How to – Page 2 – Systems Lab

December 25, 2023December 7, 2023

Blinking Zooz Light Switch

I installed some new z-wave light switches recently and when working on one of them, I encountered a very peculiar problem, the light would turn on for one second, then flash off and back on again, repeating this constantly. I was unsure what was going on since I thought I had wired the switch correctly.

The switch box had 3 wires, 2 going up and out one side, and a third going up and out the other. This was in a closet with 2 lights in it, so I figured the two were for the lights and the third was for the incoming power. I was quite wrong. The two were for the incoming power (incoming power and the rest of that breaker) and the third was for the two overhead lights.

With it wired up correctly this time, the switch turned on and off correctly, no flashing on and off. I hadn’t seen a smart switch do this before, but now I know it was from receiving the line and the load.

December 11, 2023December 7, 2023

Proxmox Host Network Issues

I got a new host for my proxmox server recently, a used sff PC that I upgraded the RAM in. It seemed to be a pretty neat little box with what should be the same amount of CPU horsepower as my beefy dual CPU system. I did however run into a big network problem that basically made the NIC useless.

December 4, 2023November 5, 2023

Docker Compose on Unraid

Recently I restarted my journey towards a self hosted photos system again. This time I was planning on trying it immich. Immich provides a docker compose file to startup their entire stack of 6+ containers, which I wanted to run on unraid that lacks compose in the default configuration. Queue journey to get docker compose capabilities on unraid.

November 27, 2023November 5, 2023

Docker Hub Login on Unraid

I’ve had a few times now where I can’t grab a new container image to startup due to their rates limits on docker hub. This has been quite annoying, and there is a free plan for double the image pulls. Here is how you can login on unraid and setup the go file so it persists between reboots.

November 20, 2023November 5, 2023

XKCD in Home Assistant

I like to do some funny things from time to time, and I learned that adding XKCD to my home assistant dashboard is pretty simple. So what am I going to do, of course I’m going to add the current days XKCD to my home assistant dashboard!

November 13, 2023November 5, 2023

Making LED Acrylic Signs

Now that I have a CO2 laser available, it opens up some new things that I can do, like cutting and engraving clear acrylic. Adding some side lighting to that and we can make a pretty sweet sign. I also plan on making a few more of these for gifts, so this first one is my experiment piece to try out all the techniques needed.

November 6, 2023November 6, 2023

NFC Tag Readers in Home Assistant

This is the first step in my home audio setup. I need an easy way to select music to play from my collection, and having EspDeck buttons for each choice would end up being a bit too clumsy. I plan on making some tag readers and a small collection of NFC tags for the various bands, playlist, etc available.

October 30, 2023August 14, 2023

Enabling Unifi QOS

With the limited bandwidth of my Comcast network and the various services I run all competing for it, it’s time to turn on some QOS services and rules on my Unifi network. We’ve been seeing problems with voice and video meetings that some standard QOS will hopefully remedy.

October 23, 2023August 14, 2023

Backups and Data Synchronization

Backups are important, we all know that, but often times we don’t do what we say. This goes over all my various methods for backing up my data and attempting to follow the 3-2-1 policy.

October 16, 2023August 18, 2023

Using ntfy.sh to send unRAID notifications

unRAID supports multiple notification platforms for keeping you informed about what the server is doing, the only problem is, I don’t use any of those notification platforms. I have however started using ntfy.sh, which has been working well for my home assistant notifications, and is a very simple platform. What I’d like to do is integrate it into unRAID so that I can make use of it there as well.