• 20 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • That’s not how AC works at all.

    AC works by evaporating a gas, evaporation (going from liquid to gas) takes a lot of energy. By dong this inside a ribbed evaporator, the energy gets extracted from the evaporator cooling it down. Then a fan ventilates the air in the room over the evaporator, which in turn extracts the energy from the air. On the other side the AC has a compressor which turns the gas into a liquid. This takes energy to do, so the compressor puts all that energy in, heating up in turn. A large condenser (looks like a radiator) is used to cool the coolant down. The compressor puts in energy in the form of pressure, but as the gas is hot it can’t turn into a liquid. By cooling it down in the condensor it can turn into a liquid. A fan is used over the condensor to dump the energy from the gas into the outside air.

    For gas in the past something like R134a was used, these days something like R290 (propane, but very pure/clean) is used which is better for the environment. In a very real sense ACs are energy pumps, they take the energy from inside and dump it outside. But they can also work the other way around, taking energy from outside and dumping it inside. This leads to pretty cool effects where you can heat your home with more than 100% efficiency. Because the energy you need to put in is only the overhead for pumping the energy, but the amount of energy being pumped can by much much larger. Over 100% efficiency in a closed system isn’t possible, but since an AC dumps the energy in the outside air it isn’t a closed system. ACs are also known as heatpumps for this reason.

    The way an AC can be used to dehumidify is because of the dew point in the air. This is a combination of the amount of moisture in the air, the pressure and the temperature. When the AC pushes the temperature from above the dew point to below, the air can’t contain all the moisture it contains. This will cause the water to condens on the evaporator in the AC. This can (and probably will unless you are in a very dry area) occur during normal cooling operation. This is why there are normally lines to take the water and get it out of the AC unit. When the water would remain, it’s a breading ground for all sorts of nasty stuff (look up legionnaires disease), so it’s important to get it out of there. A lot of times a small water pump is used to pump the water away.

    When cooling the AC tries to regulate the amount of energy pumped to keep a constant temperature in the room. Older/cheaper ACs just do this by start/stop, but better more modern ACs can regulate their power to prevent big swings in temperature and save energy. But when in dehumidify mode, the only purpose is to push the condensor below the dew point. Now the AC could do all sorts of fancy calculations to figure out the dew point and get it there. However that isn’t done at all, most ACs just push the temperature down as hard as they can. This is because the further you get down below the dew point, the more water condenses, so it gets the moisture out faster. And it’s also really complicated to calculate the exact dew point and get the measurements, because the AC itself influences the measurements a lot, so it would need sensors further away. Some big systems can do this and also measure the amount of moisture in the air and regulate to that. But small systems people have at home usually just go as hard as possible.

    This is the reason why it just never stops in dehumidify mode and the air gets colder and colder. Nerds can probably get something cooking with sensors and homeassistant, but regular home systems won’t go to a target when in dehumidify mode. There are hard limits to how cold it will allow the condensor to get, to protect the system and prevent frost, but that’s not really the same as a target temperature in cooling mode.

    Some better ACs also have a smart dehumidify mode, where it closes the inside unit, turns off the fan. Then cools down the condensor a huge amount. Then opens the inside unit and slowly blows air. This way it can get a lot of moisture out of the air fast and not cool down the air a lot at once. But in the end it’s the same effect. The energy still comes from the room, so the room will cool down, it will just not have huge swings in temperature.


  • Yeah it’s just a desktop wallpaper it seems. Big minus points for that. All the monitors also have the exact same wallpaper and the one on the side also cuts off.

    The speakers don’t really fit and the monitor on the left is just bog standard and on a modern arm, as well as the camera (but I can understand the camera, that would be harder to mod into something).

    I also don’t really like the way it’s done. Just random keycaps superglued all over it. Cheap diy ventcovers also superglued, not really straight. The little clock and mini-display are super cool though, but then the mini display is just another mirror of the main screen, that’s not great. The front is also kind of falling apart, which doesn’t look very nice. The stickers on the side are cool though.

    So I don’t know what to think. The concept is great, but the execution really isn’t there. On the other hand, going this far for a daily driver is cool in it’s own right.









  • Not just the danger of walking on a road where huge trucks drive at high speed, but also trying to avoid the roads by walking through fields or backyards and be shot by the property owner. In much of Europe there is some form of right to roam. Which means there are walking and perhaps biking trails throughout and the owner of any property has to allow people to walk there. They often even have to maintain the trail.

    Near where I live there is a beautiful trail through a couple of farms. And the farmers are very welcoming, fencing off what is dangerous, but keeping a nice trail to walk. They have signs explaining what kind of things they grow and what animals they keep. And warning never to feed the animals, as they get plenty of the right food and stuff like bread etc. usually isn’t very good for them.

    The US is so different, where a person simply walking and enjoying their surroundings is seen as a dangerous invader which needs to be killed.


  • My personal advice: Take notes.

    Just write everything down. I recommend an actual physical little paper notebook and a pencil. If you think: “Oh I must remember that” or “I’m almost out of …, I must buy more”, write it down.

    Now don’t go writing down stuff like fun facts or YouTube videos you want to watch. Make it all practical stuff, stuff you need to do or is important in your life. It’s your brothers birthday next week, write down the date and what you need to do to prepare. Your stomach hurt and you think you ate something that didn’t agree with you, keep a log of what you ate and how your stomach felt. That way you can identify allergies or things you can’t eat (anymore). Having trouble remembering names? Write down after you met someone: “Today I met Steve, Steve is in charge of accounting at Megacorp.” Measured the room you want to put new flooring in? Make a little sketch and put the measurements in.

    Writing stuff down physically forces your mind to pay attention and remember it later in a structured way. It also feels really good to physically tick off a task or cross it off. It can be a bit hard to keep up with and not go the other way and put so much into it, it doesn’t help anymore. But it can help a lot, especially if you are the kind of person that thinks 8 times a day to put out the garbage, only to wake up the next morning and you’ve forgotten to actually do the thing.