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Air Con: $1697 for an on/off switch

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

#61

Post by XorNot »

jamil7 wrote: post #51
Nursie wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The great thing about Australia is that that is probably illegal here. We've got some pretty fucked up protectionist rules about what you can and can't do in/to your own home. It's nuts. Now, nobody is actually watching most of the time, so you're usually fine, but it's as stupid as being illegal to replace a tap or existing light fitting. Every so often state governments review the rules and get swamped by trade ass…

Australia is definitely one of the most rule-obsessed countries, even in comparison to Germany, where I’ve lived for the last decade or so. Parts of my parent’s house back home are heritage listed, some rules make sense and some are bizarre, especially regarding the garden.

Heritage listing is it's own thing. What I hate is the rules surrounding...essentially any home services. Like it took me a long time to realize when people in the US were saying they "needed to get something up to code" what they meant was, that they themselves didn't feel up to doing the work and it would cost them. But like...you can. You can just call the guys and double-check what needs to be done and do it yourself and get it inspected.

Whereas in Australia the answer is, it's all illegal, and if you're not a licensed whoever then they don't want to tell you how it should be done in case gasp you do it yourself.

So of course everyone does do it themselves, and lies about it. And the quality of workmanship from the trades is...poor.

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

#62

Post by adxl »

teslabox wrote: post #48
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But HVAC supply shops will sell them to you, you don’t need to be licensed or anything to buy them. My local HVAC supplier doesn't sell to non-licensed people. I think they don't like dealing with returns from people who don't know what they're doing. I needed a 24vac transformer once. My dad used the same HVAC company for his office for a long time, they still remembered him, and had the part I needed in stock. My…

Bug

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

#63

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

teslabox wrote: post #48
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But HVAC supply shops will sell them to you, you don’t need to be licensed or anything to buy them. My local HVAC supplier doesn't sell to non-licensed people. I think they don't like dealing with returns from people who don't know what they're doing. I needed a 24vac transformer once. My dad used the same HVAC company for his office for a long time, they still remembered him, and had the part I needed in stock. My…

I’ve heard of this in the past. Usually the shop will sell to you without a license if you’re affiliated with an HVAC company, because you might be some unlicensed peon picking up parts for the installer or technician down the road. But they often have no way to verify whether you’re a HVAC person for things that don’t require a license vs some clued in homeowner, so you can give them a made up LLC name and say you want a cash account. It takes a fair bit of confidence to pull this off though. Easier and cheaper to order off of Amazon usually anyway

FWIW there are some things that DO require licensing. Purchasing refrigerant requires an EPA number. Almost no shop will sell you full on ready to install systems without a contractors license. But off the shelf components like this don’t require one and they have unlicensed helpers coming in all the time buying stuff, so confidently pretending you’re one of those is usually enough in a pinch.

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

#64

Post by Nursie »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #44
Nursie wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The great thing about Australia is that that is probably illegal here. We've got some pretty fucked up protectionist rules about what you can and can't do in/to your own home. It's nuts. Now, nobody is actually watching most of the time, so you're usually fine, but it's as stupid as being illegal to replace a tap or existing light fitting. Every so often state governments review the rules and get swamped by trade ass…

Reminds me how, in USA, it’s the only civilized nation I’ve been to where you must have a prescription to purchase contacts and glasses. Everywhere else I’ve been will just sell you whatever magnification you need at the pharmacy. Obviously there is some acceptable line here, but I think the States handles this decently well enough. In Austin where I live you can get what is called a “homeowners permit” in a lot of c…

Yeah in the UK where I spent most of my life, it seems like you do whatever you want, pretty much. Golden rule - you don't touch gas plumbing. And you don't mess with your circuit breaker board/RCDs etc. I think installing new ring circuits may be off limits.

Anything else? Go for it. I fitted a bunch of taps and a toilet, changed single sockets to double+USB sockets, changed light fittings, fixed poorly wired lighting circuits, installed Cat-6 through the walls to a few rooms, all sorts of stuff. And none of it was anyone else's business. You can (should?) get a professional inspection and safety certificate before you sell the house, but that's about it AFAICT.

I'd be happy enough with the situation in Austin, so long as the city inspections were cheap or free. I'd be happy enough to do a short course in the basics before getting some sort of permit. Where we are now is nuts.

(But at least I can buy a pair of generic reading glasses pretty much wherever here!)

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

#65

Post by Nursie »

bsder wrote: post #58
Nursie wrote: post #15

Well that's getting a bookmark! We had an Advantage Air system installed last year, and the cheap, low-powered nature of the tablet was immediately obvious. Nice to know it can fairly easily be replaced with any old device or phone as and when it craps out.

I would probably replace it now while everything is working. You know that tablet is cheap and is going to die. Figure out the procedure to replace it with something that doesn't suck before you've lost your heat/air conditioning.

Right now we're still in warranty but you're right, it's probably a good plan to get the contingency in place before it becomes a problem.

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

#66

Post by cbanek »

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…

I'd love this, but right now I'd be happy with a team reverse engineering these things and not getting hit with some kind of IP lawsuit from whatever company. I think there's going to be a lot of abandoned-ware IoT stuff, mostly because the company wants to turn the software off because they don't make money from supporting old products.

My fitbit wifi scale, which I love and has been doing a great job for the last 10 years has now lost support to pair it with the new fitbit app, thanks Google!

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

#67

Post by girvo »

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…

Oh hey, thats neat. I have two MHI split systems in my house! Definitely going to have a play with this, very nice.

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

#68

Post by randmeerkat »

ranebo wrote: post #45
redact207 wrote: post #6

I love that this man resurrected his blog after 10 years just to write this. Anger and spite are strong motivators.

You have no idea how true this is :). I had to upgrade everything, the old site didn't even have SSL. But this annoyed me so much I wanted others to know how to fix it.

> You have no idea how true this is :). I had to upgrade everything, the old site didn't even have SSL. But this annoyed me so much I wanted others to know how to fix it.

People like you are the ones that make the internet worth logging on for.

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

#69

Post by hunter2_ »

> My old tablet’s model name was on a sticker on the inside of the case, but looking at the code I saw it needed the -EZ identifier tagged to end. So the string I was to return was “PIC7KS6-EZ”.

The code seems to allow for both "PIC7KS6-EZ" and "PIC7KS6" unless I'm misreading it.

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

#70

Post by gstar »

OMFG; I am in Perth, I have the same system, the very same problem and solved it almost the same way and was in the process of writing it up.

The system uses RS422, with a base64 encoded AES key in the aaservice binary, and I was contemplating building an esp32 based open source implementation of the controller.

That's a crazy weird coincidence.

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