Categories
Uncategorized

High Capacity CPAP Water Tank

Hack to add on an auxillary water tank for a CPAP machine

I ended up making a High Capacity CPAP Water Tank (Or an “Auxiliary Tank”) because the manufacturer doesn’t make one. This post will show what I’ve done and talk about how it works a bit.

I use a CPAP and got a new one in 2024, and while it works much better, there is still one issue with it… If I set the humidity too high it runs out of water in less than six hours, which is how long I usually sleep. For a while I was filling a second tank and then swapping in the middle of the night when I awoke from the dryness. It works, but it’s not ideal…

So I wondered if the manufacturer had a larger capacity tank… they do not, but in the process I found someone who had come up with solutions, and I’m a maker so I had a go at it.

RonKMiller used a collapsible water bottle with some hose fittings…

Hack to add on an auxillary water tank for a CPAP machine

Now, if you’re wondering why there are two tubes, it’s because the bottom one is for water and the upper one is for air. Since the CPAP machine uses pressure you need to have the air flow into both containers otherwise it tries to come to pressure and blows the water in the built-in tank into the secondary tank.

jdm5 took a different approach, and used a large container with a sealable top…

Hack to add on an auxillary water tank for a CPAP machine

Both of these posts were valuable in figuring out what I was going to do. My build is similar to the one from jdm5 though I chose different connectors. Here are the things I used:

Hack to add on an auxillary water tank for a CPAP machine

In total this project cost about $75 USD, but I can subtract the $30 for the Air10 HumidAir Water Chamber because my HRA covers that so it’s not out of pocket for me. In addition I only used one piece of the 40 Piece Food Storage Container Set. If you already have a container or can buy just one that can be a huge savings.

Hack to add on an auxillary water tank for a CPAP machine

For the Rubber O-Rings I had these on-hand for other projects but you can probably just buy what you need from a local hardware store. The PVC tubing is much cheaper than Silicone, so if you do choose Silicone that price will go up… probably triple or more. And again, you can choose different hose connectors but the ones I chose work for me.

Hack to add on an auxillary water tank for a CPAP machine

The piece of wood is under the tank to raise it up to the proper level so the lower hose entry points are the same height on the auxillary tank as they are on the CPAP’s reservoir. This is so water will level out between the tanks.

Hack to add on an auxillary water tank for a CPAP machine

Due to space constraints on my nightstand I need to put my container behind my CPAP machine, not next to it. I just made the hoses longer. I may consider switching to silicone tubing in the future, as it’s much more flexible than the PVC tubing I have now.

Hack to add on an auxillary water tank for a CPAP machine

So to use this I just pop the top off the external tank, fill it with water to the “fill line” (where I’ve added a piece of black gaff tape) and then lift the tank higher than the other tank, slightly tilting it so water can flow into the CPAP’s tank. Once the level on the CPAP’s tank hits the fill line I put down the external tank. If need be I can then top it off, but I usually don’t need to as it will be plenty of water to last the night.

This system isn’t perfect, but it’s a huge improvement over what I used to do. This is the best system I could come up with for the lowest dollar amount, and after four months of using this I am fairly pleased with the results.

Note: This post may contain Affiliate Links. Read More.

Categories
Uncategorized

Handcrafted Dacha Cutting Boards

About two years ago my friend Maks gave me a beautiful cutting board that he made. And then last year he asked me a bunch of questions about opening at Etsy shop to sell the cutting boards he was making. He did open a shop but there’s nothing available right now.

I did manage to buy two boards from him last summer when he was back in Milwaukee, which Dana gave to friends as gifts.

Anyway, I took a bunch of photos of them because they were so nice looking! And here are the photos.

Categories
Uncategorized

MintBook – A Mint Linux MacBook Pro

Last year someone gave me a mint (LOL) condition MacBook Pro. It was a 2010 model just like my old 2012 that I got in 2014 and again in 2019 and used until 2022 when I sold it to someone who needed an older MacBook and I got a 2018 MacBook Pro that I didn’t really like and didn’t use much and then gave to Dana when her employer destroyed all the Macs…

So I’ve been without a “good” laptop for a little under a year. I would borrow my old one that Dana has every now and then but I wanted to stop doing that but also didn’t want to buy a new laptop… So I’ve got this 2010 MacBook Pro, which is a model I used for years and really liked! The issue is that it only runs older versions of macOS. When I was sick for two weeks in December I really wished I had a laptop, so I used it, but I could not installed some of the software I used, or at least not recent versions… like OpenSCAD.

So I said to myself “Self, this is an old laptop that can only run an old version of Mac OS X and old applications… time to install Linux!”

Now, I’ve installed Linux a zillion times, including on a number of old Windows laptops. But this was different. First, it was on hardware that I was used to and I actually really liked! This made a huge difference. I like the keyboard, I like the form factor… I like the hardware.

A MacBook Pro running Mint Linux

Seriously, I can’t believe how much more I like Linux when it is not running on a crappy old Windows laptop someone gave me. I have run Linux on old Mac laptops before, but they were old, old, heavy, clunky, and old. This MacBook (or “MintBook” as I call it) isn’t exactly lightweight or modern, but hey, it works well and I am used to it. That goes a long way.

Oh yeah… Mint Linux!

I started writing a post about Mint Linux so I should probably get on with it…

As someone who has used macOS (or Mac OS X) and before that System 9, 8, 7, 6… I guess I’m a “Mac Guy”, but I’ve also been using Linux (mostly on servers, oh and *BSD before that) but I’ve never been a Windows person. I did get my first Linux laptop (and my first “new” Linux computer) back in 2007.

A MacBook Pro running Mint Linux

So right now this is my primary laptop and I only have laptops running Linux. I’ve been pretty happy with Mint so far and learning all the new stuff in desktop Linux since I last used it on a regular basis. I quickly learned that SNAP is garbage and Flatpack is better.

My biggest complaint so far is the lack of resolution, which is 1280×800. This is terrible. When I ran macOS at least there was QuickRes which made the computer much more usable. Is there something like that for Mint Linux? I would love a bit more screen space!

My other complaint is about the keys and how sometimes you use control, other times it’s option/alt and then sometimes it’s command but control and option/alt are sometimes interchanged and maybe you need to press control-shift-v to paste something!? It’s a little bit madness and my muscles are not used to it yet.

When I first set it up I had to use a USB WiFi dongle to get online but I eventually got the built-in WiFi working just fine. (Whew!)

A MacBook Pro running Mint Linux

I haven’t really been using this laptop every day… It’s been a little busy the last few weeks and most of my work has been at a desktop with multiple monitors running macOS. I do try to use the MintBook when it’s the closest computer to me, so if I’m in the living room or dining room, away from the office, it’s the computer I’ll reach for.

I’m still working towards replicating as much of my normal (macOS) computing experience on the MintBook. That together with a renewed interest in getting away from the Apple ecosystem (and the US Big Tech ecosystem in general) is an experiment I’ll be working on as time allows.

Let me know what you like (or don’t like) about Mint, or what distro you are using nowadays!

Categories
Uncategorized

Be The Expert in 2025

It’s 2025, the world is in chaos, systems are failing, news organizations are struggling, and the people are suffering.

There is so much bullshit out there, much of it from AI, but hey, I want to be fair to those people I know who keep telling me “Dude, it’s not AI, it’s the people!” because yeah, it is the people using AI… And why are they using AI? Because they want or need money. Any why do they want or need money? It might be because we live in a Capitalist Hellscape.

So now, more than ever, if you have the means, if you have a little bit of spare time, if you are willing to share you experience… Do it. Please. Do it. Be a human voice.

I know, you’re worried “But Pete, I am not an expert, I don’t have any expertise to share!” And I’ll remind you of what I said nearly 20 years ago…

You are the expert at your own experience.

This was my pitch for getting people involved in the first BarCampMilwaukee. I remember someone saying “Well, I’ve installed Linux and I use it, but I’m no expert.”

My response: You are the expert at your own experience. No one knows more about your own experience than you do. You’ve installed Linux? Congrats! You know more about it than someone who has never installed Linux.

One thing I learned about teaching is that you just need to know more about a subject than the person you are teaching. That’s it. If I know more about making pizza than you do, I can share that information with you. That information is going to be based on my own experience.

I am not a professional pizzaiolo, and there are thousands or millions of people who are better than I am at making pizzas, but if you know me, and you trust me, then perhaps you would read my Pizza Advice and find it somewhat useful. If I got something wrong, tell me. I want to learn.

Now, back to the AI slop mentioned above. I’ve been publishing/writing for four decades. I didn’t do it for money or fame, I did it to say something, to be heard, to connect with people, and I am not chasing dollars by writing this. Again, I have some privilege. I can host my own web site, I can spend 20 minutes a day not working for money to take a break and write this.

So get that blog going. Dust off the old one, start a new one… Post on the free and open Internet. Fuck Twitter/X, Fuck Facebook, Fuck those Fuckers who will lord over your content, hide it, delete it, and try to erase you.

And if I’ve done anything today, I’ve shown that it’s okay to go on a rant every now and then…

Categories
Uncategorized

OpenMediaVault NAS

I’ve been meaning to play around with setting up NAS (Network Attached Storage) device for a while now, and I’ve got a lot of old Raspberry Pi computers around so… I got openmediavault running on a Raspberry Pi and connected an old USB hard drive to it. It worked pretty well! I was mostly testing things and didn’t really have this plan to move all of my files to it, which is good because I killed it. I mean, it died. The hard drive, not the Pi.

I had to connect the drive to the Pi using a USB hub so the drive would get enough power. I honestly grabbed some old random hard drive enclosure not realizing at the time the drive inside was at least a decade old. A friend of mine gave me a pile of drives a few years back that were retired from a recording studio. Anyway, the drive died, I got some good lessons in drive repair on Linux, and I moved on.

While the Raspberry Pi seemed to do quite well running openmediavault I also had an old Dell OptiPlex lying around so I decided to use a “real” computer so I could explore things like running containers and more heavy load stuff on the NAS.

Overall I’ve been mostly pleased with things. It’s been quite an improvement since I last ran a NAS on an NSLU2 long, long, ago.

Right now I’ve got a recent SSD drive that is not total garbage as the primary drive, and another old “junk” drive as a backup drive. I used the openmediavault rsync tasks feature to setup a nightly backup to the junk drive. I am sure that junk drive will die at some point but I’ve got a lead on some larger replacement drives from a friend. (Also on the cheap, because that’s obviously how I roll things.)

I’ve got a friend who is a huge fan of Synology and I do admit their stuff is really nice, especially the management interface. If I had unlimited funds I’d probably run out and buy a Synology device (or two) and call it a day… But then again there is a certain appeal to rolling your own solution and learning a lot in the process.