with what I could fit, but there was this big roughcut 2x12 plank that looked like it had been used as scaffolding (paint marks and boot prints). It was too long to fit in my car but he was renting a chopsaw with the dumpster, so he offered to cut the board to length when they showed up and set it aside for me. So I was able to go back for it (ever since, I’ve brought saws, a tape measure, a square, and a marker with me whenever I pick up lumber). I asked him to cut it to a six foot length, and he even saved the extra for me, which worked out well because I made the rest of the bench out of it.

After having spent some time restoring fancy furniture, I wanted to try something more rustic. I cut the leftover material into three pieces, two legs/sides, and one square piece to cut in half diagonally for support. On the two uprights, I cut a decorative notch in the base, and tapered the sides. I had to use a hand saw for most of this as the skillsaw didn't like the thick plank.

https://i.imgur.com/akUnIBT.png

I nailed down through the top into the legs, then flipped it, put the 45s in place and drove screws through the angled surface into the legs and the underside of the bench. Then I drove screws in from the outside of the legs, and nails through the benchtop.

I gave the benchtop and sides a very casual sanding, just to knock away any splinters and rough spots, and urethaned it so it would last longer.

It's not as pretty as some of the things I've made, but it's strong, and simple, and was made out of wood I got for free and screws/nails/urethane I already had.

Paul Johnson sailed the world all his life. He loved, drank, and lived foolish, never truly living on land. Now he is turning eighty. What is at the end of such a journey? Is there loneliness?

One of my favorite channels for DYI inspiration. Most videos are about salvaging damaged things from junkyards and repairing them or using them to build something new.

Pillonel noticed that millions watch his videos, but very few actually attempt them. He wants to help people by making replacement parts available.

The Battlemesh v15 will be hosted by the fabulous Calafou / colonia ecoindustrial postcapitalista members in Barcelona, Europe

The community voted for this year's edition to take place from Monday 2023-05-08 to Sunday 2023-05-14.

The Calafou compound is very spacious and offers plenty of room for hacking, workshops, socializing, building test beds and more!

This has been posted already, my bad, it's here : https://lemmy.ml/post/224388

Here is a short summary I (OP) made :

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• This one is a static exercise bicycle with no gears.
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• You also have to build a board to convert current / voltage on the output if you want to charge batteries or power electronic devices that are sensitive to power changes
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• Power output overview : "The power output (W) of a bike generator corresponds to the voltage (V) multiplied by the current (A). We obtained roughly 100 watts (12V, 8-9A) of power during a short and heavy workout. During a moderate effort – which we can sustain for a longer time – power production is between 45 and 75 watts. The power output not only depends on the bike but also on the person who operates it. Athletes could produce more power, while couch potatoes would (initially!) generate less."
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• The simple dynamo is under the wheel. So, much friction. A better system could waste less energy ?

Reminder :

• Parallel wiring increases amperage and voltage stays the same. Each cell in a parallel circuit is wired positive to positive and negative to negative.
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• Series wiring (mostly what you will use for solar cells} increases voltage and amperage stay the same. Each cell in a series circuit is wired positive to negative, the remaining positive and negative are you leads. You'll notice batteries in flashlights installed in series.

Since OpenWRT introduced Mesh networking I haven't been able to use or test anything, and I'm looking for good ressources to help choose between protocols, firmwares, and hardware / device chipsets ?

I know about OLSR, B.A.T.M.A.N, and had a chance to run and test Byzantium Live OS back when it was a thing.

• Is B.A.T.M.A.N the better approach for an easy/reliable Mesh setup ? Does it run easily on simple devices (not routers) ?

• For routers, are there other open source firmwares more suited to Mesh networking than openWRT, that will work on a lot of devices and are reliable ?