Olex's stuff

Balcony solar on the garden shed

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

I’ve been thinking about getting some solar for a while. In Germany, “balcony solar” has gotten very popular in recent years - for a good reason: you can offset a ton of your power use with reasonably priced hardware, and grid power is expensive here, so a setup re-pays the investment after only a year or two in many cases. And within certain limitations it’s all DIY doable, with no permits or electrician work necessary, the inverters are plug-in via a normal Schuko wall outlet.

GitLab CI: Prevent cache reuploads without changes

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In several projects now, I had an issue with the way Gitlab CI cache policies are implemented. The spec allows you to configure a given job to only pull, only push, or pull-push a given cache. This makes it possible to configure some jobs in your pipeline to push downloaded or built data into a cache without pulling a previous cached state first (useful when the job always re-creates the cache contents from scratch), or to pull a cache without pushing it back (if the job only consumes the cache contents, but never modifies them). However, pull-push jobs will always upload the cache after execution, even if the cache contents have not changed.

2023 Tesla Model 3 - frunk light install

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 21:00:00 +0000

Let there be light!

Had an issue some days ago, getting out the charger cable out of the frunk in the dark. No light source apart from the headlights, no chance to see inside the frunk whatsoever. So I decided to do something about it. One 22€ kit from AliExpress and 15 minutes of work later, see above.

Originally posted on FinalGear Forums

This car, I like it. Another! - 2023 Tesla Model 3

Tue, 27 Dec 2022 21:05:00 +0000

Not quite a deja vu, but close.

The lease on my previous Model 3 is slowly coming to a close, and knowing this, this summer I sat down and took a long look at the current EV market in search of a new daily. Annoyingly, I found nothing more interesting than another Model 3 - despite all its shortcomings, for me it’s still the best daily driver out there. Others are slowly getting there, stuff like the Polestar 2 or the EV6 are very close - but ultimately, nothing beats the 3 when looking at factors important to me. So another one it is, for the next 3-4 years until something more interesting finally comes along (looking at you, Polestar - make the 6 at the Model 3 Performance cost/performance level, and we’re in business).

Originally posted on FinalGear Forums

Various 3D-printed home improvement items

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 12:00:00 +0000

I’ve been doing mostly home improvement / decoration stuff in the new apartment with the printer recently.

Some of the projects, probably missing a few smaller ones:

Housings for Ikea Tradfri and Styrbar (designed by myself) Zigbee light switches.

Ikea Skadis tool holders (+ hooks, more hooks, kitchen paper roll holder, screwdriver holder) for the workshop, and Oculus / gamepad holders for the computer desk.

When you don't want a Model Y - 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E

Thu, 16 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Picked up mom’s new car yesterday. It’s an Extended Range RWD with the Tech Package 2 (all the things + pano glass roof) in an interesting color - I think it’s called Space White in the English-language markets; not really a white, but a very very light blue, that barely comes across on pictures, but looks quite good IRL in my opinion. I haven’t had the opportunity to drive it at all yet, but mom’s initial impressions seem to be very positive.

For now, I’m quite busy with work and other stuff until the weekend, so here’s hoping the 100% charge it was delivered with will be enough for her until then :D And then on Saturday I’ll teach her how to actually charge the thing. Home charging is happening at their place, but will take another couple months, so it’s public charging only for now - shouldn’t be an issue though, with the fairly massive range and how little she actually drives.

Originally posted on FinalGear Forums

Pipeline stoplight: making a GitLab CI pipeline status visible

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A question I often run into in our trunk-based project at work is:

Can I push onto the current master, or is it broken again?

Yes, one should primarily concern oneself with the root cause of this question even existing and attempt to fix it, but I’m afraid in this project it’s a lost cause. So instead, I’ve taken to the next best thing I could think of: preventing myself and fellow team members from pushing more changes on a red pipeline and making things even worse™.

Introducing the Pipeline Stoplight, or: “Don’t push unless this thing is green”:

Making it was a nice, fairly simple DIY exercise combining the following aspects:

3D printing (the casing)
Electronics (simple circuit design and soldering)
Arduino programming (reading the pipeline status from the GitLab API via WiFi)

Deploying applications to the Docker/NGINX server using GitLab CI

Sun, 12 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In a previous post, I talked about setting up a Docker and NGINX-based server for running Docker-based web sites and applications. Now, I want to show my process for continuously deploying my apps with a single git push, leveraging the power of GitLab CI.

Hosting multiple sites or applications using Docker and NGINX reverse proxy with Letsencrypt SSL

Mon, 09 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

So I decided to rehost my homepage and a couple other web pages and apps on a new server. And since we’ve been using Docker and Compose for some projects at work, I thought, hey, this could be a neat clean setup for multiple apps hosted on a single machine without installing a ton of local dependencies and managing everything by hand. Here’s the story of how this went down, what I learned along the way, and how you can build the same setup without doing the same mistakes that I initially did.

3000km across Swiss and Italian Alps with the Model 3

Wed, 14 Aug 2019 12:00:00 +0000

7* days, 3000 km, a great ton of fun and memories that will last: this was my Alpine roadtrip across Italy and Switzerland.

Our overall track was a little chaotic :) We did not touch any highways, the whole trip was on B-roads only, with dozens of mountain passes and other twisty roads. It all started in Reutte, Austria, just south of the German border where I arrived from…

The wait was long enough: 2019 Tesla Model 3 Performance

Fri, 05 Apr 2019 12:00:00 +0000

Three years ago, I stood in line outside a small store in downtown Frankfurt to place a reservation on a car, with a bunch more excited people:

We didn’t know what it would look like. Only a few key facts were given: the base version would cost 35k$, it would be a sedan slightly smaller than a Model S, and it would have a base range of 210 miles. We each put down a small-ish payment, and got a number in an online account.

A long time later, the car could actually be configured and ordered in Germany. And as soon as I could, I put in an order through a leasing provider, to get one as a company car. One could not order the base version (and still cannot, except in the US) - but I didn’t intend to.

Some three months later still, after a lot of radio silence, I got a text: “Your Model 3 is ready for delivery”.

And finally, a week after that text, this happened:

Originally posted on FinalGear Forums

Lipo voltage monitoring with FrSky D-Receivers without sensors

Sun, 23 Mar 2014 23:13:00 +0000

Here I’d like to share a simple Lipo voltage monitoring setup, that I’m using in my Bixler with an FrSky D8R-XP receiver. No sensors or other electronics are required - only a single servo cable and two resistors, total value of about 50c + some soldering.

The FrSky D-series receivers have a great feature: the analogue telemetry inputs, called A1 and A2. On some receivers both are freely accessible (D8R-XP, D8R-Plus), on others the A1 port is hardwired to the internal receiver voltage, but the A2 port is always accessible for external connections (D4R-II). On those ports, a voltage of up to 3.3V can be connected. It is measured internally (0-3.3V = 0-100%) and transmitted via the telemetry uplink to your transmitter. Using a simple voltage divider soldered from two resistors, one can monitor the main battery voltage of a model (or any other voltage).

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi! I’m Olex, a software engineer, drone builder and car enthusiast from Darmstadt, Germany.

I share my projects, thoughts and experiences on this site. I hope you find something interesting here!

Social:

Professional:

https://linkedin.com/in/olexs

Coding:

https://github.com/olexs

3D printing:

Cars and roadtrips:

https://forums.finalgear.com/members/leviathan.20938/

Datenschutzerklärung

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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Olexandr Savchuk, Im Erlich 12, 64291 Darmstadt

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Olex's stuff

Balcony solar on the garden shed

GitLab CI: Prevent cache reuploads without changes

2023 Tesla Model 3 - frunk light install

This car, I like it. Another! - 2023 Tesla Model 3

Various 3D-printed home improvement items

When you don't want a Model Y - 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E

Pipeline stoplight: making a GitLab CI pipeline status visible

Deploying applications to the Docker/NGINX server using GitLab CI

Hosting multiple sites or applications using Docker and NGINX reverse proxy with Letsencrypt SSL

3000km across Swiss and Italian Alps with the Model 3

The wait was long enough: 2019 Tesla Model 3 Performance

Lipo voltage monitoring with FrSky D-Receivers without sensors

About

Other places I share my stuff Link to heading

Datenschutzerklärung

1. Datenschutz auf einen Blick Link to heading

Allgemeine Hinweise Link to heading

Datenerfassung auf dieser Website Link to heading

Wer ist verantwortlich für die Datenerfassung auf dieser Website? Link to heading

Legal notice

Angaben gemäß § 5 TMG: Link to heading

Haftungsausschluss (Disclaimer) Link to heading

Haftung für Inhalte Link to heading