Weekend Project #2
January 30th, 2010 by Harry Sachz
There was going to be a post here about how cool this weekend’s project is, but right before completion it stopped working for god knows what reason. Not all projects can work perfectly all the time, and this is a perfect example. Its funny how everything can look up, things are going along smoothly, then BAM!.. dead.
So, this weekend’s project is an indicator of if my garage door is open or not. Every time that I head into work, there is a suspicion if the garage door is shut. Sometimes to the extreme of turning around and driving back a few miles just to find out. This weekend was supposed to help solve that little issue by alerting me it’s position. I picked up a Chamberlain Garage Door Monitor from Amazon for $20 then got my solder iron and misc. parts ready for the weekend. I was going to write a widget for LockInfo and create an app for opening / closing the garage door from the iPhone (in case the door actually was open), but after this little setback, finishing the project will have to wait. Here is a picture of what it looked like when it was working. (@aebous saw it functioning, and at least I have a witness)
The picture shows the webpage that posted the real-time info, and also the push notification from GMail after it’s changed state. You can visit it now at http://sachz.com/garage, but it’ll just say ‘disabled’. *Sigh*
I guess I’ll order another and wait for next weekend… Stay tuned for weekend project #2.5
Reader Tip: When a project stops working for apparently no reason, it may feel really good to throw the pieces across the &%$ room in a fit of anger, but when the remorse sets in, there is nothing to go back to to repair… and a wall to patch up.
Tags: need new parts, sigh, weekend project, well shit...
Posted in News, Personal, Tech | Comments (2)
January 31st, 2010 at 12:00 pm
That is SO cool! I’m sure you’ll get it working.
January 31st, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Thank you.. It’s just a matter of time, but $$ is a setback.