AceCannon's Home Automation / AV Distribution Project - Page 2

Thanks, but I realize it isn't very pretty (yet). "Form follows function."

Here is a thread showing my racks (the two-post is on the second page of the thread - I can't believe I was not planning on using a two-post rack at one point in my plans). The four-post is 29" deep. I was hesitant to post a pic of the rear of the open-frame 4-post rack because there is DEFINITELY a lot of cable management left to do there. At any rate, it has a lot of depth. You can see the bottom of the rack has my fax/printer/scanner. There is enough room behind it such that a Windows box easily sits there (CQC).

Regrets: Hard to know yet, I still have a lot to finish.

Before I started terminating, it looked like I had left WAY too much extra slack in the central closet (huge morass of wires). But after I started, there were multiple runs in which I wish I had left more slack.

I'm sure there will be plenty more regrets as things progress.

Tons of room in that thing. I'll get a pic of the back and side. The components in the rack are taking up less than 1/2 of the depth, I'm pretty sure.

The problem with the genset if that the sparky wired all 4 HVAC compressors to a single sub panel outside. So even if I wanted to run just 1 or 2 AC units on backup power, they all are energized. SO, I wanted to monitor the utility power and use that data to have the Elk adjust the tstats so they would not call for cool if main utility power is off (but leave the heat on since we have natural gas furnaces). I can then manually pick and choose HVAC units to run if needed. (20KW generator)

So I have a 120VAC DPDT relay wired to N2 of the transfer switch (protected by a fuse right below the terminal). The Elk zone runs through the contacts that are closed when the coil is energized, thus "secure" when utility power is on. The relay is in the blue plastic 2-gang box above the transfer switch. Brown wire is 2-conductor 18ga wire. The orange wire coming out is cat5e to the Elk.

I've been neglecting posting updates. Things have been working quite well, and work has been a distraction!

At any rate, here are some pic of my rudimentary interfaces. I started these as "beta" attempts at UI design, but they have worked well from a functional standpoint, so I have not endeavored to make them prettier.

The gist is that you touch a room on the floorplan (left) and the A/V controls for that room popup in the bottom right pane. The top right pane displays another user-selectable set of controls.

These first three are examples for the iPad.

Neurorad: Yes, CQC.


Stefuel: The transfer switch is the Generac PowerManager LTS (PDF spec sheet), not the Smart Switch. There is no 24v management in this switch. My switch drops out an entire sub-panel when it detects impending overload. All 4 of my HVAC's are wired to the "critical" panel, so clearly would overload my 20kW genset if all tried to start / run at once (the sparky wired one big HV line from the electrical panels on one side of the house to supply all 4 outside compressors on the other end of the house.) So my solution was to have the Elk change each tstat to OFF upon utility power failure. Once the generator is running, I can "manually" bring AC units back online as I see fit.

The only thing we decided not to power with our genset was the clothes dryer and oven.

It is getting hot in the closet, so I am making a thermal management plan. Plenty of space was left under the bottom of the door from the interior hallway. A hole was left in the plywood wall near the top of a wall shared with the adjacent mudroom, the drywall was left intact in the mudroom. My plan is to exhaust the top of the closet actively into the mudroom while drawing cool air in from the front, under the door.

Closet: 43" x 80" x 120" = 240 cubic feet

opening in plywood: 13" x 6" = 330mm x 152mm

(yes yes, I know, I know get the cables in a better state of organization. I'll get to it. It is better than it used to be, relax.)






I could put two 120mm case fans side by side up there. Newegg has some 140 and 150mm fans, too.

Another option is an inline ducted fan, perhaps with some 6" ducting to both select the air input location and physically move the fan away from the opening in the wall. I was thinking of moving the entire air volume each minute. This Panasonic is what I have decided to use, is rated at 240CFM.

Oh, and I've ordered this little board from QKits that will monitor 4 temperatures with One-Wire sensors. I plan to put these in four different positions in the closet and compare temps before and after the fan. There is a driver for this in CQC, so it should be pretty easy to slap these tempts directly on a touchscreen graphic of the closet. This should provide quite a bit of geekitude.

Stuff will be arriving soon, will post updates.

I definitely will, Dean, thanks!

The fan is installed. Of course, I wanted to control the fan with CQC, so I added an SPDT relay in the HV wiring. It has a 12v DC coil and I have the Elk controlling it. These pictures are pretty self-explanatory.

The installation manual for the Panasonic FV-20NLF1 recommended 8' of duct between the fan and the exhaust grill to minimize noise, hence the location of the fax on the left wall instead of on the back above the rack.

It is always frustrating when I grill on the back patio that there isn't enough light to really see the food on the grill. We have a couple incandescent lights that are fine for ambiance, not so much for seeing and assessing the steak. So I sometimes resort to my 700 lumen LED headlight (usually used for running).

The other day I looked up at the eave of the house near the outdoor sink / grill area and noted the cat5e hanging down that I ran when we were building the house 3 years ago. This was intended for a camera - but that subsystem has still not been deployed in my house, which I still consider to be in beta testing.

In a separate project I've been working on installing some LED driving lights on my 97 Jeep Wrangler. It occurred to me the cat5e could carry enough current for the crazy-bright lights from Rigid Industries (the Dually D2). 27 watts at 12v DC. I chose the one with a diffuser lens, marine version since it is white like my house. This light generates 2300 lumens. Compare this to a 100w Halogen light in your house on 120v AC which is approx 1300 -1500 lumens.

Terminated the cat5e outside to a keystone punchdown, inside is already terminated at a big patch panel. I already have a 6A (12v DC) power supply in the wiring closet near the Elk. I used 4 conductors of the cat5e for each of + and -, ran the circuit through an Elk Relay. Programmed the Elk arming station (M1KPAS, I believe) near the back door to toggle the relay with an F key press. Added a software button to CQC for iPhone use.

Pictures to follow. Just waiting for dusk to get with and without pics.
Edited by AceCannon - 10/22/12 at 6:41pm

Pictures for the ELK / CQC - controlled outdoor LED grill / kitchen light project














Edited by AceCannon - 10/22/12 at 7:08pm

Haha, yes this interface still represents my very first attempt. I never even tried to gussy it up since it is fully functional. It is essentially all stock buttons, indicators, sliders from the repository. Copying and pasting to make new rooms allowed me to metastasize my feeble efforts to the whole interface. The floor plan as a room selector did take some effort.

Dean, I will PM to see what you have in mind.

Landscape lighting control


Here is a fairly simple project that mostly utilizes the Elk M1Gold and CQC.

I had a landscape lighting contractor install the lights and transformers but I demurred on his offer for a controller. He pointed out to me that photocells were not really thought of as the way to go these days and recommended his astronomical timer.

Well, the Elk has this built-in, SO. . . .

Parts:
functioning Elk installation including at least one controlled relay
20amp circuit breaker (? or 15amp)
DPDT relay with 12v DC coil
appropriate socket with recessed screw terminals for the relay
4-gang new-work electrical box
2-gang new-work electrical box
two household light switches
two outlets
faceplates
Romex 2-conductor wire (also includes uninsulated ground)
(I also recommend one of those 120v AC voltage sniffers for peace-of-mind when working in the house's high voltage electrical panel. Potentially deadly stuff, that)

I installed the new circuit in my aux panel (not backed up by generator). This was the first time I have done that - I had considered getting an electrician to do it, but in retrospect it was pretty easy, straightforward. I used the voltage sniffer vigilantly before touching anything. This is in contrast to a regular voltmeter, multimeter which requires you to touch the bare leads directly to the conductor in question.

Romex from the electrical panel to the 4-g box. This was to serve as the switching box. Either the light switches or the relay can short the hot legs going to the two outlets next door in the 2-g box. The two transformers are plugged into the outlets. The thought here is that I could add another relay to control the transformers separately (in the future if needed). The switches are so I can turn the lighting on in the daytime for maintenance when needed.

The Elk relay is controlled by an Elk output. Gives the DPDT relay 12v DC from the power supply in my closet. I have a rule to turn this on 20min before sunset, off at sunrise. We decided that if we were at home, we would prefer the landscape lighting to be off when we were asleep, otherwise stay on all night. So when we arm STAY, I added another line to an existing rule to turn them off.

The little plug-in LED nightlights just serve as indicators for when the outlet is hot.

Pics next.

Landscape lighting control: pics

The D2 is the next generation of the Dually model from Rigid Industries. It goes from 4 LED's to 6 in the same housing. The light output is doubled to 2600 lumens. I called Rigid myself and spoke to a rep who said for this job the diffusion lens was the right choice. I purchased the marine version since it is white, matches my house exterior color.

(Note that I purchased a pair of the black with "driving lenses" for my '97 Wrangler. Came with a nice illuminated switch and a wiring harness with serious connectors and a relay. Crazy bright)


I have been very happy with the Elk. There is quite a community supporting it (especially at Cocoontech) - I doubt I would have chosen it without the discussion forum activity. I hired someone to run all the wires and sensors, but I did all the rest of the installation myself. Very straightforward after reading the manual. Everything I have done as far a programming, rules, etc has been through Elk RP, sitting comfortably at my desktop PC.

I have no experience with HAI but I have heard positive comments about it.


That is a laser multifunction device - printer, fax, scanner, copier. It has an ethernet port, so it is plugged into the network backbone and a phone line and sits out of the way in the closet.. The closet is the perfect place for it since it is used infrequently and really adds very little (erm.. nothing) to the decor of the house. All the PC's in the house can scan from it, print to it, or fax out of it.

Aprilaire thermostat issue addressed

I have four Aprilaire 8870 thermostat's, one went bad recently. Unfortunately that model has been discontinued. Fortunately, the replacement model 8800 is quite a bit nicer and will work concomitantly with 8870's.

Details below.

Current hardware:
8870 thermostat (x 4)
8818 distribution panel (each stat connects to this panel. 8818 not technically needed to make a network of these stats work, but I would highly recommend it for many reasons)
8811 protocol adapter (talks to the Elk Automation panel's serial interface, and presumably other manufacturers' equipment.)

The 8800 will work with the 8818 from a networking standpoint, but you must use a completely separate power supply. I tried just skipping the 8818 power connections and connecting upstream from the 8818 on the same 24VAC transformer, no dice. Called Aprilaire and they confirmed you need a separate transformer or the communications gets trashed. (There is a new distribution panel that can pass power connections, the 8819, works only with the new 8800 stat)

So - new transformer from Lowes and it works just fine. Just removed power connections for the new 8800 out of the 8818, connected directly to the new, separate transformer.