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Home Automation Tips and Tricks Archive
April 2000 - Page 1

Entry 1- Bedroom Assistant

Mark Knickelbein mark@bstar.net West Allis, WI, USA

I happened to have a spare sound card in my computer. Figuring I needed to utilize it somehow, I wired it into my bedroom stereo, however I could've just used any cheap speakers for it. Using Keware's (www.keware.com) free ActiveX control for the CM11A, and Microsoft's free Text-To-Speech technology (http://www.microsoft.com/iit/), I built myself a Visual Basic program that would do this all by using my X10 Palm Pad at my bedside. (Computer is even in another room) 

  1. Read the time/date to me by pressing one button 
  2. Pull off the internet the local weather report and read it to me 
  3. Allow me to play predownloaded MP3's (It asks for the predefined number of it, of which I have a list of all numbers. 10 keys on my palm pad double as numbers when asking for this) 
  4. Allows me to play a playlist of MP3s already downloaded 
  5. Allows me to set my alarm, and my alarm works with predefinded and chosen WAV files, and also turns on the room lights 
  6. I am working in support for checking my email right now

Components used: 
Separate Speakers - $10 cheapies do the trick nicely 
Speaker Extension cords - $20 (Or, you can opt to use an X10 video/audio sender) 
Separate sound card - about $20 
CM11A - $50

Comes out to a total of about $100, but for me, I already had all the things I needed already to put it together; you may too.

Entry 2 - Automatic Dog Door

C.N. Rush cnrush@ccnmail.com Woodland Ca. USA

The Story:

We have a female Golden Retriever that is part of the family, While we are at work we would always open the regular dog door so she would have free run of the house and be able to go outside and do her business. (this also contributes to our house never being broke into)

The Problem:

On more than one occasion, we have come home to find our house a total mess, It seems at times a cat would find its way in and all hell broke loose.

The Solution:

An electric Dog door? After looking into some these we decided they were much more expensive than what we wanted to pay, so we figured Sadie would be left outside while we were working.

One weekend while I was bored going through the garage, I decided I would try to make a pan and tilt base for our outside camera. Well after tearing apart a few of the kids broken RC toy cars for the servo's, I spotted that old electric antenna, then it hit me! (The same way it does most home inventors that are bored) The rest is history :)

How it is done:

I opened up the wall (should of seen the wife's face) and started at it. I started where the old dog door was and just made it a little wider, 16 inches (the distance between two studs) I placed two strips of 1/2" channel iron up both studs four feet high for the track. At the top of the track I have a 2x4 going between the studs that holds the electric antenna, after figuring the throw of the antenna I cut it and fed the end through a piece of 3/8 plywood that is 15 3/4 wide by 2 feet tall. (See Diagram) I then took an old Radio Shack Car alarm that I have and wired the part that activates the headlight when the alarm goes off to the antenna motor. To test it I hooked up a 12 volt power supply to the alarm. The door went up real nice, But I soon came to figure out I couldn't put it down. So I went to Radio Shack and picked up a couple of relay switches and wired them between the alarm and the antenna motor. The top switch when hit by the door when it comes up reverses the power and sends the door down. The bottom switch when hit by the door cuts the power and reverses the polarity so it will go back up once the alarm is activated. 

Well after playing around a bit to get the adjustments on the switches just right I had to figure out how to make it open for the dog, knowing she was not going to push the buttons herself I opened up the hand transmitter for the alarm and took out the LED light and soldered the panic function of the transmitter together.. This worked real well.. In fact the door just started going up and down, up and down.... So I disconnected the 12 volt power supply and opened up the alarm and removed the antenna wire on the alarm.. This helped a lot as the door did not start to open until you got within about 10 feet of the dog door, but that was still more than I wanted, So I took some clear silicone and placed it over the connection point of the alarm wire antenna, put the cover back on the alarm and it worked great.. now when the hand transmitter is within about four feet of the door it opens. We sowed the transmitter into Sadies coller and walked her towards the door, she jumped back the first few times it started opening but after a few times walking her to it she got use to it. I considered hard wiring the 12 volt power supply in the wall to permanent electricity but decided against it for fear of maybe it would overheat and start a fire.. so the power supply cord comes through the wall about two feet away just under a plug in receptacle and plugs right into it.. This way we can unplug the power if there is any problems or if we go someplace with Sadie we can unplug it.

This project may seem hard to make, But I was able to do it in a weekend. We have been using this dog door now for over a year and the only maintenance so far has been to replace the battery in the transmitter twice. It is easier than what it seems, but you should have some knowledge of electrical work. Also, the way the switches are setup the door will come right back down after it hits the top switch.. This has not been a problem of the door hitting the dog, You could use a timer that would close the door after say a few seconds if you were concerned with this. The amp output is low so the door does not move as fast as the antenna would if it was connected to your car.

Supplies

Old Electric Antenna Motor ($5.00 Dollars at a wrecking yard) I had one. 
Old Radio Shack Car Alarm (Cheap at any flea market) I had one. 
8' piece aluminum channel iron ($4.00 at Home Depot) 
2 12 volt relay Switches ($7.00 at Radio Shack) 
12 volt power supply (Everyone has a few of these laying around) 
Plywood for dog door. (Cheap, I had plenty in the garage)

Total cost for me to make was under 15 dollars verses almost $200.00 for a commercial door.

Entry 3 - Broken, but not worthless

C.N. Rush cnrush@ccnmail.com Woodland Ca. USA

I took a Broken PhoneMate cordless phone with a built in digital answering machine and made it into a combination doorbell and outside answering machine.

When someone comes to the door and presses what looks like an intercom doorbell it will either notify us in the house that someone is at the door or allow them to leave a 30 second message if we are not home.

On the Phonemate digital answering machine it has a button to press so you can leave a 30 second memo for someone in the house, It also has that nifty little button so if you loose your phone you can press it and it makes the phone beep so you can find it, When you press the button to find the phone it will make the same beep on the machine as it does the phone.

I bought a 4in x 4in x 2in enclosure from Radio Shack. I opened up the answering machine and removed the combination speaker mic and placed it in the inclosure, I drilled a bunch of small holes in the enclosure BEFORE putting in the speaker-mic so the sound would not be muffled. I put a momentary contact switch on the enclosure that would act as the door bell switch. I drilled a hole through the wall to run the wires into the house and inset the inclosure into the outside wall so only about 1/2 inch of the inclosure sticks out (cosmetic looks). I then took the wires from the speaker-mic and wired them back to the same place on the answering machine as they were before. 

Now comes the tricky part. I took the wires coming from the momentary contact switch and connected them to a three way switch I had added to the answering machine. I have one wire from the three way switch soldered to the lost phone button on the circuit board and I have another soldered to the memo button on the board. The third goes to the common ground on the board. I put a plain little speaker back in the answering machine in the same place as the speaker-mic was. I closed it all back up and mounted the answering machine inside the house directly behind the outside enclosure. 

Now, when someone presses the button on the outside enclosure it will make the sound like the phone is lost letting us know someone is at the door. If we leave, we switch the inside three way switch that I put in the answering machine and then when someone presses the button they get a quick message saying (We are unable to come to the door right now, Please leave a message - This is programmable to say what you want) and then just by speaking into the outside speaker-mic it will record their message up to 30 seconds. When we come home, the memo light on the answering machine will be blinking to let us know we have messages and we can play them back.

Parts Used:

1 Broken Phonemate Digital cordless answering machine phone ($45.00 at Frys) ps. It worked a whole 2 weeks 
1 4x4x2inch Inclosure ($7.00 Radio Shack) 
1 Momentary contact switch ($1.50 Radio Shack) 
1 Three way Switch ($3.50 Radio Shack) 
1 three inch speaker ($5.00 Radio Shack) 
Some wire I had laying around the house

Total Cost for this project was about $17.00 because I already had the broken phone answering machine.

PS. I used a larger outside enclosure than was needed because I am planning on installing a board camera in with it someday.

Entry 4 - Remote Controlled Church

Tim Shephard  tim.shephard@bigfoot.com Suisun, CA, USA 

My father is in charge of recording the sermons at his church. He also has to ring the bells for the classrooms when the class is over. He used to have to get up and miss part of the sermon or his class to do this. That was before automation!

Now with a wireless Palmpad remote, receiver, and a universal module, he can handle all of this without missing a verse.

Here is how:

The receiver module has a built in appliance module. Plug the tape recorders power into the appliance module/receiver and set the code for A1. Then before church starts, when you put in a new tape to record the sermon, turn the appliance module off with the palmpad A1 off. Then depress the record switch on the tape deck.

Now, from your seat during services, when its time to start the recorder, just hit A1-on (Button 1) from the wireless Palmpad, and the tape deck will power up and start recording.

Now, for the class bells. If your church has bells, you probably already have a push button to ring the bell. Simply wire a universal module in parallel to the existing bell switch and set the code to A2. This way the normal push button will still work.

Now when your sitting in your class, use the same Palmpad as before to ring the bells, by hitting A2-ON (Button 2). The universal module will receive the code and ring the bell.

So now, you can start/stop the recording of the sermon, and ring the class bells without leaving your seat!

Parts list:

1 Firecracker kit (includes receiver/appliance module, and palmpad) $6 
1 Universal module $17

Total: $23

Entry 5 - Using Active Home and X10 parts in the nursery.

steve.macey@hotspring.com

Using the ActiveHome, a motion detector and a light dimmer I can check on the baby without waking him. I set the night light to minimum level during baby's bed time. I have the motion detector situated so that it sees the doorway but does not respond to the baby in the crib. Then during the night if the baby makes any noises that catch our concern we can check on him easily as the motion detector sees us enter and the system turns the brightness up to a level that allows us to see the baby but not so bright as to wake the little fellow. After we make our check and leave, the timer returns night back down to minimum level.

Entry 6 - Entry and Exit Notification

Tim Shephard  tim.shephard@bigfoot.com Suisun, CA, USA 

This tip will notify you when your front or back door opens. This is especially useful if you have little ones in the house when they are not allowed to answer the door alone.

Install a magnetic door switch on your door frame. Hook up the switch to a Powerflash Module and set the code wheels to A-1. Then place a Chime Module set to A-1 any where in the house you want. You can install as many Chime Modules as you need to make sure you hear it.

Now when ever your door opens, the Powerflash will send the A1-ON and the Chime Module will ring and notify you that the little one has opened the door!

Extra Tip: You can use this site to get info on how to modify the chime sound.
 http://www3.edgenet.net/lingling/x10-mod2.html 
Now you can set the Powerflash on the front door to chime an unmodified Chime Module set to A-1. And set the back door Powerflash to A-2 to chime a modified Chime Module. Now you can tell which door was opened by the way it sounds.

Remote Chime Module $16 
Power Flash Module $20 
Magnetic Door Switch $ 5 
Total: $41

Entry 7 - Across-the-room Infrared control

Guy Lavoie guy@lavoie.com

When I ordered my new Ocelot (CPU/XA) controller last month, I was looking forward to the new capabilities it would provide me with.
One of these was Infrared control of my TVs. This controller already represents a good value for the price, but the built-in infrared interface was the icing on the cake ( or as we say in french, the cherry on the sundae )! So along with the unit, I ordered the optional infrared emitter. When I finally received the unit, I was quite disappointed to learn that the emitter was a tiny blob on the end of a wire that had to be stuck to the Ir receiver window on the device I wanted to control… I was expecting a small piece of hardware that could be placed anywhere in the room and that would work like a regular remote control or a Powermid ( I see suggestions to use a Powermid to do this kind of control, which looks like a rather expensive solution ). So I hauled out the scope probe and breadboard, and proceeded to create my own solution.

It turns out that the Ocelot is driving the Ir emitter in a low power fashion using a pullup circuit ( probably a PNP transistor with an about 150 ohm series resistor ) to drive the Ir LED directly. All I needed was a small amplifier circuit to drive a regular Ir LED at high power to accomplish my goal. Ir LEDs ( and any LED for that matter ) can be driven at high currents if the duty cycle is very short. The Ir LED I used here is rated for about 20 mA if ON continuously, but can be driven with about 1.2 A ( yes, that's amps ) when pulsed for microseconds at a time as in remote controls. Examine the schematic diagram. The Ir LED I used was Radio Shack cat # 276-143C, but pretty well any Ir LED should do. One important thing to note: Use a SEPARATE 12V power supply for the circuit, do NOT try to use the same power supply as the Ocelot ! This is because the Ocelot takes the power through a bridge rectifier internally, so you do not have the same common ground on the external Ir jack. Use an isolated wall transformer (wall wart). In my case since I bought a SECU-16 along with my Ocelot, the provided wall transformer, at 200 mA, was not enough to power both, so I obtained a bigger wall transformer to power my Ocelot/SECU-16 combination, and then used the original provided wall transformer to power my Ir circuit! The 2N3904 transistor can probably be substituted by any general purpose NPN switching transistor, like a 2N2222. Another advantage with this circuit is that you can drive several Ir LEDs simultaneously by replicating the circuit for additional LEDs. I have two Ir LEDs in two rooms ( I first verified that the Ir codes for one TV were ignored by the other one; it helps if both TVs are of different brands…). If you make more than one circuit, simply wire them to the same mini phone plug that goes to the Ocelot. The 12V power supply is shared by all circuits.

Look at the pictures to see what I did to mount the Ir LEDs in each room. In the first picture, you can hardly see the LED along the wall molding ( it's along the wooden molding a few inches above the top level of the picture frame ).

 

The second picture shows a close up of the small wooden block in which the LED is mounted. The wire is tucked in behind the molding all the way to the floor.

 The third picture shows the LED in the bedroom, mounted on another wood block in the upper left corner of the dresser. The wood blocks here are about ¾ of an inch square. Both of these are mounted about 15 feet from the TVs they each control, and are very reliable. The cables going from them to the Ocelot are about 30 feet long. 

Now I have a macro that I can trigger from my alarm system panel ( see Oct 99 issue for my alarm project ) that allows me to turn on the TV and have it tuned to channel 29 ( my favorite news channel ) as soon as I come into the house ! It's also great to be able to turn off a forgotten TV when you're just about to leave.

Cost: about $10 to $20 depending on what you may already have.

Entry 8 - EASY CALL FORWARDING AND OTHER HA PHONE LINE TRICKS.

Jon Welfringer Welfringer@Access1.net Huntington Beach, CA  USA

Did you order call forwarding from the phone company thinking you would use it a lot? Chances are it's a pain to remember to forward it when you leave the house. It's also a pain to remember to cancel it when you come home. Did you ever wish you could change your call forwarding number remotely? Well, here's how I effectively utilize call forwarding with my HA controller and telephone touch-tone interface.

I personally use HomeVision with the HV phone/CID module and multiple remote inputs from a palmpad, HomeLink (in-car) transmitter and my Napco Gemini alarm system. These examples utilize my own system, but these could be adapted for many other controllers as well. I currently use one button for a call fwd. to my cell phone (M1 on), a second button to call fwd. to my wifes cell phone (M2 on) and a third to cancel call forwarding (M1 off or M2 off).

When leaving the house, I press a single button on the palmpad next to the door to initiate the call forwarding. The general logic flow is as follows: 

  1. send X10 command from remote (i.e. X10 command M1 ON) 
  2. HA controller receives X10 command and executes selected macro (i.e. "Call Fwd. to Jon's Cell")
  3. macro picks up phone line and dials necessary sequence to cancel any existing call forwarding 
  4. pause, (wait for dialtone) 
  5. dial code to establish new call forwarding 
  6. wait for answer (or voice mail answer) to establish forwarding link. 

Steps 3 through 6 could be as simple as: "#73,,,#72,555-1234,,,,,,,,,,,,"

When returning home, a simple press on the palmpad can also cancel the forwarding. This normally isn't needed - read on.

AUTO-DISABLE CALL FORWADING 
To make call forwarding really intuitive with the rest of my HA system, I have macros to auto-disable call forwarding and to remotely re-direct the call forwarding. To auto-disable, I have the alarm system send an X-10 command (M1 off) to the HA controller when returning home and disarming the alarm. Upon receipt of this command, the HA controller starts a 5 minute countdown timer. At the expiration of the timer, the controller will cancel the call forwarding only if the alarm is still disarmed. This gives you a 5-minute window to run in and out real quick without disabling the forwarding previously established. The auto-disable option works great when one person establishes the call forward, but another returns home and doesn't know the phones are forwarded somewhere else.

REMOTE REDIRECTION OF CALL FORWARDING 
The remote redirection of the call forwarding is a bit trickier. If you have a second phone line for your fax or modem, you can utilize this to dial in and modify the forwarding on the first line. You're probably thinking..."but isn't the touch tone module on the first line?" Utilizing a double pole, double throw relay (DPDT), I can have the HA controller selectively choose which phone line to be active on. For my needs, I rely on an output from the alarm system that signals the HA controller with armed/disarmed status. When armed (away), the HA touch-tone unit is active on line 2, but when disarmed (home) it is active on line 1. Now by simply dialing into line 2 and entering the appropriate code, the HA controller will run the necessary macro. The general logic flow is as follows: 1. Dial into HA controller (now on line 2) from remote phone 2. Enter appropriate code to activate new call forwarding macro 3. HA controller / touch tone unit hangs up on line 2 4. HA controller activates relay to switch phone line input to line 1 5. HA controller / touch tone unit picks up line 1 6. HA controller / touch-tone unit dials call forwarding code and new phone number. 7. HA controller waits for other line to pick up and establish forwarding link. 8. HA controller / touch-tone unit hangs up on line 1 9. HA controller deactivates relay to switch phone line input back to line 2

SUMMARY: The phone company supplied call forwarding options can be very limited in use. With these HA tie-ins, you can get more effective use of those services.

Here's what you'll need: 

1. Input device like Palmpad, mini/maxi controller, in-car HomeLink transmitter, hardwire input, etc. $20 
2. HA controller with if/then or event driven processing. $50 - $500 
3. Telephone touch-tone interface. $50 - $150

Total cost $120 and up depending on controller selected.

Entry 9 - CHEAP TWO ZONE IR OUTPUT

Jon Welfringer Welfringer@Access1.net Huntington Beach, CA  USA

Many HA controllers have the ability to control your audio video gear via IR. This is great for having macros that turn things on at specified times, turn systems off at night or when leaving the home, etc.

Did you ever wish that you could send different IR commands to more than one room without having to buy an expensive multi-room IR add-on for your controller? You could always distribute the same IR output to multiple rooms, but what happens when you have devices that respond to the same commands, like two of the same brand TV's?

You can easily overcome this by using a double pole, double throw relay. You wire the IR output of your HA controller to the input of the DPDT relay. Each output can be used as a separate zone. Using a digital output from your HA controller, you can drive the relay to selectively output your IR on whichever of the two zones you wish.

When sending IR commands from the controller, you should preface each one with the command to switch to the appropriate zone. I.e. Set port 1 high (selects bedroom zone), send TV on command, send command to change channel, etc. Or, set port 1 low (selects living room zone), send TV on command, send AV receiver on command, select TV input, etc.

Relay cost $3.00 - 6.00.

NOTE: This project assumes you're already using a capable HA controller. For those without an HA controller but use IR connecting blocks, you could modify this to switch zone outputs using an X-10 universal module to drive the relay.

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