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IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

oldvcr.blogspot.com

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Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#21

Post by bpye »

watsonkr wrote: post #9

For those who don't want to, or have the time, to build something like this, there is also an off the shelf solution: the Aqara M2 Hub[1]. I currently use this to control both my portable AC, and an electric fireplace. And for those who are concerned about security, you can easily restrict this device from accessing the internet using your firewall, and it will continue to function just fine. [1] https://www.aqara.co…

There are also devices that do RF. I have a Broadlink RM4 Pro [0] - and whilst the vendor software sucks, there is a Home Assistant integration [1], or several libraries - I've used a Go one [2] though I did modify it a bit as I wasn't totally happy with how it was written.

[0] - https://www.ibroadlink.com/productinfo/762672.html

[1] - https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/broadlink/

[2] - https://github.com/rob121/broadlinkgo

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#24

Post by midoridensha »

danhor wrote: post #12
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

Probably most others too. My new TCL TV uses a Bluetooth remote.

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#26

Post by archi42 »

Johnny555 wrote: post #13

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)…

35W is actually pretty good already. My network rack currently reports 95W. Of which 25-30W are the PoE switch (Aruba JL683A) including a 4 APs, one 5 port switch and a VoIP-Dect gateway on PoE. SFP+ ports have a DAC and a fiber module. The remainder is the home server ("does everything": firewall/router, huge NAS, home assistant, vaultwarden, foundry vtt, private cloud,...). For some reason it's 10W over normal, probably disks busy due to active downloads. That's a i3-8100 with 2 DDR4 ECC modules and a 10GbE NIC (8W).

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#27

Post by ridgered4 »

danhor wrote: post #12
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

My LG TV actually had support for control by serial communication, provided I plugged in a USB to serial converter. It allowed me to move volume control to my HTPC and largely dump the remote.

I kind of doubt an air conditioner has the same feature though.

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#29

Post by archi42 »

classichasclass wrote: post #17
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.

Not sure if that's technologically possible or even an option for you access pattern, but for my more modern SATA disks I see about 1W (from the wall) per disk when spun down, lots of W for spin up and 5 to 8W spinning. I guess numbers for old disks are a bit different, but the principle should hold.

Drawback is that you'll likely be doing staggered spin up, which can introduce some latency. But for non-interactive stuff like daily backups that's just irrelevant.

Re: IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room

#30

Post by midoridensha »

sokoloff wrote: post #28
midoridensha wrote: post #25

Why not just buy a new WiFi-controlled A/C? They're very common now.

If they have a mechanically well-functioning A/C, why create more waste by replacing it?

You could just re-sell it to someone else. Replacing something that works fine doesn't mean you have to throw it in the trash. Plus, a newer A/C probably has better efficiency anyway.
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