@mfalkvidd said in NRF serial to usb for gateway?:
With enough coding almost anything is possible. But wouldn't it be easier to build a serial gateway?
I agree with that. A nano is 1/3 of the price of this adapter and will do the job with 0 effort.
@timmy If you are referring to the Google assistant, you need to open the app, tap the compass icon in the Explore section, enter Settings, scroll to Services, tap Home Control, and scroll until you find the selection for your lights. But I'm not even sure what you are talking about, I might be giving you the wrong directions here.
I've taken to spraying my battery contacts and electronics with a conformal coating as further prevention against corrosion. Presently I'm using Corrosion X for indoors and Corrosion X HD for outdoors. I don't have long term data about these products, so I consider it a bit of experiment, but without them I have noticed over time some amount of metal rusting in the past, especially near the battery terminals. I suppose tabbed batteries would be best, but I would probably still spray them anyway as belt-and-suspenders.
In the past I looked into using two part epoxy as a conformal coating / potting material, but that tends to get expensive in a hurry, and it's not reversible either. Hopefully the Corrosion X lasts well enough without having to re-apply it.... The longevity of it is what I'm most unsure about. Is there a better conformal coating to use? I just recently applied the Corrosion X HD to some outdoor solar garden lights as a kind of torture test, since they aren't well sealed and the rust/corrosion tends to eat away at the Chinesium like clockwork if nothing is done to mitigate. After a year or two outdoors, I should have a good idea as to whether it's helping or not and get some impression as to longevity.
By the way, you can make your own tabbed batteries by spot welding nickle strips to them. Lots of youtube videos on how to do that.
If the Corrosion X turns out to be inadequate, then I'd probably next try some type of 2K epoxy or 2K polyurethane coating. That stuff is proven to keep your car from rusting, but I have no idea how it might interact with electronics. Probably no worse though than the materials Great Scott experimented with. I recently tried some in place of regular 1K for a painting project, and there's almost no comparison: the 2K stuff is night and day better in terms of both durability and appearance and, I'm 100% sure, corrosion protection as well. SprayMax sells 2K in a spraycan that allows you to mix the two components in the spraycan just prior to application--all at the press of a button. No mess, no fuss. Genius packaging. I wish I'd known about it previously, but I only just recently stumbled across it. You won't find it at your local hardware store, as it's mainly used as a car paint for top notch warrantied repairs. The only downside is a 24-48 hour pot life once mixed. And since it's not cheap, you might be better off mixing only as much as you need and using your own sprayer to apply it, provided you have the time and equipment to do that.
Interestingly, I've noticed that the insulation on typical chinese wiring isn't really moisture proof (as you might think it would be), and I've noticed that being a unexpected but common failure mode in outdoor circuitry, because the Chinese "copper" wiring apparently also has a lot of iron in it, leading to rust/corrosion to the point of failure. So, those wires need to be coated as well with something extra or possibly replaced with true waterproof wiring like the kind with the sticky coating beneath the insulation that's rated for in-ground burial. For instance, most likely the wiring leading to the epoxy block in the above Great Scott video are still vulnerable.
@NeverDie IC encapsulation is almost always a thermoset polymer as they need to withstand the reflow process. The added benefit of this is that they are not dissoluble by acetone. I wish they were as it would make de-encapsulating IC so much easier. I generally have to use an acid to de-encapsulate. I haven't tried brake clean but would think it would work well.
In mine the switch broke, so I replaced it.
But as I am going to tradfri, I replaced the whole transformer in the meantime, so I have a remote left... in germany...
Regards
Leonard
