maintenance
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We have a new inhabitant, twilliability. Welcome!
The server is back in Neukölln after the intermezzo in ZKU, where excorp took care of it in August. It survived the way safely, but has had some issues finding back home comfortably.
The GSM experiment that we started has been quite the success. We hosted the server on the mobile cellphone network for about a month on a cheap data plan. The Gigabyte included in the plan was used up before the end of the month, so it had to be topped up after a couple of weeks, but the connection was very stable and availability was even better than we hoped. The battery drained a bit more quickly during that time, but it's still unclear to us if this is caused by the different kind of radio communication.
Putting compost back on the wifi caused the connection to be less stable. It's a known issue for this particular phone that the wifi modem is very picky about the kind of connections it accepts: 20 Hz bandwidth only, and only within the 2.4 GHz range. Small mismatches between the channel widths already cause it to stumble easily. We have seen many connection issues in the recent days that brought compost offline even though it was still running. We have set up a different access point that gives us a bit more control over its wifi settings and are hoping that this will improve stability.
And there's another thing that made it difficult to keep compost online: Since compost is back in its attic the existing charging issues seem amplified. This may be a sign that the solar panel has worn down. The plastic sheeting has a couple of scratches and some spots look like they have chipped off.
On one hand you have the point in time in the morning when the panel starts getting directly exposed to the sun. It's placed on a slanted, south-facing roof, and the moment arrives later in autumn and winter. This problem gets worse as the year continues and is increasingly hard to navigate with other obligations, leaving the house early in the morning for a day job and being present in meetings. On the other hand it can happen that a single cloud, a short drop in voltage, is already enough for the charging process to stop. Even with the currently mild autumn here in Berlin, and even if we sometimes walk up to the attic several times a day, it gets difficult to keep a steady charge. Maybe we need to swap out the panel at some point.
Did I already mention that the autumn here is nice and mild at the moment?