AceCannon's Home Automation / AV Distribution Project

Well, since my wiring job has begun, I thought I would start a thread in the same vein as some others' here. I will update the thread periodically with pictures and other miscellaneous verbose blather. My overall, "big picture" plan is as follows:

Security / automation: Elk M1G
Lighting: OnQ ALC
HVAC: Aprilaire (purchased: Ebay)
Audio: Nuvo Grand Concerto
Video: Extron matrix switch (purchased: Ebay), Directv satellite
Irrigation: Rain 8 or Elk relays
CCTV: either IP cams or regular analog cams via baluns
Control: infrared, WiFi ultra-portable PC's (likely Samsung Q1)
CQC (from Charmed Quark) to tie it all together (purchased: during the February sale, have yet to activate it)

A brief synopsis of the planned wiring:

16ga speaker wire to all ceiling / wall speakers (except L/R/center/sub for 5.1 zones which get 14ga)

video locations: four locations get RG59 minicoax (5 conductor bundle) and cat5e x 4. all locations get at least cat5e x 4

local AV input (for backfeeding a game console or whatever back to the central closet): cat5e x 3

lightswitch locations: cat5e to every switch in the house

thermostats: cat5e x 1 to each

CCTV: cat5e x 1 to each

motion: cat5e x 1 (4 for motion, remaining for the 32ohm Elk 1gang speakers)


Picures:
My empty wiring closet (7' by 4'10"). Note a separate 20amp service to each side of the closet as well as a planned recessed male plug for a UPS circuit to my PC locations in other locations of the house.

exhaust and 20amp circuit

ups and another 20amp circuit




The keeping room video bundle with center channel 14/2




16/4 wire hanging from ceiling in kitchen



Master BR video bundle and 16/4 speaker wire in wall


Study video bundle


Several runs through a floor joist

Finally got some pictures linked.. .

Much more wiring has been done, I'll be posting more pics soon.

And details of my incredible find on Ebay regarding an Aprilaire distribution hub and FOUR 8870's.

Most of the wire runs are done. I still have to get the main level outside porch video runs, two t-stats, a couple 16/4 to speakers, and a few light switch locations. And I figure a cat5e to the control location for the chandelier winches won't hurt.

I'm going to add a CCTV location in the keeping room and kitchen.

I am moving the security keypad location in the mudroom so as to more easily mount a Weigand reader just on the other side of the wall in the main level garage (for electric doorstrike).

Yes, it is a bird's next now. But entropy will be decreased when I get all my planned cable management hardware in the walls and comb all these wires out. The wires emanate from holes in the floor and ceiling of the central closet, holes labeled on the floor and each hole type duplicated on the ceiling. Each wire type is bundled in the middle of the wall with it's corresponding type from above/below. I've got a bunch of screw-in, plastic-coated hooks from Lowe's that I plan to use for management / routing.

Ah yes, each wire run is labeled on the wire itself using a scheme I adapted from MavRic's method (Cocoontech).

tt-rrr-w-#

tt = wiring type (LI is lighting, VI is video, MO is motion detector, AK is audio keyoad, etc)

rrr = room (kit is kitchen, kee is keeping room, MBR is measter bedroom, etc)

w is wall (N is north, C is ceiling, etc)

# is the LV box number on the specified wall starting from left, proceeding to the right.

So CC-BR3-N-1 is the cctv wire run in bedroom#3, north wall, first LV box on the wall.

The closet is 4'10" by 7'0". It seems smaller when I imagine one or both of the 4-post racks I got from Craislist in there. . . I think I'd rather have a really sturdy 2-post to replace at least one of them. .

The house is about 4000 sqft, not including the basement, which we do plan to partially finish during construction.

The panel to the far left comes straight from the meter, is never on backup power.

On the far right is the load-shedding transfer switch. The circuits at the bottom of the transfer switch are "critical circuits" powered by the genset. The middle panel is "non-critical" circuits, but also powered by the generator.

When the generator falls below a certain Hz, the transfer switch drops out the middle panel while still energizing the "critical circuits".

The two relays at the top right of the transfer switch have been proposed by some folks at Ziller Electric's forums (I am not affiliated) as a way to monitor the status of various conditions (utility power on/off, generator running/not running, generator on/olff load, load-shed status, etc). Some AC relays hooked into Elk zones ought to be do-able.

The last pic shows the HV lines coming in from the meter, a bunch of Romex, and two separate cat5e runs.

Well, we are getting close to finishing construction. Hopefully moving in mid-July.

The contractor wanted to get the HVAC units running to dehumidify the place, allow cabinets, doors to contract, etc. So here is a pic of one of the four stats. Looks kinda like an Aprilaire 8870, eh?



The wiring closet is still a mess. My anticipated order of events:

1. Lighting (ALC. Just kitchen and keeping room for now. This needs to work from the get-go or the WTF falls drastically and early. Scene switch is the main control for kitchen lights)

2. Security

3. Rudimentary distributed AV. A TV needs to work early on, at least via IR. I may even resort to one of those RF repeaters to give me time to work on a real IR network, followed later by GUI interface by CQC over Wifi, UMPC.

4. HVAC

5. Distributed audio (Nuvo), CCTV, irrigation - all to follow

The switches themselves are not in, but I began terminating the cat5e (from the switch locations) onto 66 blocks in the central closet. (Bridging clips not yet placed.) Kitchen started at the top, keeping room at the bottom.

On the right, from top to bottom: Elk interface/ALC controller, distribution hub, branch hub.

Here is a set of three ALC dimmers with the LV part wired up. Waiting to be mounted by the sparky.

The one of the far left will be used with 1 Aux switch, so it has all 5 LV leads connected. The other two to the left have just the ALC + and - connected. Those little "telephone" bean connectors are absolutely fabulous.



Here is the keeping room front L/C/R speaker setup (Monoprice) and a dual-voltage box for the monitor (Carlon, got it at Gatesburg Electric, about $11). To the left of the fireplace near the floor is a LV 1-gang with 3 runs of cat5e for remote input to the closet of a game console, etc.

Yes, will be interesting to see how much of the house 20kW can power without the load-shed kicking in. On course, I have excluded the oven and clothes dryer from backup altogether.

Well, my electrician ran all four of my HVAC compressors to a single subpanel, so I cannot selectively NOT power one of them (or even put one or two on the load-shed panel). So we will see what happens.

Of course, when I get appropriate logic/monitoring tapped into the transfer switch, I can have the Elk or CQC turn off indivisual HVAC's via the tstats.

Well, the cable management leave a lot to be desired at the moment. But things are taking shape, landing in position. I wanted to go ahead and get pics in the thread since it will still be a while before I do the final cable management.

2-post rack. Again, bird nest will be organized later.







Back of patch panel


Security sensors punched down to 66-block, Elk input expander x 2. Speaker and power terminal strips above.


Equipment rack


Next up: Outside speakers need to be mounted, connected.

Bought a cheap Windows XP Pro box for $199 to get CQC running on. A Moxa card. USB-serial dongles for the Directv boxes. Shopping for a Sansung Q1 Ultra.

ALC-Elk integration. Then Elk-CQC.

Aprilaire 8870 x 4 to Elk integration.

I know, and I pondered the decision a long time.

The issue was that I planned from the beginning to mount the Elk directly to the walls for ease of installation and changing later. Since I've never done any of this before, I assumed I would do it inefficiently in round one and want to change it later. If I move the Elk components around in the wiring closet, the structured wiring will likely not be the right length any longer. So my thought was to get all the structured wiring terminated permanently (66 blocks and 110-style patch panels), thus giving me latitude to later make potentially major changes in the overall layout. I read several threads about this and there were opinions both ways. . .

Anyway, I think I could fairly easily take the 66 block out and connect directly to the Elk components.

I've got the Extron hooked up and it works like a charm.

This is the Extron 100 model. It is 8x8 (red, green, blue, sync H sync V). Got it on Ebay for $168 last year.

As of now, I've got a DVD player, two HD satellite boxes connected via component video. The really great news is that it is switching digital audio on one of the sync channels perfectly.

I am pretty sure I can use this capability to add more sources to the Nuvo. I will make one of the Nuvo inputs a "flexi source". Sync output #8 from the Extron will feed a dedicated surround receiver's digital audio in. The "tape monitor" analog out from the surround receiver will go to the Nuvo "flexi source" input. Add CQC to glue it all together.

(Pictures soon . . I have been hesitant to take pictures since the project is ongoing and cable management is still in the realm of embarrassment.)

Cheap from Monoprice. Search item #4121

Gjvrieze: See Robertmee's comments. I am hoping to ultimately use zero IR. One of my TV's has no other control, unfortunately. Maybe I'll sell it. At any rate, serial contr l is much preferred over IR.


The project is well short of finished. As a pro, you will prob just be laughing at my amateur efforts! I'm learning as I go as this is my first time. But, I'd love to show you what I've done so far, if you are interested. Tons left to do (most notably, the entire automation server is yet to be deployed (CQC)). PM me.

Some new pics. The goal was to buy nothing new. Most everything is Ebay'd or Craigslist'd. Major items that I ended up buying new: Elk M1G, Nuvo GC, ALC devices. The racks and just about everything else in them is used. Wire and cable management is still a work in progress. Come to think of it, the whole thing is still a work in progress.

Where are the cans, you ask? Cans? Neh. It's my closet.