Freetronics products now at SuperHouse
I’ve been running both the Freetronics and SuperHouse online stores separately for many years, with their products sitting alongside each other on the same shelves even though they were sold as different brands. Some products have been available from both online stores, and some only in one or the other.
It was all very confusing!
To simplify things, the Freetronics online store has now been shut down and I’m progressively merging those products into the SuperHouse online store. Some URLs will be broken and I’ll do my best to clean those up as a I go.
I’ll also need to do a major stock update so please have patience while I count everything and sort it out!
No more shipping to the United States
Unfortunately I’ve had to suspend all shipping to the United States due to the current tariffs and border protection processes.
I hoped that the process would settle down and become smoother after the initial confusion, but that hasn’t happened.
To ship to the US now requires me to engage a US-based agent to handle the import process. I can’t pre-charge for tariffs because the rate is so volatile and seems to be calculated on a case-by-case basis, and the process is terribly convoluted: I have to submit an application to send a package, then wait 10 hours for US Customs and Border Patrol to process the application and get back to the US agent with a response. They then pass the response back to me.
Then if I want to collect the tariffs from my customer I have to get in touch with them, see if they still want to go ahead with the order with the tariffs added, invoice them, and receive their payment.
THEN I have to pay the tariffs to the US-based agent and obtain proof of payment before taking the package with all the associated paperwork to Australia Post to actually send the package.
Apart from the tariffs themselves being egregious, the process is so time-consuming and opaque that it’s not worth shipping orders to the US. Even if the customer agrees to pay the tariff and go ahead with the order, I’ll lose so much money just with the time and other fees involved that it doesn’t make sense to do it.
I’m really sorry to all my US-based customers. Unless the US changes its isolationist and antagonistic trade policies, I can’t serve you anymore 🙁
Vlog 75: T-962C reflow oven conversion to Reflow Master Pro
Upgrading my T-962C surface-mount reflow oven using a Reflow Master Pro from Unexpected Maker.
Vlog 74: Maker Faire Monash
On December 4th, 2022, Maker Faire came to Melbourne! This event was huge, with many floors of exhibits across multiple buildings. 5 hours of walking and talking, and I still kept finding new things.
I bumped into a few old friends along the way including Mitch, who was kind enough to give me a detailed explanation of two of his recent projects including a boat autopilot and a yeast growth optimiser.
Another highlight was seeing Samuel’s project to link a typewriter to a GPT chatbot, so you can have a conversation with the typewriter. You type messages to it, and it prints out responses to you. Pretty cool!
Vlog 73: SuperLab Genesis
My Kayo A4 pick-and-place machines need somewhere to live, so I’m going to build them a nice new cleanroom. But first we need to make a mess.
Construction of the new SuperLab has begun!
International shipping is back! (Mostly)
Limited international shipping is back!
Unfortunately “Letter” class packages aren’t being carried anymore, and “Economy” class packages are extremely unlikely to arrive.
The cheapest international shipping option that is reliable is “Standard”.
For the latest status from Australia Post, you can check on their COVID-19 updates page:
auspost.com.au/about-us/news-media/important-updates/coronavirus/coronavirus-international-updates
Thanks for your patience!
Vlog 72: Pick-and-Place road trip!
My dad came over early Sunday morning so we could pick up a truck and begin our whirlwind adventure tour:
We spent Sunday driving to Canberra, where we stayed overnight with my aunt before going to Glen English’s factory on Monday morning. Glen has just purchased a huge new Samsung PnP that will replace all his existing machines.
It took a few hours to get everything packed and loaded, then we headed back to Melbourne and arrived late Monday evening. I unloaded all the feeders and other accessories, leaving just the chassis of the machines in the truck.
Tuesday morning I drove the truck over to my friend Lachlan’s factory in Bayswater where we unloaded the chassis and covered them up to keep them clean.
Now I need to set up somewhere for them to live!
I’m going to build a positive-pressure cleanroom so they have a nice environment to operate in, without any dust to get in and disrupt the party.
There’s a lot of work still to do but I’m really excited about this big new development.
Hopefully in a couple of months I’ll be well set up to do high-quality assembly fairly quickly, and I’ll be able to do production runs of SuperHouse boards to get stock levels up to a reasonable level.
#45: First look at the new Shelly Pro 4PM
UPDATE June 2022: The Shelly Pro 4PM has received its Australian certification!
For years I’ve been running my home automation switchboards using “temporary” controllers using Ethernet-enabled Arduino boards controlling DIN-rail mounted relays. My hope was that some day, someone would release a DIN-rail mounted control system with wired connectivity.
And now, all these years later, Allterco have done it. The new Shelly Pro 4PM looks like exactly the device I’ve been waiting for.
Disclosure: Allterco sent me this pre-release unit free of charge. However, I have personally paid for Shellys in the past and I’m sure I will in future. They had no input into this video, which is my own honest assessment of the Pro 4PM.
Resources
- Shelly “Pro” range overview
- Shelly Pro 4PM
- SuperHouse #24: Home automation system architecture
- SuperHouse #34: Science or sorcery? Sonoff T4EU1C no-neutral wifi touch switch
MQTT control
The Shelly Pro 4PM supports MQTT control out of the box. All you need to go is go into the MQTT configuration menu, put in the details for your broker, and it will be ready to go.
The MQTT topics are based on the device ID of the specific Shelly module, but converted to lower case. You can find the ID by opening the web interface and looking at the bottom:
The topic for sending commands to the Shelly is of the form:
shellypro4pm-<device_id>/rpc
So based on the device ID in the screenshot above, you can see the command topic would be:
shellypro4pm-84cca87e4a80/rpc
Messages are sent and received as JSON. To turn on an output, send a message to the command topic of the form:
{"id":1, "src":"user_1", "method":"Switch.Set", "params":{"id":0, "on":true}}
This example turns on the first channel, because in the “params” section it has the ID set to 0 and the “on” value set to “true”. To turn off the first channel, change the “on” value to “false”.
Turn control the second channel, use the id “1”, and so on.
To see events published by the Shelly, including when channels change state and how much power each device is using, subscribe to the topic of the form:
shellypro4pm-<device_id>/events/rpc
Protected: #45: Tasmota conversion with a direct serial connection
Shipping has resumed after storms
After being without power and Internet, things have now returned to normal at the SuperHouse so I’ve been able to pack and ship orders again this week.
Please note that I still can’t ship international orders as “letter” class. That option is displayed at checkout for small items because the shipping calculator still thinks it’s valid, but Australia Post won’t accept them.
I have customers placing orders using “International Letter” as the shipping method all the time, and I always have to cancel the order and provide a refund. Please don’t select that method! If I could disable the option in the shopping cart, I would.
International orders are fine at “Standard” class or above though.
Thanks for your patience!
