IR-Controlling New Air Conditioner in Server Room
oldvcr.blogspot.com
oldvcr.blogspot.com
I had to look at the date on the article to see if this was written 20 years ago, since most modern computers aren't that hot and use very little power when not in use, unless you've got a big gaming (or crypto mining) rig.
Then I read further:
Normies don't have a room with an IBM POWER6, Sawtooth G4 (and its FireWire RAID), Mac mini G4, Macintosh IIci, Alpha Micro Eagle 300, Cobalt RaQ and associated IoT devices and network backbone infrastructure running non-stop (to say nothing of the Apple Network Server 500 and HP 9000/350 that also occasionally come out to play).
So the article wasn't written 20 years ago, but his computers at at least that old.
The only computer that I run 24x7 is a fileserver + home automation controller, and it uses around 35W of power (including the network switch), which is still more than I'd like, I want to build one that's more power efficient.
The Comfee was very easy to automate. I just grabbed an ESP32 board that I had handy, some parts out of my bins, and soldered up a working IR blaster. ESPHome provided all of the hard parts, Home Assistant provided the UI. It works brilliantly. I have the air conditioner on a smart outlet which gives me real-time power consumption information, from here it's easy to determine what the machine is doing. I also have a Xiaomi temperature/humidity/pressure sensor, which I can use to feed into automations to control the unit if I want to.
So far I've been unsuccessful at using an IR blaster to control the LG - ESPHome, out of the box, can't seem to control this unit. I haven't gone down the rabbit hole of capturing IR codes, but that's the next step once I get the appropriate parts.
I kind of doubt an air conditioner has the same feature though.
That doesn't tell me anything about how the actual protocol works though. I still need to buy an IR receiver and start decoding the protocol.
And for those who are concerned about security, you can easily restrict this device from accessing the internet using your firewall, and it will continue to function just fine.
[0] - https://www.ibroadlink.com/productinfo/762672.html
Personally I use Broadlink RM4 Pro units. The connect to WiFi anywhere in the house and I can use HomeAssistant to drive them. They work for both IR and 315/433MHz devices.
Broadlink isn't the only vendor, but I find the price reasonable and it's nice to not have to solder anything.
After reading this article I am encouraged to see that I was _not even close_ to getting it working, ha!
Maybe I'll try again in the future, but gosh I just with these stupid units had another way to be controlled.
A minisplit is better than a window unit or a standing unit because I don't have to cut a very large hole nor do i have to figure out drainage. The power consumption is the same as what the article is pulling (900W) and all of the noise is exported to the exterior of the house. If you do not have a high cooling requirement then a heatpump may be sufficient for your needs
How much additional heat does that old G4 add into the mix?
I wonder if this could be done much more efficiently with an RPi Zero or similar.
It wasn't until the Quicksilver dual processor models that they started hitting the limits with that case design. They introduced the "Mirrored Drive Doors" model to help lol. At that point we were talking about 40w or so.
The G4? Not much. The G4's FireWire spinning disk RAID? Quite a bit. I'm plotting possible replacements.
Drawback is that you'll likely be doing staggered spin up, which can introduce some latency. But for non-interactive stuff like daily backups that's just irrelevant.