Cam's Whole House AV and Automation

This thread could fit in either the AV dist. section or the Automation section. I have been very active in the Home Theater Construction area but have not yet done anything in this portion of the forums. I am re-doing my house since it got hit by a tornado in April of 06. The build has been slow... but it is almost time to move in. I finished structured wiring for the house. I wired for:
1. An AVAtrix feed to every room
2. An off-air antenna feed to every room
3. Hole house audio (CAV 6.6 or similar) w/ control panels in all rooms.
3. Mic/Speaker in each room for automation.
4. Standard Structured Wiring in all rooms (2 cat6, 2 RG6, and multimode fiber) also 1 or 2 cat5e per room for phone, etc.
5. Touchscreens in all rooms (UTMA in-wall)
6. Alarm sensors on exterior doors and windows, plus glass break sensors, water leak sensors, garage door sensor, doorbell sensor, phone sensor, and smoke/co alarms tied in to the panel.
7. Electric door strikes on front door and door to house from garage.
8. Proximity card access for unlocking doors.
9. 4 exterior security cameras and 4 interior cameras tied in to IP ready DVR.
10. Dedicated wiring for several satellite dishes (Dish Network, C-Band, and KU Band FTA)
11. Conduit for future expansion.
12. Tornado saferoom wired for AV and exterior antennas.

The HT will have all the above A/V connections...plus dedicated 7.1 surround, and independent A/V connections.

The house will be controlled by an ELK M-1 / MainLobby configuration.
All light switches will be UPB.
All video/audio,computer, etc. equipment will be in a 6 foot rack.
Other items will be mounted on the plywood wall.

So lets just say I pulled ALOT of cable.

I won't be able to buy everything at once, but I have the wiring in place for when I make the purchases :-)

Here is a pic of the equipment room (and cable pull) where the brains of the house will be. Excuse the mess... I have not trimmed the wire yet.



Elk Panel:


Flat panel connections in all rooms are like this:


The rear of the house has a pole for satellite dishes, etc.



Here is the home theater room so far:


...and looking back to the riser and the edit bay:


Projector connections:


UNL-12 Electric Doorstrikes:


Saferoom Entrance:


I have been concentrating mostly on my theater... and the above ideas for equipment were drafted several months ago. So if anyone has other ideas for whole house AV other than an Avatrix and a CAV system...please share.
Thanks,
Cam

I'm using HID ThinLine II 5395. The units are wired to Wiegand proximity connections in the ELK M1-KP and the M1-KP is then wired to the panel. The UNL-12 doorstrikes are wired directly to the Elk panel and a separate power supply.


The ELK-M1KP is an addressable LCD Keypad for the M1 Cross Platform Controls. It features a 32 character back lighted display with adjustable intensity and extra large character fonts for ease of readability. The M1KP includes a plug-in connector on the back for adding an internal proximity reader (ELK-M1PR) or for interfacing to virtually any external 26 bit Wiegand compatible proximity reader. Proximity cards/fobs can be used for touchless arming, disarming, door strike control, etc.



ThinLine II 5395
125 kHz Proximity Wall Switch Reader
Providing performance and reliability, HID's attractive, unobtrusive ThinLine II proximity card reader is housed in a two-piece, weatherproof secure potted enclosure.

* The size of most standard U.S. switch plates.
* Wiegand interface.
* Potted reader suitable for indoor or outdoor use.
* Base part numbers: 5395 (Wiegand)

Well, I have 3 RG6 Quad and 2 CAT5e running to each flat panel outlet. If I went coax for component... I would not be able to run an OTA or cable antenna outlet to each room. I'm already drywalled... but I did run smurftube so I guess I could run more RG6.


I was thinking Homeseer...but it seems like Mainlobby now has support for most of my planned devices...so I don't know if getting Homeseer would be overkill. It integrates with Mainlobby...but do I need it?

Just another update...
The exterior of the house shows from left to right:
Heat/AC for garage, tankless water heater vent, power meter, phone, automatic transfer switch for future generator, main breaker box, HVAC.


Inside the garage this shows the Heat/AC unit. I may have to go w/ x10 or insteon to control this unit... I have not seen a 220v UPB switch yet. Let me know if you have seen one.
I also installed a tankless water heater. I'd like to hook this up to the home automation system so I can control the water temp. from the touchscreens.
The unit comes with a wired remote control for the temp....so I guess that is a starting point.

http://www.foreverhotwater.com/model-r85i.php

Mario,
Thanks for the kind words.
Earlier in this thread I said:

Looking over this thread... do you think I would need Homeseer in addition to Mainlobby for my configuration?
-Cam

Well, I took the plunge and ordered the HA software. I'm going to play around with it before I get in to the house.

MainLobby 3 & MLServer 3 (5 Client License) Combo

DVDLobby Pro 3.0 (Requires MainLobby/MainLobby Server)

WeatherLobby 3

UPB Device Driver

Elk M1 Plug-In for MLServer

also included as a bonus were
ML CallerID and GuiGraphix: Library0019

I may add the MusicLobby in the future and also the USBIR6 IR Transceiver.
I'm going to try and get the UPB and Elk M1 working first.
Also if anyone has a good deal on a Sony CX777ES ... let me know

All from the front-
Cam

P.S.
AARRGGG!!
I just order the MainLobby stuff and I see the AVS special on the IP Touch Screens that I was going to order later!


Almost half price! So I ordered 2
Why is it that things on this forum always make me spend money?!

Could be good for many things.... I may look in to one for the heater in my garage.
-Cam

I installed the Touchtronix UTMA touch panels (I will actually hook up the power and Cat5 later) in the walls. I have one in the living room and one at the top of the stairs. These will run MainLobby @ 1024x768 resolution. I will eventually put some more in the house and one in the theater. I may also just use a Monitor/Mouse/Keyboard and an N-Computing l-series box in some locations.

Touch panel out of the box.


Leveling the cutout.


ByeBye drywall.


Box inserted.


Panel inserted.


Finished product downstairs.


Finished product upstairs.



I plan on using a mix of these panels and some NComputing boxes hooked up to standard monitors.

Turned on one of the touchscreens for testing... here are the pics.




I checked with my multimeter and I have no voltage drop over the length of in-wall wire...so I ended up connecting the stock power supply in the equipment room...leaving me with a flush mount!

Todd,
I was impressed w/ the build quality of the touchscreen units. Also Dwayne with Touchtronix seems to be a nice guy. He hangs out at http://www.cocoontech.com and Touchtronix also has started their own forum. Those would be a good place to look for deals if they come up.
As far as the wireless tablet... I have not looked in to models yet... but I do plan to get one. I will also be using an old second hand PDA hooked up to WIFI.
BTW your theater space looks great! Post some update pics!

Well, I did a little bit more today. I put a couple of shelves in the rack...and made a keyboard shelf (I will put in an actual sliding one later). I'm still waiting on my Dell server (running Ncomputing server and MainLobby Server/Client) to arrive. I will install the linux media server shortly.


On the touchscreen side... I bought a a Square-D pull out disconnect switch at Home Depot and gutted the enclosure. I mounted the 2 stock touchscreen power supplies on one of the TouchTronix provided mounting plates. The plate is the perfect size for this box. I can slide the plate in behind a couple of dimples on the sides of the enclosure and it fits snugly inside.

Thanks!
I don't have the Russound unit yet, but, all rooms are wired for the actual CAV keypads. The touchscreen will be able to control the system as well...but I did not want to give up the hard buttons of the actual Russound controller.

Well... My automation server arrived from the Dell Outlet. It is a Vostro 200 series with 2GB ram, 320GB sata hd, Pentium Dual-Core Processor E2140 (1.60GHz, 1MB L2 Cache), Windows XP Pro, etc. etc. etc.

I have it hooked up and running NComputing and MainLobby/ML Server. I didn't have time for any programming...I just ran some generic screens.




While working on the system... the IP Touchpanels went in to screensaver mode! So I went to screen properties and changed the screensaver to the built in picture slideshow... it works! Digital picture frame mode



I'm now planning on letting these go to screensaver for a short time and then go to standby mode so the backlight will last a while.

I made a floor plan in Photoshop @ 1024x768. I have not done enough reading yet on how to integrate it into a Mainlobby scene. Mario... is there anything out of the ordinary that I have to do? I will be using it to show lighting, fans, garage door, HVAC, and alarm zones.

Here is a video of the keyless entry on my house. After I enter ... the house says the time and temp.
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v6319333rqhCEFHN