This is going to be the heart (or maybe that should be brain) of our automated home.
At the moment it's named "slave" after a computer from Blake's Seven. If it works out well enough we might rename it "Orac" or "Zen".
I'm hoping there is enough space in there to fit in a PCI serial card and hide the VIOM in some of the spare space.
Wow! Found this excellent site for ideas - Inhabitat.
It's worth clicking on some of the categories to see some of the older articles. My particular favourites are:
That'll certainly be added to my every growing list of sites to visit regularly.
Yippee! The 24V power supply (from RS) arrived and it did the trick. It's a bit of a mess but we managed to control the blinds using a PC:
We tested a bit at a time, but ended up with simple Perl script talking to the VIOM via the serial port. The VIOM was set to allow control of two outputs via the serial port (rather than the default of control via the inputs). The outputs were connected to the VIOM relay module. Finally the common and open of each relay output connect to the Centralis DC IB.
The blinds are controlled by a momentary toggle of the up or down output. This starts the blind moving and the Centralis keeps it going for a minute or two - long enough for the blind motor to reach it's limits (if only we could figure out how to set them). It is also possible to stop the blind moving by sending a momentary signal on both outputs at once.
Started testing the VIOM today. We tested it out with a door contact - which after a little effort worked fine - and used it to try the blind control/switch that Tracy mentioned in an earlier entry.
We tested the Centralis with a voltmeter and it appeared to be doing exactly what we'd hoped. The motor voltage can be controlled through the up, down and stop switches on the front of the unit:
and through the two momentary electrical inputs on the back:
Sadly we couldn't actually get the motor running through the Centralis because we were trying to get away with using a 12V supply and it really requires 24V. I've ordered a 24V supply and hopefully we can get it working as soon as that arrives.
Wow! Very odd! Tracy went to use the Fujitsu that I had tried to get the touchscreen working on. Despite the fact that I only managed to get erratic movement of the mouse, it is now be working!