• Badabinski
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    423 months ago

    I live in Utah where it’s been sinfully hot and dry for the last week. I fully intend to test this theory. I just bought a high temp probe that should get here tomorrow. I will provide an update once the testing has been completed.

    • Badabinski
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      103 months ago

      Alright, I have the sensor installed. It’s a bit cooler and more overcast today, but I’ll hopefully be able to get some good data.

      A graph from Home Assistant showing the current temperature of the mailbox.

      • @makeshiftreaper
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        33 months ago

        I don’t know if this could inadvertently dox you but I’d be curious to see an hourly outside temperature too to see how much hotter a mailbox gets than outside. Based off your first graph here I’m wondering if cars having glass windows makes a greenhouse effect that would make a car hotter than a mailbox, everything else equal?

        • Badabinski
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          63 months ago

          Seems like a worthwhile thing to do! I’m not worried about doxxing, since someone would have to go to pretty extreme measures to correlate with the exact climate where I’m at. I installed the sensor after the hottest time of day had already passed, but here’s what it looked like:

          A graph showing the outside temperature versus the temperature in the mailbox.

          I’m pretty sure the spikes in the mailbox temperature were due to cloud cover.

          • @makeshiftreaper
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            33 months ago

            In my opinion this pretty conclusively proves that you can’t make a mailbox lasagna. This is the graph I looked but for my previous statement:

            A graph showing the temperature the inside of a car can reach in the sun

            And it shows that a car can hit 130-140 at temps around what you posted. Which is so much wildly higher than what you posted I do have to assume cars have some sort of greenhouse effect going that mailboxes don’t

            Finally when you consider how much of the total volume of a mailbox a lasagna covers, I have to imagine that’ll slow heating down even more! Great work!

            • Badabinski
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              2 months ago

              As a follow-up, I have a new record temperature. Thanks, West Coast heat dome!

              altr

              Here’s with the ambient air temperature:

              altr

              • @makeshiftreaper
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                22 months ago

                Damn. Even with the crazy high heat you’re basically parking the food right in the danger zone for bacteria growth. Mailbox lasagna: busted

      • @rhandyrhoads
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        13 months ago

        By the way, just a quick tip, if you haven’t already maybe try airgapping the sensor from the metal with some foam so you’re measuring the air itself.

        • Badabinski
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          3 months ago

          I have it positioned right now so that the probe tip isn’t touching any metal, but I’ll probably add a bit of foam. I have some incredibly irritating foam packing peanuts that would probably work well. I’ll go do that now.

          EDIT: here it is, in all its gloriously crappy, uh, glory:

          a picture of a temperature probe poking into the inside of a mailbox. A Styrofoam packing peanut with a hole in it has been put over the probe to stop it from touching the walls of the mailbox.

          • @rhandyrhoads
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            23 months ago

            Haha it’s beautiful. Curious about the results.

    • @makeshiftreaper
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      103 months ago

      Fuck yeah, I love this. I’m so excited to see your results

        • lettruthout
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          33 months ago

          I don’t know. I’ve seen this used occasionally and thought I’d try it here. What’s to lose?