Sold the bikes

 After over 20 years of riding, we sold the bikes. It's not that we'll stop riding, it's just that we've barely ridden them in 2 years. Too hot, too cold, too many other things to do that we are enjoying more.

Received the money 27/4/26

Last seen at the dealer 😘

New HIFI project

I have a JVC cross media system that I bought in the mid 80s. It's slowly less relevant, and being old-school there is no remote! I started modifying the tuner to control the rest, but most radio stations are now streamed....

Found an old satellite TV STB and gutted it. A good compact size.

Before (mains lead removed)

Hail

 Hail storm today 28/4/26 at 16h30

Rain works out to around 48mm/hour

Bosch series 4 washing machine remove paddle

How to remove the paddle/aerator on a Bosch series 4 washing machine.

There are lots of videos, but none show where the clip is. It's probably the same paddle design on a lot of these Bosch machines.

You can see the tab that needs lifting towards the bottom of the left photo. In the other photo, insert the screwdriver through the hole, under the tab arm and push down towards the drum. You're aiming to lift the arm.  Not too much. Then slide the paddle towards the front.

The access below the paddle is just enough to get a small pair of pliers through to the outer, and pick out bits of wire etc. Otherwise you'll need to pull the heating element.

For info, the heating element is fitted from the rear. If you look carefully through the drum you can see it stops about 10cm from the front.

Corona Mill for Crushing Brewing Grain

 There is another post where I tried to make a mill out of beech. It wasn't hard enough.

I got a Corona mill in the end. It takes a while to crush 7kg of grain, so the temptation is to use a drill. You need a lot of torque and slow speed. My Dewalt drill will do it, but the shaft is wonky.

I had an old break maker. Taking that apart gave some great parts to re-use. I have cheated and use a variac to slow the motor down, but it works well.

Weird behaviour Asus AX-82U

I've got a mesh network of a AX-82 and AX-53. It's been running about a year. AX53 is stock, AX82 runs gnuton/asuswrt-merlin. Basically flawless until the last few months. At seemingly random intervals the network will dump wireless clients running Espressif chips (ESP32 & ESP8266), plus a Samsung oven (MAC not Espressif) . The oven is isolated from the ESP clients (different SSID) and the ESP devices are shared across 2 x SSID. The clients will stay off the network for up to 15 minutes. It was most noticeable as MQTT (a raspberry pi) would drop out sometimes. I was logging on some ESP devices and they only showed a loss of MQTT. I run Uptime Kuma and that pings all my IOT every minute. This showed the ESP devices being dumped and re-connected. MQTT was never dumped.

I thought I'd isolated it to a home assistant/open Beken Tuya BK7231N/CBS3 in a temperature sensor, but the problem continued for months. I'd forgotten about a door sensor that is infrequently used. Same tuya chip. If either device associates with the AX82, it dumps most ESP devices off the network. If they associate with the AX53 there is normally not a problem - just had the Tuya associate with the AX53 and a nearby device associated with the AX82 was dumped. Go figure.

These are battery devices with fresh batteries, running in sleep mode.

I've changed so many router settings I've almost lost track

I've a few smart plugs which had various Tuya devices, but 1 failed and I'd already replaced the others with pin compatible ESP8266, so no issues found there. Except I have to specify 

WiFi.setPhyMode(WIFI_PHY_MODE_11G);

in the ESPHOME yaml or the connection is random with the AX82. No problem with the AX53.

For info

All the devices compile in Platformio, using  Arduino.  As a general rule, all the ESP are V2 Arduino/ pre 6.10.0 PIO. I've got other ESP which aren't booted off, but the majority are. Some are 802.11n, some g, some b.

The door sensor (with AX82) only crashes the network when the door is closed.

Router log - shed door is the door sensor

Jul 27 10:59:49 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(685): wl0.1: Auth SHED DOOR, status: Successful (0), rssi:0

Jul 27 10:59:49 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(722): wl0.1: Assoc SHED DOOR, status: Successful (0), rssi:-78

Jul 27 11:01:00 kernel: WEATHER STATION  not mesh client, can't delete it

Jul 27 11:01:00 kernel: OVEN ] not mesh client, can't delete it

Jul 27 11:01:00 kernel: SHED DOOR not mesh client, can't delete it

Jul 27 11:01:10 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): eth5: Deauth_ind WEATHER STATION , status: 0, reason: Previous authentication no longer valid (2), rssi:-77

Jul 27 11:01:10 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): eth5: Deauth_ind CPI2 , status: 0, reason: Previous authentication no longer valid (2), rssi:-76

Jul 27 11:01:10 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): wl0.1: Deauth_ind SHED DOOR, status: 0, reason: Previous authentication no longer valid (2), rssi:-78

Jul 27 11:01:10 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): eth5: Deauth_ind IOTAWATT , status: 0, reason: Previous authentication no longer valid (2), rssi:-40

Jul 27 11:01:10 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): wl0.1: Deauth_ind SUNNYBOY , status: 0, reason: Previous authentication no longer valid (2), rssi:-62

Jul 27 11:01:10 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): wl0.1: Deauth_ind BEDROOM-CLOCK [, status: 0, reason: Previous authentication no longer valid (2), rssi:-72

Jul 27 11:01:10 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): wl0.3: Deauth_ind OVEN ], status: 0, reason: Previous authentication no longer valid (2), rssi:0

Jul 27 11:01:10 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): wl0.3: Deauth_ind OVEN ], status: 0, reason: Previous authentication no longer valid (2), rssi:0

Jul 27 11:01:10 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): eth5: Deauth_ind WEATHER STATION , status: 0, reason: Previous authentication no longer valid (2), rssi:-77

Jul 27 11:01:10 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): eth5: Deauth_ind CPI2 , status: 0, reason: Previous authentication no longer valid (2), rssi:-76

Jul 27 11:01:10 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): eth5: Deauth_ind IOTAWATT , status: 0, reason: Previous authentication no longer valid (2), rssi:-40

Jul 27 11:01:10 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): wl0.1: Deauth_ind SHED DOOR, status: 0, reason: Previous authentication no longer valid (2), rssi:-78

A later log for the temperature sensor doesnt show the ESP devices being dumped

Jul 27 11:17:34 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(685): wl0.1: Auth TEMPERATURE SENSOR 1 , status: Successful (0), rssi:0

Jul 27 11:17:34 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(722): wl0.1: Assoc TEMPERATURE SENSOR 1 , status: Successful (0), rssi:-75

Jul 27 11:17:38 kernel: MQTT IP is used by someone else, can't use it

Jul 27 11:17:53 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(645): wl0.1: Deauth_ind TEMPERATURE SENSOR 1 , status: 0, reason: Unspecified reason (1), rssi:-73

Jul 27 11:17:53 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(685): wl0.1: Auth TEMPERATURE SENSOR 1 , status: Successful (0), rssi:-73

Jul 27 11:17:53 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(722): wl0.1: Assoc TEMPERATURE SENSOR 1 , status: Successful (0), rssi:-73

Jul 27 11:19:02 kernel: WEATHER STATION  not mesh client, can't delete it

Jul 27 11:19:02 kernel: OVEN ] not mesh client, can't delete it

Jul 27 11:20:04 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(662): wl0.1: Disassoc STUDY_RADIO , status: 0, reason: Disassociated because sending station is leaving (or has left) BSS (8), rssi:0

Jul 27 11:20:04 wlceventd: wlceventd_proc_event(662): wl0.1: Disassoc STUDY_RADIO , status: 0, reason: Disassociated because sending station is leaving (or has left) BSS (8), rssi:0

Jul 27 11:20:07 kernel: MQTT IP is used by someone else, can't use it

Jul 27 11:20:32 kernel: AC  not mesh client, can't delete it

Jul 27 11:20:32 kernel: MQTT (PI5 wifi)  not mesh client, can't delete it

Asus Zeneye camera

This is one of very few posts that exist for these cameras. I guess they were never very popular. I paid 25€ 6 months ago for a working set of 2, with base. They work fine, battery life is good. They are waterproof. Or at least they are until they are dropped. I'm guessing mine was dropped as 2 internal mounting pillars are broken, meaning the screws with O-rings no longer sealed to the PCB.

Long story short, I drowned a camera. It was foolish on my part. I put the camera upside down in a gutter. It worked fine for a few days and I've plenty of footage with the camera submerged.

It's now in pieces to dry out.

The disassembly starts with a T6 in the base mounting hole. This reveals a removable outer shell (non-lens side, which is fixed) Careful unclip and remove this. Now remove all the 000 screws and off pops the case; to fully separate carefully jiggle the small pcb (bottom photo middle left) which will readily come loose.

Leave in the airing cupboard a few days and re-assemble. I should probably wash it in IPA or ethanol, but it was clean rain water.