Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

blog.hopefullyuseful.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 496 posts

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#321

Post by sarchertech »

datahack wrote: post #100
cyberax wrote: post #98

Ugh. The whole "smart aircon" industry needs a good-sized asteroid wiping them out of the existence. There is a very real need for modern variable-speed units, and vendors just keep fucking it up by using proprietary protocols locked into their ecosystem. TRANE in the US is similar. And this is really annoying because variable-speed pumps solve all the problems with short cycling and oversized systems.

You think this is bad? Try swimming pool equipment.

You think that’s bad? Try tanning bed control equipment.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#322

Post by FLT8 »

gstar wrote: post #307
binary_slinger wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't RS422 need 2 TX and 2 RX?

I have something slightly different 1 is RS422 B 2 is RS422 A 3 & 5 - GND 4 & 6 - VCC Not sure what 7 and 8 do.

Interesting, not sure what's going on there then.. how recently was your system installed? Maybe they have updated the pinout on newer models? I'll go back and check though.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#323

Post by kbouck »

XorNot wrote: post #56
cbanek wrote: post #17

This is when smart gets stupid. I'm a bit worried about this with my nest and other smart devices, but even with normal air conditioners there are a few stupid simple problems that will cost you hundreds of dollars! A couple of weeks ago my AC blower fan stopped working, the compressor would run. I went up and found out that the capacitor was bad, and took a picture of it, buying a replacement. Took about 15 minutes…

The nice thing about my Mitsubishi Heavy Industry units is I've got a bunch of MHI-AC-Ctrl[1] modules tucked into them talking to the service interface with Home Assistant. The neat thing is it doesn't just control it, it also makes all the internal sensors and codes available. What I think we really need to do though is make publishing these control standards mandatory under right-to-repair laws - no one should need…

Network-connected home Mitsubishi units can be controlled with the MELCloud API (same api used by mobile app) which makes it easy enough to write scripts that grab current temp, settings, power usage.

Perhaps someone has already made a home assistant plugin that does this?

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#324

Post by titzer »

The future is looking like an incredibly huge pile of crappy cloud software that no one asked for, no one understands, perpetually stops working, and no one can fix except by replacing it by an even crappier, faster breaking piece of junk.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#326

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

labcomputer wrote: post #127
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure about Canadas situation since that is where I used to order my contacts from before I got LASIK several years ago. I don’t recall having to provide a script then. But Mexico and several other European countries I’ve been to (Sweden as an example) it’s absolutely the case you can just walk into the pharmacy and grab the magnification you need with no prescription. I am actually surprised you were able to…

> it’s absolutely the case you can just walk into the pharmacy and grab the magnification you need with no prescription. I don’t understand how this could possibly work. Contact lenses have at least three parameters to define the lens. It’s not just “magnification”. If you have an astigmatism, there are two more, and a further two if you have presbyopia (for a total of up to 7). Almost everyone has presbyopia by the…

Not aisles upon aisles but yeah for instance in Apotek, a big pharmacy chain in Sweden, there is usually a whole wall of them with little drawers to pick from. As sibling comment mentioned there isn’t every combination available so presumably you have to special order some if you have some weird combination but for myself who never had astigmatism at all it was perfectly fine.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#327

Post by foobarian »

nikau wrote: post #284
yuye wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems those tablets die not long after the warranty expires. I'm willing to bet money on that it's planned obsolescence, especially considering their "technology keeps moving forward" bullshit.

I'd guess they just didn't think of flash wear, like Tesla did in the early model s , and they got lucky they failed outside the warranty period.

Everybody forgets the noatime thing at least once in their career

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#329

Post by sidewndr46 »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #28
cbanek wrote: post #17

This is when smart gets stupid. I'm a bit worried about this with my nest and other smart devices, but even with normal air conditioners there are a few stupid simple problems that will cost you hundreds of dollars! A couple of weeks ago my AC blower fan stopped working, the compressor would run. I went up and found out that the capacitor was bad, and took a picture of it, buying a replacement. Took about 15 minutes…

I highly recommend people who live in hot environments to keep a spare capacitor on hand. Even if you know how to fix it, if the AC dies when your local HVAC supply store is closed (eg not between 7am-7pm Monday through Saturday usually) you’re either stuck paying out the nose to a contractor who has one on hand during emergency hours or you’re sweating it out waiting for the store to open. While they are readily ava…

It's actually worse than that here in Austin. The was only 1 store that would sell me a individual capacitor when mine failed. That one failed about 3 days later. I did some research online and apparently there was just a massive production run of capacitors that were imported to the US and are known to be bad. Supply houses were just looking to offload them.

Now I could take it back for a warranty replacement, which would give me the same defective unit.

As a result of this, I don't even recommend buying components locally any more. The capacitor from amazon cost about $12 and is still working years later.

Re: Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

#330

Post by lolinder »

yurishimo wrote: post #302
jamesholden wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some freak brain (and IKEA experience) which usually let's me do IKEA pretty well. What was it that happened in your case? I'm curious what brought you to that point.

Maybe they moved? In my experience, IKEA furniture that isn't solid wood (more and more of it is heading that direction to their credit) tends to not make it more than 1 move. I just got done (mostly) reassembling a wardrobe. It's a bit more wobbly around the edges. I'm not sure if it's because I didn't put the shelves back in the exact spots (wasn't thinking and didn't label them during disassembly) or if it's somet…

I tend to assume that IKEA furniture shouldn't be actually taken apart once put together, and so far that's worked out fine for us. There are some pieces that are obviously repeatable (table legs screwed into metal mounting brackets) but with a lot of the steps you can feel as you're doing it the first time that it's not going to work well if you have to undo it.
Post reply on HN