Messages

46

Users / Re: I need orbiter advice

« on: March 13, 2010, 07:33:13 pm »

This is the first I have heard of it, but I have to say it makes enormous sense.

I'd still like to see the current stable targetted at an LTS version of Ubuntu while the transition is made though.  I cab't imagine it will happen overnight.  The support period for 8.10 ends this April.

47

Users / Re: Newbie planning a new home / KNX/EIB wiring considerations PLEASE HELP! ;-)

« on: March 03, 2010, 01:46:59 pm »

The thing about a wiring cabinet is that all wires come back there (cat6, bus cable, and in my case an individual electrical cable for each socket and light (or light group).  The more central that is, the easier it is to route cables, and the less it costs.

48

Users / Re: Newbie planning a new home / KNX/EIB wiring considerations PLEASE HELP! ;-)

« on: March 02, 2010, 10:54:28 pm »

It sounds like a stupid question, but could you locate your wiring cabinet in the centre of your property - somewhere in the region of your lights "A"?

49

Users / Re: Newbie planning a new home / KNX/EIB wiring considerations PLEASE HELP! ;-)

« on: March 02, 2010, 06:39:18 pm »

One thing to note regarding dimming. Dimming sounds cool in general, and I was sold on dimming lights as well.

After doing some research, I will not put dimmers into my place, but will put a couple of more light circuits. Why? Because there is NO lighting system (other than using tubular lights) that allows energy efficient dimming that I know of. On one of the mailing lists someone suggested to use multiple light circuits to create the same effect. i.e. instead of a single light circuit with 20x 12W lights, have two circuits, and use scenarios to turn on one or both. Might be an idea........

I'm like you.  originally wanted dimmers, but the more I looked at it, the less I thought it was a good idea. In the end I settled for each light or group of lights controlled independently with switchable sockets for lamps.  I feel this has given me the flexibility we need for lighting scenes, but kept the setting of those scenes independent of any specific type of lighting (I just switch them on or off in different combinations).  I use a mixture of ordinary light fittings with energy efficient bulbs, LED's (specifically running up the stairs which looks ace along with cupboard lighting) groups of spotlights, and lamps.

Being a photographer influences my sensibilities and I like the idea of different types and directions of lighting, more than one source with variable brightness.

50

Users / Re: Newbie planning a new home / KNX/EIB wiring considerations PLEASE HELP! ;-)

« on: March 02, 2010, 05:00:16 am »

I haven't got time to add my detailed thoughts on this at the moment, but I will.

I would say this, seriously consider going with your preferred wiring scheme up front.  Any standard scheme later converted to a bus based switch system will increase costs and reduce effectiveness in the long terms.  One of the advantages of the KNX bus system for switches is that:

1. The bus system can be a tree structure (as long as you don't have a closed loop).  This means you can go from switch to switch, or branch to multiple switches from one feed.  I laid more than one, for flexibility and to remove single points of failure...but in principle you could just loop one wire from switch to switch.
2. The low voltage bus system means that you can put switches in bathrooms without normal mains voltage switching considerations in wet areas.
3. If you have a bus cable going to most places it's easy to add additional devices (just branch off from the nearest cable and add devices as required). 

It's much simpler (but requires more cable) to wire to each mains device (light and power socket) back to one discrete point (wiring cabinet) than having to hard wire to mains ring and via a mains switch to a light socket.  The bus system means that you can switch anything for which you have an output relay, and it's totally reprogrammable at any time.  Once hardwired it's totally inflexible.  Adding switchable devices on top of that adds an extra layer of complexity.  you would also need to add bus cable to each socket that you potentially needed to control (rather than having the relay in your wiring cabinet).

Additionally, if you use something like the Zennio Z38's as your switches (at least where you need temperature control) they have climate control features built in and become more cost efficient (they also have the option to send many switch control signals as well as scenes, potentially allowing them to replace multiple switch locations with one central touch screen control switch (thus potentially controlling multiple rooms lights, power, and heating/cooling from one place).

If the intention is to do it very cheaply, then don't consider KNX.  If the intention is to do it the best way possible then KNX may be what you want, but it's better to plan it in its optimal form from the start.

Also I can give you guidance on what I have done, but I'm in the UK and our electrical regulations are most likely different (although there are many similarities and few differences).  I'm not qualified to talk for your location, though. 

I've had training on KNX, and have all the technical documentation needed for implimenting a system.  I also have a licence for the ETS software.  What are you planning on doing for software/programming?  It's circa £1000 for a licence.

If you are serious about a KNX based system it's worth buying a small collection of devices and mocking up a test system to see how they work.  It becomes a lot clearer when you have done that.

51

Users / Re: What power supply do you use for your miniITX ION atom boards?

« on: February 23, 2010, 12:23:12 pm »

There's no doubt a 120 watt power supply should have enough for one of these boards.  Under heavy load (playing HD video) you should not expect a load of much more than circa 40watts from them.

I can't guarantee it, but I'm pretty sure that powering up the extra rails on a 24 pin connector woukld see this board come to life.  Of course rather than a seperate supply to the rails from the psu this will involve commoning up the existing outputs - in this case because of the low power requirement I'm pretty sure it would work.  You need to be sure that your power supply is the most recent standard ATX 20 pin connector (using the link I gave before).  If so, try it with an adaptor, they're very cheap.  If you don't feel like taking the chance buy a new 24pin power supply.

52

Users / Re: OT: HDMI connector = weak?

« on: February 22, 2010, 07:56:43 pm »

Definitely not a problem I have with my HDMI cables.  I only have (relatively) cheap cables, and in my case the cable itself is light and the connector rugged and tight fitting.  I have more problems with the scart cable behind the TV because of their size and the angle from which the cable leaves the connector (my TV's are mounted on the wall with the cables routed through a 100mmm portal in the wall).

HDMI is very much a step forward from scart for ease of cable routing and TV mounting.

You might find a HDMI right angled adaptor helps.

53

Users / Re: What power supply do you use for your miniITX ION atom boards?

« on: February 22, 2010, 05:01:07 pm »

Look at the power supply section of the ATX specification.  You really should have no problem with an adaptor on a 20pin power supply, when all we're looking at is an nvidia ion chipset with (presumably) little in the way of expansion boards and hard drives.

If ever a system board can be powered with a little power supply, this application is it.

54

Users / Re: What power supply do you use for your miniITX ION atom boards?

« on: February 22, 2010, 02:38:04 pm »

I'm using these:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500W-CIT-micro-ATX-PSU

I also have some tyan ion boards with 20pin motherboard power connectors, and am using the power supply from a supermicro 1U chassis with a 20 to 24 pin converter cable - you can also find these at scan.  You can also find (at least I thought so when I looked into this, although I can't put my hands on them at the moment) converters that go from 20 pin psu to 24 pin motherboard.  They should power up a 24pin motherboard with minimal load requirements.

I've also got something like (but possibly not exactly) this from ebay to try with a laptop type power brick (as yet untested).

Note: I'm mounting in an electrical cabinet, not behind the tv, with these boards.

55

Users / Re: Dimming LED and CFL light bulbs?

« on: February 22, 2010, 11:19:40 am »

I went through the same research curve as the other respondents.  Ultimately I decided on a non-dimming solution.  Where we want to create lower lighting conditions we have power sockets in each room, switched seperately from the main power sockets.  To these we connect lamps with lower power  energy efficient bulbs.  We create a range of lighting scenes with a combination of the main lights and lamps - all controlled by our KNX switches and lighting scenes and all using energy efficient bulbs.

KNX dimming controllers are good to use with traditional light bulbs as you can gradually ramp up the power on switch on to reduce wear on the bulb and increase life.  Presumably it's also the case with other dimming controllers.

56

Users / Re: Controlling floor heating with z-wave EU

« on: February 12, 2010, 11:45:12 pm »

You can do this easily with KNX, although if you haven't got a KNX bus (or the ability to route a cable) it might be problematic.

The room switches that I use have temperature sensors built in. These can send bus telegrams to control underfloor heating manifold valves using a heating actuator.  You can integrate radiator control (again you need a bus supply) with a radiator valve.

I have the room switches and in the short term I'm using ordinary thermostatic valves upstairs in the rooms with radiators (triggered by a standard time clock).  I also have a heatmiser web and room thermostat control system for the underfloor heating downstairs (I installed the underfloor heating before settling on KNX).  I will either integrate this system with LinuxMCE (I really have no idea how, or even if it's possible, but it's not critical given I have browser based control over the system anyway) or convert it to KNX over time (I've laid bus cable for this possibility both into the thermostat back boxes so that they can be replaced with KNX switches and also into the cabinet where the underfloor heating manifold is located).

KNX is widely acknowledged to be good at climate control in general.  It can also control cooling/shade systems (like air conditioning and blinds).  In fact KNX can control most stuff.

I think it's also true to say that z-wave can do much/all of this.  I'm not really familiar with z-wave first hand though.

57

Users / Re: Atom core, media directors, and remote control.

« on: February 02, 2010, 03:02:17 am »

Hi all, thanks for your comments.  There are pieces of information that make some of the advice redundant, I believe.

  Although not located within line of sight, my electrical cabinet is a narrow room running parallel to my hall, connecting the lounge and dining room (about 3m long).  My server cabinet sits within this and my wall mounted LCD screens (LG xxLH3000 series) are both within 5m of the cabinet location.  Each Screen has a 100mm sleaved hole behind it, through which I can route cables.

The intention is to run a HDMI and RS232 cable to each screen from the MD's.  It would be awkward to mount the MD's behind the screens as they are wall mounted.  Given the relatively short length of these cables I'm hoping that I wont have a problem (indeed I currently have scart and component from other sources, and spdf going from the TV to the receiver, which is also in the electrical cabinet). 

Below the TV is an aperture in the wall, acting as a AV equipment cupboard (this aperture opens up into the electrical cabinet).  In the lounge this contains my receiver (Onkyo TX-SR706), centre speaker, and sub woofer.  The cables route up from the rear of the equipment into the heart of the electrical cabinet, and through the hole in the wall to connect to the screens. Normal USB cable lengths will extend into this aperture to make USB connected devices within the line of sight of the user.

Consequently I don't think I will have a problem connecting the equipment, it merely becomes a question of controlling Linuxmce without physical access to the media directors for the respective screens.  If this can be done exclusively by nokia 800's / browser based orbiter then I'm golden.  If not I need to know whether I need to connect a remote control (and locate an IR tansmitter/receiver where the remote can "see" it), or whether I can connect bluetooth mouse/keyboard to the media directors.  I want the "easiest" to use control system for a lay person, so my preference is nokia 800 > remote control > keyboard/mouse.

By keeping the media directors and core in the electrical cabinet I can run them with decent airflow (hence choosing the asus board with active cooling) without noise being an issue.  I chose the tyan dual network board as the core (the only atom board I can find with two NIC's onboard), and assumed the lack of nvidia graphics wont be a problem for a pure core (not a hybrid).  I will be building a custom case housing the three motherboards and three power supplies.  The intention is to put 3 off 1TB drives attatched to the core, with any further requirements for storage met with NAS.  I'm assuming one DVD drive attatched to the core will allow me to setup everything. The core and the media directors will be attatched to a KVM and screen in the electrical cabinet for setup purposes - will this be a problem to then unplug the electrical cabinet monitor after setup and connect to the LCD screens, or will I be able to connect the VGA (to the KVM) and the HDMI (to the LCD HD screen) simultaneously during setup?

I appreciate these seem trivial questions, on the face of it, but my experience is that the devil is in the detail and forewarned is forearmed.

I also have some portable LCD screens (1280x1024) behind which I will mount the acer single atom computers for distributed use around the house.  I've wired multiple CAT6 sockets to each room for this purpose (amongst others).

My experience:

1) I use a DT360 to control everything.  There is no need to have remotes or keyboards or mice except when you're browsing the web or working in KDE.  There is a bug, which hopefully will be fixed, that does affect this sort of "orbiter-only" setup - basically, the OSD pops up for no reason, and you can't clear it from the Orbiter ( http://svn.linuxmce.org/trac.cgi/ticket/549 )....

I presume that I could substitute a Nokia 800 for the DT360 that you have in this role, and I get the full functionality (bugs not withstanding)?

Thank you for all your help.

58

Users / Atom core, media directors, and remote control.

« on: January 31, 2010, 03:44:29 pm »

I'm intending buying these next week:

Core:  Tyan S3115GM2N, Intel 945GC, Intel Atom N330 CPU (dual gigabit ethernet)
Media directors:  Asus AT3N7A-I, Nvidia ION, Atom N330 CPU

The intention is to locate them in an electrical cabinet and cable directly to wall mounted LCD's.  I will have a couple of nokia n800's as orbiters.  Will I be able to control everything about the media directors from these (if I leave the media director on)?  Will I be able to pair them with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse?  Do I need to connect a IR receiver (USB-IRT) to be able to use a remote control with them (they will be in a cabinet and not in direct line of site to the rooms)?

Any helpful suggestion on the best way to handle media director control would be appreciated as this will be my first hands on use of the system.  Also any comments on the motherboards would be appreciated.

Thanks.

59

Users / Re: Dallas Semiconductor 1-Wire Questions

« on: January 27, 2010, 06:11:12 pm »

I have designed my house to work on totally autonomous systems that do not rely on central control to work.  They are then to be integrated (using Linuxmce) to provide additional functionality.  Nevertheless, I do not want linuxmce to be a required element for anything to work.

For my 1-wire weather station and sensors I intend to use an NSLU2 (slug) with OWFS or OWW, or somesuch.  For my weather station there is a lot of software support already as well as all the information needed to write your own.

By running it on a slug, I can shutdown linuxmce when I choose but all my other non-dependent systems, including weather monitoring, keep going.  Here is some information for adding a 1-wire adaptor to the slug.

You might want to think about doing it like that.

(For the record I'm also running a small asterisk server on a slug to route between VoIP and my landline - and vica versa, using an SPA-3102).

60

Users / Re: Lightning/climate/security

« on: January 22, 2010, 01:24:34 pm »

.....With KNX i need an expensive multifunctional touch screen pannel (yes, there are cheaper switches but this is the main advantage of the knx)........

I don't agree with your summary at all.  KNX offers pretty much every advantage of any wired system.  I believe it to be the most complete and varied automation control system.  It's just at its best it is a dedicated low voltage bus wired system, the main disincentive is that it's not cheap (KNX also can be used with powerline, wireless RF, and KNX-IP - the vast bulk of devices, however, are for the bus system as it is massively more popular). It is good though.

I don't think many people on here would disagree with you that z-wave is also very good.  It clearly is, and has the sort of widespread cross manufacturer support that can only be good in the longer term.

In my head I like KNX for wired, z-wave for wireless, and I have no problems mixing the two where appropriate.  My preference is still for the wired though.  I'm not a fan of powerline technologies (and KNX also supports that).

I don't have the experience with PLCBus to say how well it performs, but the transmission method does not appeal to me, and the choice of available devices appears to be slim.