Day 120, 121, 122 - Pendleton and Walla Walla

Thursday (120) - Today's project was to build up the board that is actually going to be attached inside of the refrigerator. The screw terminals are for 12VDC power and the two temperature sensors. I am still considering adding on a relay board and another temperature sensor to monitor the on the condenser mounted to the rear of the refrigerator. But, in order to reach the condenser, the refrigerator needs to be removed. That's not going to happen. There already is a temperature-controlled fan that just needs to be switched on when it's warm. And, it's been switched on since January. More automation is not really needed.

Not shown is the RGB led that will change color if the freezer gets too warm. Apparently, there is a way to sent a notification to my phone as well. Something else to explore. Tomorrow, we are going to Walla Walla for the afternoon.

Friday (121) - Today we had a number of stops in Walla Walla, WA. I needed to refill a prescription and this was the nearest Walgreens. I needed some small machine screws and spacers to finish the D1 Mini installation in the refrigerator. For the wet bay and the storage bay, I ordered some plastic junction boxes to mount the electronics in. A little weather protection might be nice even though they should be out of the weather.

Later - I ended up getting double stick foam tape and a hot glue gun to mount the boards and the OLED display. We are now waiting at an Applebee’s and their procedure is to add your name onto a list, then you sit in your car to wait for a text message letting you know that your table is ready.

I don’t remember enjoying dinner so much at just Applebee’s. I think that I miss eating out…

After dinner, we visited an alpaca farm right on the border between Washington and Oregon. We signed for a tour of the operation which included shearing and dying the wool.

Another side business was cut flowers though I don’t remember the name of that business. Pictured is about half of the herd. The other half was in the barn due to the occasional rain. The farm started out as a homestead around the turn of the century and they had copies of all of the paperwork including the final “deed” signed by Ulysses Grant.

Saturday (122) - The project of the day was finishing up, for now, the refrigerator monitor board. I was originally thinking of cutting an opening for the display to show through but decided against that as it would be difficult to get a nice opening cut with the tools I have on hand. It would be hard to get it to look “finished”. Before I started this morning, the freezer was actually down to 4°F. It likes the cooler overnight temperatures. I think I may look for a bezel on the Internet that can be printed and fit over the display. Maybe I just need a small 3D printer in the RV. Isn’t that what everyone needs in an RV?

Now to start working on the final board for the ESP8266 in the front storage compartment. This is a different board than the D1 Mini I’ve been using everywhere else. No good reason besides “just because”. Since I will be hooking into wiring for the LED awning lights, the temptation is to have the D1 Mini control the three color channels of the lights. For now, I’ll just control power. Today, my order for MOSFET boards should be arriving. These will allow me to use PWM (pulse width modulation) to control the brightness of the LED lights. The initial project is for the recessed lighting above my recliner. I already have a demo set up that just controls an led built onto the EPS-32S and is turned on and off with a touch to a loose wire. The IRF520 MOSFET aren’t ideal for this application since They really need a signal of around 4VDC. The digital I/O pins on the ESP-32S Put out 3.3VDC. It’ll still work as long as the current being switched is modest.