Amazon Fire TV and Kodi

For Christmas, we got an Amazon Fire TV, which is a cool little box that was to allow us to watch our Netflix in High Def.  But it is more -- oh, so much more!

I have a library of videos stored locally, which for the past several years was accessed using XBMC (XBox Media Center), which then more recently became Kodi.  I physically displaced my Raspberry PI that occupied the network cable and HDMI plug to instead connect the Fire TV.  So now I thought was wasn't going to have the same abilities for NAS video content.

But then I started Googling around, and came across Troypoint blog, which details how to sideload Kodi onto the Fire TV.  I had to learn that sideload is another way to say install a program that isn't in the official play store.  So that worked great, and was again able to pull up local NAS video content.

But, that wasn't enough.  Nope.  I also wanted to be able to keep track of all the shows I had already watched on my PI, but now on the FireTV.  So, figured that one out too.  I moved my Raspberry PI Kodi device into another room where it can serve up content to a new TV.  Key thing is here, it was already set up to host a MySQL Kodi DB some time ago so I could share watched information with a Linux installation of Kodi.  I just want the Fire TV to use the same database.  Figured out I had to get into the Fire TV file system, which is available via the adb interface.  Managed that pretty handily thru the rpi
sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb
after which I could 'adb connect' to my Fire TV.  Then it was just a matter of putting a version of the advancedsettings.xml with the pi's IP address all filled in from that same Kodi rpi into the Fire TV's directory structure:
adb push advancedsettings.xml /sdcard/Android/data/org.xbmc.kodi/files/.kodi/userdata/

First snow of the season is running behind schedule.  Usually we'd see something prior to Halloween, but not this year.
But, oh yeah, climate change isn't a real thing.
                              or is it?

Box full of zucchini

Bountiful harvest.
Yes, that is a 12" ruler in the box with those!

One zucchini weighed in at 18 pounds alone!

Dad's getting basement room set up

It's spring in northern Michigan!

Packing it up for the year

Tonight it's 65, with a downhill slide to next Saturday of 30, so I'll take care of this while I don't have to wear gloves!

Well, this will put the last nail in this coffin...
...selling it for scrap -- costs way too much to actually want to fix it.

Well, the new heater arrived

This is a good post:

• My tub label indicated our Jacuzzi "CARESSA" hot tub was assembled in 1987.  It also said it has a 1.5KW 5.1K BTU heater at 115v, which should be 13 amps.
• At first, the best price I could find for the heater was $450, with absolutely no help at the manufacture's site!  They say they have good customer support, but just try to find help for a 28 year old tub!
• Then I found something that looked similar at INYO POOLS for $225.55.  I had to ask questions to figure out if this part might fit
• I was given a sketch via their chat, being told it was the same 17-1/4" long and the connections were 2" diameter (3/16" smaller than mine) with a 5.5KW rating at 240v.
• Doing the math on that, the heater should be 10.47 Ohms and draw 23 amps.  But if I put 115 volts though the 10.47 Ohm element, it should draw 11 amps, consuming 1.3KW, some 15% less.  So, it'll take a little longer to heat the tub -- so what?
• I ordered it on Saturday and it arrived the next Thursday
• Now that I have it, I find it was only 1/16" diameter smaller, so a good fit
• I needed to come up with two different sized romex connectors for the power and over-temp switch connections
• I bought new rubber connectors to go between the 2" ID (2-3/8" OD) PVC pipe of the tub and the 2-1/4" OD stainless steel of the new heater at Tractor Supply.
• To get the wires to exit out the bottom, I removed the 4 bolts holding the box on the heater and rotated it 180.  This made the wires fit better and I felt better about having the holes in the box at the bottom instead of the top.
• Went together great, and we are in hot water now!

She changes the 6th digit the 2nd time in her life

The big 200,000...

It appears the hot tub heater has failed...

New light socket for 2002 Montana turn signal

Instead of buying the ~$48 light socket, Fochtman Car Quest hooked me up with a "similar" socket (BWD PT154) that for all appearances is identical.  Had the same footprint, 3 wire connector and right-angle faced the same way.  And I walked out the door for $39!

New pads and rotors for the ol' girl

Daughter says "it sounds bad"...

Look, it's "spring" in northern Michigan!

No heat (or water) last night!

Turns out that it's possible that 12ga copper wires can just spontaneously break!

Networking multiple XBMCs (pi hosted MySQL)

Here I am setting up a newer copy of XBMC (Kodi 14.0 Git:2014-12-24-e044d5a-dirty) and at the same time I'm moving my library to a 2TB NAS (used to have a 400 GB USB HDD connected directly to the pi). I figured this would be a good time to re-do things so I can have multiple XBMC clients pull from that same source (a pi that is on all the time) and keep track of the "watched" information.

I like my pi at a static IP making it easy to find (and use my 'droid as a remote!):
  - XMBC -> Program -> XBMC Settings -> Static IP

Set up SSH:
  - Change the default password (raspberry): sudo passwd

Set up MySQL:
 - sudo apt-get update
 - sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.5
    # Installs 10 packages
    # Choose a sql root password
 - sudo nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf
    # comment out Bind-Address 127.0.0.1 to allow external connections.
  - mysql -u root -p # set up xbmc as a user
    mysql> CREATE USER 'xbmc'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'xbmc';
    mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'xbmc'@'%';
    mysql> quit

Then, the following needs to be done for each XBMC installation that is to connect to this server (including the one just set up with MySQL!):
  - cd ~/.kodi/userdata
  - put the following into a newly created file advancedsettings.xml:
<advancedsettings>
<videodatabase>
<type>mysql</type>
<host>192.168.1.33</host>
<name>xbmc_video</name>
<user>xbmc</user>
<pass>xbmc</pass>
</videodatabase>
<musicdatabase>
<type>mysql</type>
<host>192.168.1.33</host>
<name>xbmc_music</name>
<user>xbmc</user>
<pass>xbmc</pass>
</musicdatabase>
</advancedsettings>

Miscellaneous notes:

• "Sources" are stored in ~/.kodi/userdata/sources.xml
• Source format for a SMB file share: "smb://servername/ShareName/[Folders]"
• List remote SMB shares: smbclient -L servername -Uusername
• Logging can be enabled via Settings → System → Debugging # filename given onscreen
• If you find the need, the MySQL database can be deleted: 
• mysql -u xbmc -p xbmc
• mysql> DROP DATABASE xbmc_video90; # 'show databases;' if your version is different

Shoulder deep snow at work...

On its way out the door...

Montana thermostat replacement complete

This is the tool (available from Amazon) to have to get around the exhaust manifold that stands in the way of getting access to the bottom bolt of the thermostat housing.

Instead of making my own video, I simply refer you to the video that helped me figure out I *could* tackle this myself.  The link starts you where he describes using an S-wrench - similar idea but this one leaves the handle out and accessible.  He doesn't advertise this one as a solution, but I found it in the comments to his video and certainly does the job!

Some of the comments say you should be able to leave the bottom bolt in, as the housing has a slot instead of a hole.  However, I couldn't get enough clearance with it in place to get over the protrusion of the thermostat itself, so the bolt had to come out, then get started (one finger from the bottom plus 1 screwdriver from the top had access for that job!)

All told, with the purchase of 13mm wrenches, a gallon of Prestone, the thermostat and cabin filters I dropped $75.59 on this project that my mechanic wanted $275 for.  Then probably after he got into it and attempted to remove the exhaust crossover pipe and broke something off the price would have gone up from there.

Which filter would you rather breath thru?

Hey, look, there's evidence that a mouse was living in this house!

Back in the wind business again

Well there it is

First sticky snow of the season - on Halloween morning!

Carrots, radish and onion from the garden

Even this late in the year!

Wind exceeds tower's ability

It has become apparent that this tower won't handle 88mph winds (as measured at the nearby airport).

Back to the shop!

Who'd think?

That you'd ever hear that "I had to Thompson's water seal my VW"?

This is a cross between auto repair and woodworking, to get rid of the non functioning 3rd brake light and install a generic.

First bean harvest of the year

3.5lbs of green goodness!

Check out my 5.7 mi Ride

Check out my 5.7 mi Ride on Strava: http://app.strava.com/activities/173544571

First harvest

Garden replant

Carrots and lettuce didn't seem to come up. Planted too deep?

Put in another row of radish.

Hot tub leak repair

Using silicone again, this time GE gray. They aren't made for submersible applications, but a couple years at a time isn't so bad.

Carrots in

Both rows of onions, bean spot worked up