It might have been a simple example but I think that is perfect for those of us just looking into Home Assistant. Thanks for doing these, I am enjoying them.
Awesome video! Can't wait until you do a breakdown of the integration with the Rixen system. I am really interested in what hardware you used and how you physically connected it to the Rixen controller as that is the part I struggle with the most... Thanks for doing this series as I am sure I will learn a lot to make my current setup even better.
Welcome back! I'm here for controlling water system valves etc in HA and heating/cooling profiles, especially with fail-safes and redundancies. My home HA (mostly Node Red but may switch back) has not been reliable enough to trust with anything that could catch fire, explode or flood yet.
Our system has been pretty darn reliable. I relate to your concern with fire and floods. I certainly keep that in mind while designing. For example, with an electronic valve, I'm always sure the default position is the safe position-like a grey dump valve defaults to the closed position and if the valve loses power, it returns to the closed position using a capacitor that has stored up energy while it was open.
Electromagnetic drawer locks for sure! Interested in the air compressor for tires. Since I am first starting my build, I would love to make life easier and know about wiring for this all ahead of time??? What do you suggest?? Thanks for doing this!!!
Today I discovered the RJ45 port on the max fan is a direct link to the button controls. Currently trying to work out how to control them with ESP32 instead of using an IR blaster but still be good to see it as I might be making a rod for my own back with this more complex setup (an IR "surge" would cause no issues to the fan)
I didn't pursue the RJ45 route because Jason @Everlanders couldn't figure it out (or didn't see it as necessary). And if he can't figure it out, I sure won't. But he also points out that the RJ45 is in a dumb place to have a cable connected. He does, however, come up with an inline highjack of the button presses with an esp8266 (D1 Mini). So if you're looking to be hardwired, that would work! I just sniffed the IR codes and soldered an IR LED onto a D1 Mini and mounted that near the IR receiver to blast the codes out. This works 100% of the time. And the nice part is that there are unique codes for each fan level and command as there is no sync between MaxxAir fan and the IR remote it comes with, so the remote has a code for every possible state. This was probably the same amount of work as what Jason did. Watch for yourself here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aS3BiYaEfiw.htmlsi=DjHMxqconVGJqJW5&t=1203 I will make a video on the IR approach here at some point!
Very cool! I have done a bit of HA at home and we are just starting a camper van build out so will definitely be following! Am very curious on the idle power draw for things like the Shelly’s - there a way to hard switch everything off to reduce load while not using the van for extended periods? As far as what next to cover, an over view of your electrical system maybe a useful foundation for future videos to build off of? Cheers and thanks for sharing!
The Shelly specs list the standby power for an RGBW2 device at ≤50mA. To put that into context a single 100Ah LiPo battery would power one shelly RGBW2 on standby (LED strips off) for about 83 days. A more average battery bank of 600Ah could power a shelly on standby for 1.37 years. 50mA is not 0, but it's not a lot either. Shellys are not the only solution either. They are just easy to get started with and can be useful for retrofitting because they communicate via wifi. I'm going to be talking about some more advanced boards that drive a larger quantity of LED strips and rely on a single microprocessor and are ethernet capable which together increase reliability and reduce standby power compared to a small army of Shelly devices on wifi. I have come to love Victron Smart Battery Protects which allow you disconnect large DC loads-they make 3 sizes of this device. 65amp - amzn.to/3TWOOpC, 100amp - amzn.to/4ew5cWx, and a 220amp - amzn.to/3zPJxcK (all for 12/24v). There are a variety of ways to program and configure these, but you could easily trigger one from a home automation platform to shut down some DC loads if you're going to be storing your vehicle for an extended period. They also feature bluetooth so you can disable their loads from your phone. They will also sense voltage and shut off the connected loads at configurable thresholds.
@@SmartyVan amazing thanks for sharing! I’m sure I’ll have some more questions as our build kicks off - appreciate the detailed information. Looking forward to the rest of your videos!
Am very disappointed I found your page, have spent a lot of time effort and money making my house smart, now after seeing your videos on to automating the van I go 🤣
Thanks for pointing this out. It seems to be a RU-vid issue. They had errantly removed some videos and channels last week, and when everything was restored this video only remained in 360p or 1080p. Doesn't seem to be much I can do about it.
Hi Mike - Thanks for sharing this video! It was great meeting you a couple of weeks ago at the AVE in Ecnumlaw, WA. I’m excited to start this project for my van. I have a question about the wall panel installation. How do you determine the locations for the rivet nuts when mounting the wall panel?
Hey! Glad you made it to the channel. Most of our wall panels went like this: Template out the shape of the panel with cardboard, remove template, take measurements of safe rivnut areas on the van frame, place template back in place, mark those safe rivnut spots on the template, drill through the template at those marks and just enough to mark the metal behind, transfer template to wood (including the holes), drill out the marked spots on the van body and insert rivnuts, mount the final panel with machine screws and hope the holes line up 😅
Hmm - thanks for pointing that out. A couple of days ago RU-vid accidentally removed a bunch of accounts and videos for "spam" (including Smarty Van). They've seemingly restored everything, but this was one of the videos removed and then reinstated. Perhaps it got lost in the mix there. They may have a back log of 4k processing going on? Or, it's just a bug. support.google.com/youtube/thread/300155212?linkId=11195158
Just checking with a software writer and he said: "It's a cool idea. Your automations are only as good as your equipment though. So, you have to buy things that will connect with that home assistant software" . If he correct, how to know what equipment and systems to buy? I have several I want to automate and I have the ability to get whatever is needed since my build is just at the beginning. Can you assist??
We're going to go through each of the integrations in our van on this channel, though that may not happen in time for your build. Luckily, much of it can be retrofit. What are your most desired features?
