Julien ARNAUD (20)

House's solar and monitoring system

Here are the specs : Monitoring is done via Home Assistant running in a Docker container, itself running in an LXC container on Proxmox. Most sensors communicate in zigbee, including the Linky via a tiny self-powered module. To communicate with the solar inverter, a Solarman Integration via Wifi is used. The first 4x 435W string is installed on the roof, but the 6x 400W are still on the ground for now, as the hardest part is climbing on the roof with large fragile objects of 20 Kg each and not…

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Everyday laptop, and computer history

Until around 2007 [0], I was a big fan of powerful desktops as my daily driver. At that point my computer was liquid-cooled PowerMac G5 Quad 2.5 Ghz. This was a beast and I loved it. I then switched to a MacBook Pro 15" Penryn complemented by a NAS to compensate for lack of local storage. I kept on the laptop + NAS train for a while : more recently with availability of 4TB SSDs I went to a laptop-only setup. My previous laptop was the IdeaPad Pro 5 (5800U,…

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Machine learning desktop

I built a new computer to play with some machine learning. It uses what seems to be the best scoring case for airflow and temperature : Fractal Torrent Compact. The full setup is : The 4090 is capped to 65% TDP as going any further quickly hits drastrictly diminishing returns (anything above 75% should be considered OC). When capped, the card only runs at about 60° ! That thing really is a crazy object and product. During training the computer draws about 400W at the wall. Which sits perfectly in…

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US-48-500W power supply repair

One of our US-48-500W died at work. Since Ubiquiti has bumped the price and shifted the range quite a lot, I decided to repair it to keep it as a spare. I first confirmed that the PSU was the culprit by powering the switch with my lab PSU. Using a meanwell PSU (RD-125-2448) providing both 24V and 48V rails ,we don't reach the original 500W of PoE power, but that's still enough for our needs (some phones, cameras, and access points). I didn't put much efforts into PSU placement in…

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Sizing of my heat pump (Daikin 3MXM52)

Summer 2023, I finaly decided to equip our house with a heat pump. When we first renovated it in 2016, this didn't fit in our budget but I always dreamt of having a heat pump (who doesn't?). Bellow are my calculation and considerations. Plus some conclusions and retrospective data once the installation was completed. It is a 3 story house built in 1947, all joined by open stairwells without doors. The first level is partially underground. It has been renovated to French standard RT2012 in 2016. If you aren't unfamiliar with…

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