Apparently there’s some rumours going around that they were doing some maintenance work on the pole when it happened. Don’t know how true it is though.

Same here in New Zealand. Had them around for a while but never heard about flexible prices like this (other than items on sale of course)

just from having a think about it, your basically going DC (from the battery) to AC from the inverter back to DC via some inverter incorporated into the Festoon lights right? Do you already have the lights?, Or are there versions of the light that use DC?

I can’t be of any help but those Ryobi ones look quite interesting. Didn’t know they existed. Though at 150W, you’d be constantly changing out batteries!

Does your lighting plus straight an AC wall outlet?

Yeah definitely great to have that extra space :)

Though our second one is on the ground floor, and our kitchen is up on the floor above - so I find myself not really using the bottom one too much, and/or forgetting whats in the one downstairs.

My storage started off pretty similar, then I added some storage containers, and then I couldn’t find stuff so I repurchased things I already had etc, so I put together a simple Google Sheet with all my inventory lol. Might add which container etc, each part is located to make it extra easier lol.

My parents have got three fridge/freezers (two in the garage) and it’s amazing how they manage to always have them bursting at the seams lol 😂

Edit: we’ve “only” got two and feel we need another lol. It’s the freezer space that gets us.

I keep buying components cause they look cool, or I think I’ll need them for some project later lol.

I use nice tactix storage organizers to try and keep everything organized, but I just learned that they’ve stopped stocking the “deep” version :(

Haha. I know that feeling too well.

What were you originally thinking of doing with the IR Blasters?

I was like urgghh must be another Lemmy bug lol. Good to know it’s how it’s meant to be 👍

I’ll try and not be distracted by other projects lol

Ahh ok that makes sense. I keep forgetting I’m not on the “NewZealand” Community, as I browse on the “Local” page(?) for all my NZ stuff, since I use Lemmy.nz

Thanks for the explanation 👍

I wonder if I’m doing something wrong/ theres a setting somewhere, but pin posts aren’t actually pin for me. I though this was just a thing on the Voyager app I use, but it’s also the same when I access in on a browser via lemmy.nz

Ahh yeah, Very true! Another benefit haha. Another solid reason to go with the solenoid then :)

I just realised I actually have a rpi4 that can connect to the camera unit - could’ve been testing things out the last few days while I wait. Might have something to play with over the long weekend after all.

I’m away from home but seriously considering setting up a driveway camera with image recognition once I’m home and can get parts. Mostly becase it sounds cool

Yeah, I want to setup some POE wired Security cameras around the house, but it’s going to be too much work as the house is made of concrete blocks and bricks, and its a 2storey, so running the cabling through the ceiling space and out the soffit is not an option.

So it’s to stop the cat if they are holding a mouse, right? How does the “stopping” bit work?

Yeap exactly. I was initially thinking of triggering an electromagnet, but have since swung towards a “push/pull” linear solenoid actuator, which would physically block the door from opening. The reason I’m leaning towards the solenoid is that it would give me the flexibility to configure to either a “normally locked” or “normally unlocked” state (when no power is applied), plus I wouldn’t have to think about how strong of an electromagnet is needed (and the increasing power requirements for it).

Yea it seems the rpi4 has the 20pin connector.

It’s a shame. Don’t know if it was a last minute decision to change the connectors on the rpi5, but the camera3 came out in early 2023, and the rpi5 came out later in 2023. You’d have thought they would’ve release the camera with some thought into compatibility, maybe have both types of cables in there? I don’t know.

Yeah at least there’s some progress lol. Got the Image Recognition up and running on my laptop to test it out (on their basic pre trained models) and it’s pretty cool how it all works with a live video feed. Got me pretty excited lol. All it took was 4 lines of Python!

I actually hadn’t thought about weather proofing at all, probably because the door we’d have it installed at is under quite a large canopy, and so rain doesn’t get in (there’s sort of a retaining wall right in front of the canopy as well so sideways rain isn’t really an issue either). But it’s actually an interesting thought. It seems that there are a couple of weather proof housings on the market for the rpi cams though, if I need to go down that route. Also the plan is to have it on the underside of the top of the cat flap body (if that makes sense lol) and I plan to 3d print a bit of a shroud for it, so hopefully that’ll help protect it Abit as well.

Continuing on the catflap project, I purchased a rpi5 and raspberry cam 3 (both of which are the latest versions that they make - both from the same company obviously). Realized when I opened them up, that the camera uses a 20pin connector, and the rpi5 uses a 15pin connector. And of course the camera doesn’t come with such an adapter. Now waiting again, as it seems not many stock it in NZ (pbtech only have it in their head office and it’s like 3 times more expensive than purchasing from element 14).

I was keen on getting a bit done on the project over the long weekend, but that plan might’ve taken a big hit.

Interesting. Good to get some real life examples of that theory in action :)

That makes sense. Maybe I’ll give it a go and order it lol. It’s somthing that isnt sold here, and even if they do end up putting on GST somewhere along the line, it’s not a deal breaker.

Yeah just shipping via DHL or UPS.

Interesting, I wonder if there’s a way to know whether a seller does under that per year, or maybe if customs flags that they are doing over the limit, they send a request to the vendor, hence if they don’t seem to be collecting gst as time of sale, one could assume they are under?