zorruno.com

July 21, 2020

Whole House 3 Phase Power with PZEM-004T

A robust, accurate, low cost and safe whole house electricity monitoring setup, using PZEM-004T modules. These use current transformers (CTs), and send data as TTL Modbus-RTU. Recently Tasmota has added support for up to 3 of these directly (on the same data channel) so there are fewer hoops to jump though to get them working (previously my testing involved sending serial commands)

Home Automation

June 11, 2020

Secure the Chocolate: Simple Cupboard Security

We have created a self contained area of our house that we still use a lot ourselves, and part of the need is to be able to store and use spaces for our own stuff… without guests having access. One of the bedrooms and a full sized cupboard can be locked with a key when needed, but what do you…

Home Automation/Home Renovations/Security Comments: 0

June 11, 2020

Bike Cover Sail

Photos of a simple cover made to protect bikes stored outside.

DIY Projects/Home Renovations/Photo Gallery Comments: 0

June 2, 2020

USB Weather Station & Weewx using Docker

Use of a Low cost WH1080 USB Weather station, connected by USB to an intel NUC running docker.
Weewx pushes data to a local MQTT server (on the same NUC) and also uses SFTP to push graphs and displays to my commercial webserver.

Home Automation/Weather Comments: 0

May 17, 2020

Sinilink USB XY-WFUSB Tasmota Flash

Summary Pics and notes for flashing a Sinilink USB Stick XY-WFUSB with Tasmota This is a USB A Male to female stick, with an esp8266 in it to switch the output. It can be flashed with Tasmota, but has annoyingly small 1.27mm pitch headers. I used the ‘sewing pin’ method suggested in a couple of places. If I was doing…

Home Automation Comments: 0

April 24, 2020

Tasmota based Equipment Cabinet Fan Controller

More an exercise in playing with Tasmota & documenting how Tasmota Rules work, this overly complex fan setup is a standalone fan controller/thermostat for my equipment cupboard.

Home Automation/IT & Networking Comments: 0

December 6, 2019

Large TV Recessed Mounting

This was a setup in our rumpus room to house a TV. I made the recess etc probably 8 months before I even thought about getting a TV for it, and I sort of ‘estimated’ the size I’d need. The back of the recess is 12mm MDF and it is set 100mm back from the Gib. There was heaps of room behind this wall due to how this area under the house is constructed. Using a sheet of MDF meant I didn’t need to worry about what I was going to do with a TV bracket later – it could be screwed anywhere.

Home Renovations Comments: 0

December 5, 2019

Over Stair TV Cabinet + Hall Storage

Because I hate unused space… I decided to plan a storage unit for above where our stairs go from our lounge to the lower level. There is decent ceiling height here, and the back of the area is accessible from the hallway. We thought of the concept when we were renovating the hall about 12 months previous, and so cut…

DIY Projects/Entertainment/Home Renovations Comments: 0

November 13, 2019

Home Automation: Future Thinking

So, home control with your own setup is great, but you have to think about what happens in the event you sell your house, get hit by a bus or someone needs to work on it in the future. Home Automation should add value to a house, not turn people off a sale. This is part 2 of some of…

DIY Projects/Home Automation/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

November 13, 2019

Home Automation: Electrical Safety

This is part one of some of my notes regarding Home Automation concepts. Part 2 is about planning for the future and house resale value. Electrical Isolation/Safety Electrical safety is very important obviously for home automation, and as well as my tendency to over-engineer, I’m often thinking about ‘what could possibly go wrong‘. One of the things I want to…

DIY Projects/Home Automation/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

July 27, 2019

Used EV Payback, Should I buy one? (Part 1, Estimates)

How much do you save buying a used EV, and is it worth it? How long is the payback? This is the story of my original conservative payback estimates for buying a Nissan Leaf, but plot twist… the actuals are much, much better.

Electric Vehicles/Opinion

July 8, 2019

Conversion of Ceiling Attic to Storage

In 2019 I converted a ceiling space atticin our current house to storage (on a budget). You can never have enough home storage. This is the 5th type of install I’ve done like this (Similar in 4 previous houses), and as well as being useful, home buyers love it (if done well).

Home Renovations/Projects Comments: 0

May 12, 2019

Lachco Front Door Lock for Home Automation

I researched, bought and installed an electronic front door lock to go with the home automation & security system for under NZ$200 in 2017. I looked for one with these features specifically as it was a free egress handle, would lock on door close (not a deadlock) and had a wireless RF remote… which is an easy way to connect…

Home Automation/Home Renovations/Security Comments: 0

April 12, 2019

Podcasts I Listen To

Ok, I do like to listen to the occasional podcast, and there are a bunch that I like to listen to regularly. Being in traffic for an hour or more most day gives me plenty of opportunity to catch up on various technology news, history and some light hearted humour. This list is occasionally updated when I fine more content,…

Education/Entertainment/Lists/Opinion/Social Media/Technology Comments: 0

April 8, 2019

Whole House Audio on the Cheap

You can pay thousands for Bose multiroom audio systems, or buy a huge stereo and crank it up so you can hear it throughout the place. You can also get multiple digital distribution amplifiers that run over Wifi (eg Sonos), but again they come at a huge cost. What you really want though is cheap DIY multiroom background music system….

DIY Projects/Entertainment Comments: 0

April 6, 2019

Shelly Park Colour Run, 2019

Selfie Booth Photos from the Shelly Park School Colour Fun Run, April 2019

Photo Gallery Comments: 3

April 1, 2019

Caravans at Beach Hop, 2019

Beach Hop in Whangamata had around 100 classic, vintage and retro styled caravans this year. Here are a bunch of photos I took. Not my best work.. but I didn’t spend a lot of time taking them, and of course it was pretty overcast. Congratulations to the winner at the Top 10 shootout, Retro Custom Caravan’s 50’s styled Norma Jean….

Photo Gallery/Retro Caravans Comments: 2

March 7, 2019

Dog Motel

We just got a new and decided it needed a place to hang out outside… and somewhere to poop as we had no grass area. The area was an existing pebble garden that we cleared and put down a scoria base. We built a picket fence around the edge and laid some astroturf. The gate will mainly remain open as…

Home Renovations/Photo Gallery Comments: 0

February 4, 2019

5 Steps to DIY Home Automation

You can spend thousands on home automation equipment. You could get yourself an ecosystem like Apple Homekit, Samsung Smart-Things, Control4 or many others, however with just some moderate techo skills you can set up or convert your home to pretty awesome home control with DIY. My take on home automation is that it should be pretty much invisible. Things should…

DIY Projects/Home Automation/Technology Comments: 0

January 9, 2019

My car was broken in to… without my remote!

Someone recently sent an email to our local neighbourhood and it went something like this: We live at no 123, and I thought it was worth sending an email as my car was broken into last night on our driveway. My husband’s car was also broken into on our driveway the other night. Both times, the burglars managed to open…

Security/Technology/Vehicles Comments: 0

November 7, 2018

Electric Vehicle EVtiquette

Subtitle: How not to be a d@%k, when owning and driving an Electric Vehicle. Warning, these are my opinions, and in some cases may be mine alone. Feel free to weigh in to discussions below, or on the various Facebook EV owners and Nissan Leaf groups. This is a New Zealand site, so some links/comments may be NZ related only. After…

Electric Vehicles/Opinion Comments: 0

June 24, 2018

How to Stop Your Caravan From Disappearing

Caravan thefts in New Zealand have become a lot more common in the past few years, and every day or so you hear about another one going missing. Caravans are pretty easy to steal by themselves, as they are light weight, usually easily accessible on a driveway… and they sit home alone when people go to work. An often touted…

Retro Caravans/Security Comments: 0

May 19, 2018

Tips: Get Your Cabling in Tricky Places

Do you have an existing house or structure and trying to get a cable into a tricky place? Here are a few tips from methods I have used over the years. Conduit Sucker There is nothing more annoying than finding a broken cable in a conduit or pipe and having nothing to pull the replacement wire though. it is especially…

Home Renovations/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

January 17, 2018

Rebel Roundup, Pukekohe 2018

The first year for Retro Caravans, Rebel Roundup is at Pukekohe raceway south of Auckland.

Photo Gallery/Retro Caravans Comments: 0

November 8, 2017

Set up a Cheap Home Surveillance System

You can spend a lot on home security and surveillance. Obviously, better quality, higher resolution digital systems are great and can be set up for more money, but as digital systems have become more common, analogue systems have become dirt cheap. In my opinion, more lower resolution cameras is as good or better than just a few of high resolution,…

CCTV/Home Renovations/Technology Comments: 0

November 6, 2017

Complete Backup and Restore of an Android Device

If you are upgrading an Android device and want to cover everything (and pedantically save the entire history/setup of your phone), for example installing a new ROM in your phone, upgrading the phone or going from an old phone to a new one, here are some notes I have put together about the process I use. What do you want…

Mobile Phones & Android Comments: 0

October 28, 2017

Why Your Opinion May Not Matter

In recent society, there seems to be a fast growing trend toward a belief that “everybody’s opinion is equally valid”. Democracy promotes this ideal, and in turn it is supposed to mean that fairer system should be in place due to the wants of the majority.

Opinion/Social Media/Technology Comments: 0

January 15, 2017

1965 Zephyr Caravan Renovation

These are the before and after photos of our 1965 15″ Zephyr Deluxe Caravan. It was apparently stored in a shed for 20 years so apart from some general decay, some borer and a bunch of broken and missing stuff, the layout and fittings were mostly original. We’ve had it for a couple of years but completed most of the…

DIY Projects/Projects/Retro Caravans Comments: 0

July 28, 2016

Board Games

A list of Board Games Collected List Last Updated, June 2021

Entertainment/Lists

July 4, 2016

Howto: Use Gmail for Personalised Email

You can use Google’s Gmail system to manage your personalized email. This gives you all the benefits of being able to easily see your email on phone/tablet/computer etc. Generally, you want the fact that you are using gmail to be invisible to people if you have your own domain however, and this method allows you to do that without setting…

Technology/Web Hosting Comments: 0

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