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IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

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Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#11

Post by WWLink »

metadat wrote: post #2

This sort of IR hacking is pretty badass, even if a bit fiddly. How much additional heat does that old G4 add into the mix? I wonder if this could be done much more efficiently with an RPi Zero or similar.

That g4 has a green power light, so it's probably a 'yikes' or 'sawtooth' model. Those G4 processors use like 7W of power!

It wasn't until the Quicksilver dual processor models that they started hitting the limits with that case design. They introduced the "Mirrored Drive Doors" model to help lol. At that point we were talking about 40w or so.

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#12

Post by danhor »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #8

I've got two portable air conditioners, an LG in a living space, and a "Comfee" (which is made by Midea) for my home office/server room. The Comfee was very easy to automate. I just grabbed an ESP32 board that I had handy, some parts out of my bins, and soldered up a working IR blaster. ESPHome provided all of the hard parts, Home Assistant provided the UI. It works brilliantly. I have the air conditioner on a smart…

Most modern LG TVs work via a wireless connection to the remote, not IR

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#13

Post by Johnny555 »

Computers are hot. No, I mean, they're hot. They heat our house in the winter here in primarily sunny Southern California (not as much as my wife would like, but that's another story for another day).

I had to look at the date on the article to see if this was written 20 years ago, since most modern computers aren't that hot and use very little power when not in use, unless you've got a big gaming (or crypto mining) rig.

Then I read further:

Normies don't have a room with an IBM POWER6, Sawtooth G4 (and its FireWire RAID), Mac mini G4, Macintosh IIci, Alpha Micro Eagle 300, Cobalt RaQ and associated IoT devices and network backbone infrastructure running non-stop (to say nothing of the Apple Network Server 500 and HP 9000/350 that also occasionally come out to play).

So the article wasn't written 20 years ago, but his computers at at least that old.

The only computer that I run 24x7 is a fileserver + home automation controller, and it uses around 35W of power (including the network switch), which is still more than I'd like, I want to build one that's more power efficient.

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#14

Post by InvaderFizz »

Most minisplit units work over IR blaster. HomeAssistant or ESPHome can be used to drive units capable of acting as IR blasters.

Personally I use Broadlink RM4 Pro units. The connect to WiFi anywhere in the house and I can use HomeAssistant to drive them. They work for both IR and 315/433MHz devices.

Broadlink isn't the only vendor, but I find the price reasonable and it's nice to not have to solder anything.

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#15

Post by r2_pilot »

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #8

I've got two portable air conditioners, an LG in a living space, and a "Comfee" (which is made by Midea) for my home office/server room. The Comfee was very easy to automate. I just grabbed an ESP32 board that I had handy, some parts out of my bins, and soldered up a working IR blaster. ESPHome provided all of the hard parts, Home Assistant provided the UI. It works brilliantly. I have the air conditioner on a smart…

I too have an LG. I tried to control it with a Flipper Zero but it didn't respond well. I figure the codes are more of a state machine rather than simply replaying them. I didn't pursue it further though.

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#16

Post by grepfru_it »

rodgerd wrote: post #5
sparker72678 wrote: post #4

Not too long ago I got a new AC in my office, and attempted to do some automation (turn the temp up during the weekend, etc.) via an IR Blaster. At some point I ran out of patience and gave up trying. After reading this article I am encouraged to see that I was _not even close_ to getting it working, ha! Maybe I'll try again in the future, but gosh I just with these stupid units had another way to be controlled.

I looked into the blaster approach and decided "just no"; I ended up getting a Sensibo which is just an IR blaster that someone else has done all the hard work for, which seems well work paying for.

I have a rack with 6 1u servers in it (and some other A/V hardware and lots of disks). We have an AC unit for each floor of the house, the bottom floor is sized larger than the top floor. I keep the bottom floor set to 74 and the servers see an ambient temp of 76. I find this to be acceptable, but there are times when I don't need to maintain 74 for the entire floor of the house.. like when we are on vacation. One time we came back and our cleaning service raised the temp to 86(!!!) lets just say my servers were loud that day. So I'm looking into a mini-split unit to put in the server room.

A minisplit is better than a window unit or a standing unit because I don't have to cut a very large hole nor do i have to figure out drainage. The power consumption is the same as what the article is pulling (900W) and all of the noise is exported to the exterior of the house. If you do not have a high cooling requirement then a heatpump may be sufficient for your needs

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#17

Post by classichasclass »

metadat wrote: post #2

This sort of IR hacking is pretty badass, even if a bit fiddly. How much additional heat does that old G4 add into the mix? I wonder if this could be done much more efficiently with an RPi Zero or similar.

(author)

The G4? Not much. The G4's FireWire spinning disk RAID? Quite a bit. I'm plotting possible replacements.

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#18

Post by classichasclass »

WWLink wrote: post #11
metadat wrote: post #2

This sort of IR hacking is pretty badass, even if a bit fiddly. How much additional heat does that old G4 add into the mix? I wonder if this could be done much more efficiently with an RPi Zero or similar.

That g4 has a green power light, so it's probably a 'yikes' or 'sawtooth' model. Those G4 processors use like 7W of power! It wasn't until the Quicksilver dual processor models that they started hitting the limits with that case design. They introduced the "Mirrored Drive Doors" model to help lol. At that point we were talking about 40w or so.

It's a Sawtooth 450MHz.

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#19

Post by Mister_Snuggles »

r2_pilot wrote: post #15
Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #8

I've got two portable air conditioners, an LG in a living space, and a "Comfee" (which is made by Midea) for my home office/server room. The Comfee was very easy to automate. I just grabbed an ESP32 board that I had handy, some parts out of my bins, and soldered up a working IR blaster. ESPHome provided all of the hard parts, Home Assistant provided the UI. It works brilliantly. I have the air conditioner on a smart…

I too have an LG. I tried to control it with a Flipper Zero but it didn't respond well. I figure the codes are more of a state machine rather than simply replaying them. I didn't pursue it further though.

Based on the behaviour of the remote and the AC unit, it works just like the Comfee unit where the remote sends the whole state (mode, temperature setpoint, fan speed) to the AC unit. The remote has a display on it showing the mode, fan speed, temperature, etc.

That doesn't tell me anything about how the actual protocol works though. I still need to buy an IR receiver and start decoding the protocol.

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#20

Post by gh02t »

sgt wrote: post #3
metadat wrote: post #2

This sort of IR hacking is pretty badass, even if a bit fiddly. How much additional heat does that old G4 add into the mix? I wonder if this could be done much more efficiently with an RPi Zero or similar.

Was wondering the same. Those old PowerPC's used to run hot. I think it was one of the primary motivations Steve had for changing to Intel.

At least some of the early Intel Macs ran hot too; I had a core duo plastic Macbook and it got uncomfortably hot.
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