Would planting a hedge or shrubs on your side be an option? Much nicer than a fence, provides a biotope for birds, insects and other animals, can bear fruit (yummy berries!)
Growing to a hight of 3 ft (~90 cm) should be a matter of 2 or 3 years, depending on the plants.
I think making an “usable” phone (especially one that is able to make calls, etc.) yourself is extremely hard to do, if not impossible.
Many “tinker”-phone startups/ devices, like PinePhone or Librem, who made the phones from scratch or mostly themselves afaik, had huge problems in the beginning with basic functions, like making calls.
There’s a project (mainly for kids and students) somewhere to make E-readers themselves, maybe you can start with that?
I’ll link it to you if I found it.
That might act as a base.
If you want a good phone that gives off DIY-vibes (modularity, repairability, etc.) but want something proper and modern, then check out Fairphone. Afaik, the FP4 also supports PostmarketOS and other mobile distros.
Remember to take everything I said with a huge grin of salt, since I’m not that well informed in that area of DIY- or Linux phones. A lot of what I said might be wrong, take it only as idea or starting point.
But if you really want to start this project, good luck. You’ll need it 🫠
To add, in the US, most service providers will not let a device on their network until it has gone through FCC approval. You can get around this by buying a cell module, which has gone through approval, but most of those are data only last I looked.
Fairphone especially is such an attractive option to me but the thing is that it is a dream to me to build my own smartphone, one that truly is mine . But this gives me an idea I have seen videos of people building cyberdecks from framework laptop parts, makes me wonder if I could do such a thing with fairphone parts.
Your question reminded my immediately about one of my favorite 35c3 talks Butterbrotdosen-Smartphone - Mein DIY-Smartphone-Bau from 2018-12-29. It is in German language, but has an English translation, too. Maybe it can give you some good starting ideas?
Story, Translated with DeepL.com (free version)> I would like to show you how I built a smartphone from a Raspberry PI. The problems and difficulties I encountered and the solutions I found. The project is not yet finished, there are still a few small things missing. Nevertheless, I want to show you my smartphone in the practical sandwich box and tell you how it came about. > > I had no idea that building a smartphone could be so complicated. Raspberry Pi + touch display is not all there is to think about in this project. At the moment, the smartphone project lives in a sandwich box and attracts attention on the subway. If the power bank can passthrough, that’s an advantage, I’ve found. Setting up the X and Y axes on the touch display so that you can also use the on-screen keyboard was not so easy. And I had to realize that Landscape is not the right size to work smoothly. Most Linux programs are not directly touch-compatible or require too much memory. Then there were also big challenges! Learning to solder was one of them. First learning how to solder, then learning how to desolder, and then daring to use the PI. I would like to tell you these and other stories about building my smartphone.
Assuming that this is a tinkerer/hobby project and you know your odds of getting a daily-driver phone out of it aren’t good:
You can get various Pi add-ons and USB-addressable cards that supposedly have texting and/or voice call capability. Look up a company called Sixfab. How well they work in practice, I don’t know. Be prepared to immerse yourself in a large manual of AT commands and cell phone protocol stuff.
So things seem to be pointing at a pi for now? Yes this is meant as a hobby project but trying to daily drive it as a phone that can make calls(as it is the only feature of a phone that is really mandatory to me) is also amonv my plans
If you’re really against Pis, you could get one of the USB-controlled modules and try hooking it up to something like a LattePanda, but that’s going to be more expensive.
You could also theoretically get a cell modem chip from a company like Quectel and design the supporting add-on board yourself for any SBC of your choice, but I suspect that’s further down the rabbit hole than you want to go.
So, yeah, the Pi is probably the smartest choice if you really want to do your own hardware build instead of just buying a PinePhone.
She jumped up there immediately after we finished cleaning up. I was walking up the stairs and she just looked at me like, “Why are you interrupting my nap?”
Easiest thing to do is talk to a metal building company. They do carports all the time. Even if you don’t have them do it, you could get detailed info on materials.
To attach wood to an I-beam, you could drill holes in the flanges of the beam, then use bolts. There are also fittings that you can slide posts & beams into, with various ways of securing them to the material they hold. If you’re not using T-shaped fittings, you could bolt fittings together.
Try an image search for “beam connectors” and you should get an idea of the types of things that are available, but a trip to your local builders’ merchant & a chat with the people there may be more fruitful.
22 ft unsupported seems like a very long span to me, what's that nearly 7 metres?
Sounds like it's getting into the realm of structural enginneering not diy for me.
If you want to save costs you might think aout a "flitch beam", that's 2 wood beams with a steel plate sandwiched in between - the three components are bolted together every few feet. Easier to join to the timbers then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWUNd559UQY
I still think you might be more like 10"x2 or even 12"x2 timbers to cover that span if totally unsupported. But might still come in a little cheaper than the i-beam.
Maybe the roof will be very lightweight and no snow weight is expected - but I'm no structural engineer so don't take my word for it.
Other features like corner bracing or canti-leverage, or some other support structure or other feature (like is it the bottom side of a framed gable triangle) might also help.
A flitch beam sounds interesting. The problem with 2-by timbers, like 10x2 or 12x2, is their thickness. A 12x2 would drop down 12 inches, and the highest point of my carport is only 8-feet high. In its 16-foot run, it has to drop at least 4 inches in order for water to run off. I can’t be using material as thick as 12x2. That’s why I was considering doubling or tripling some engineered wood. But at that point it seems like steel would be the same cost and better performing. I dunno. Like you said, I may have to talk to an engineer.
the lumber yard will likely size them for you if you ask
The disadvantage is that the depth will be about 1/16th of the span when using 2-3 plies.
The advantage of steel is that an I beam (W shape is what you want, for “Wide Flange Beam”) will be about 2/3 the depth of an LVL. The disadvantages are
An engineer will likely charge you about $600-800 to size this beam, but will also tell you how to top connect it
It will be one piece (fwiw it will weigh about the same as the LVL)
You will have to buy a 40’ piece, or pay a premium to have it cut down from a 40’ piece. (stock lengths of steel are 20’/40’)
Note that nobody can properly answer your question from the data given (edit - just notice you mentioned 16’ rafters below). You would need to include the span of the rafters and (at least) your location to determine the snow loads and wind loads (edit: and seismic, though it’s unlikely to control for this design) for sizing the connections.
Disclaimer: I’m a structural engineer, but I’m not your structural engineer. For a long span like this I recommend contacting someone licensed in your jurisdiction to help you out.
One option would be to make the beam a flush condition. To get a 16’ span with rafters you’re going to be using at least 2x8s. That’s 7.25" deep. If you were set the top of the beam at the top of the rafters and hang them from the beam (simpson or USP hangers) that buys you some space. Now an 11.88" LVL would only stick down 5-5/8" below the bottom of the rafters. (okay, 5-3/4"-6" with the additional slope over the 5.25" of beam) I’m not saying that a 3 ply 11x88 LVL with a 2.1E, bearing in a BC6 cap on 6x6s would work for your application, but the height tolerance would seem to add up in your favor.
Any reason the high side of the shed roof can’t intercept the existing garage roof further up the pitch? Then you could use open web trusses which although deeper are lighter and potentially cheaper than a wide flange. Attaching them higher also gives you more clear height with a longer span.
That was the original plan. I was going to just extend the existing roof outward, but it would shed rain directly where you have to walk to get to the cars. You’d basically have to walk through a waterfall.
I honestly don’t see a reason why it would hurt if there’s nothing wired to the breaker. And it feels safer than leaving the contacts exposed since the metal cover is open on those slots. But I’m not sure if that’s the proper way.
As for the wire, I think it’s more so quality control. If it’s new and you bought it then you know it’s high quality and if it doesn’t work you can warranty your own work, but you can’t warranty old equipment. But this is another one where I can’t see the harm in using it if I am replacing a short strand of wire and it is the right length. Like I said, it’s type NM cable so it seems to be equivalent to modern romex wire, just a different brand.
I don’t necessarily have a solution, but it might be useful to know why you need such a big connection to the room, if you’re willing to share. Might lead to some different solutions.
I think OPs issue is a combination of available space and regulations. Little space + no copper data connections next to power cables leave little choice but fibre.
I‘m kind of in the same boat, as I would like to connect the garage and an annex building. However, the garage needs power to, prepared for EV - so, large power cable as well. Same for the annex one, in which I just want to have bandwidth available :)
Little space + no copper data connections next to power cables leave little choice but fibre.
That’s the thing. If I add anything else the house won’t pass the periodic electrical inspections.
For an EV we’re probably talking 11 or 22kW, so a rather thick cable. But you’re probably going to have it installed by a certified electrician anyway, or can you do that yourself in Germany?
Hmm, Lemmy or Jerboa appears to have eaten my lengthy reply, so here we go again:
My aim is to have my router/firewall, mail server and VM host in the shelter, as it’s the most protected room in the house. That means I need at least two lines - one from the modem to the router/firewall, and one connecting everything to the internal LAN.
The internet connection is rated 400Mbit synchronous with the option of upgrading to up to 25Gbit, though at present I can’t imagine us ever needing that much and it’s probably more of a marketing gimmick anyway, so that line isn’t as critical, throughput-wise.
The rest of the house is currently a copper Gigabit affair, though the cabling is Cat7 and capable of more, so I wouldn’t want the fiber to be the bottleneck when we upgrade to 10Gbit a few years down the road. Hence multimode looks like a good idea. The question is whether (and how) there’s a way to cut, install and connect it myself. POF would be easier but comes with a number of question marks concerning 10GbE.
This might be a stupid suggestion, but Wifi 7 is to arrive on this Dec. It’s going to allow tens of Gbit/sec. Depending on your conditions, you might just buy a Wifi router.
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