Content Home Automation My Automated Home
Weather
 | Today | 36 |
 | This week | 142 |
 | This month | 461 |
 | All | 18073 |
 |
 |
 |
| Written by Rick Swenton | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Saturday, 27 October 2007 10:18 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Please note: It has been several years since I began implementing my designs and features. Over this time many of the products I purchased have been discontinued. I have been trying to keep up with the embedded links to make sure they point to current or alternate sources of products and information. Design Considerations for remotely monitoring and controlling my home:
* Telephone voice messages are dialed twice to the same number. The first is placed over the house phone - a regular analog PSTN line from the local phone company. If the first call is not answered and acknowledged the second call is placed over VOIP using a SIP compatible Analog Telephone Appliance (ATA). If neither call is answered, the resulting voicemail will page me. This provides redundancy in the event that the local phone service is down. Let's look at the details of the automated house. We start out with the Sensaphone 1104-CS Cottage Sitter. That's the unit on the right that looks like a calculator.
I configured the Sensaphone to monitor inside temperature, outside temperature and the security system (a separate system).It also monitors power and loud sound events. I will get a phone call and page if the inside house temperature drops to below 50°F, if the security system is breached, if the power goes out longer than 30 minutes, or if there is a persistent loud sound, such as a smoke alarm. What you see here, starting at the top next to the roll of wire is a home-made voltage regulator/charger and two 12V gel cell batteries. The 12V provides power to the ELK-980 Telephone Line Fault Monitor and 9V regulated to replace the 6 D-Cells that power the Sensaphone. Below the spool of wire in the upper left is an ELK-955 two port telephone lightning/surge protector. To the right of that is a phone distribution block. Next is the phone jack for the Sensaphone, followed by the Sensaphone itself. Below the lightning arrestor and phone block is a terminal strip used to connect to the Water Cop interface. Next is the Elk Products ELK-980 Telephone Line Fault Monitor. [ Home ] Mounted to the floor joist above the Sensaphone panel is a power strip holding an X10 Powerflash Module and two Universal Modules. When the ELK-980 detects a problem with the phone line, it closes a relay contact that is connected to the Powerflash Module. The Powerflash Module sends a UNIT ON code over the power line to the Home Seer software which alerts me via pager e-mail that the phone line has a problem. When the line is restored and the relay opens, the Powerflash Module sends a UNIT OFF code which causes a pager e-mail to let me know the phone line has been restored. The Universal Modules are used to remotely control the house's main water valve. Because the WaterCop electric water valve has separate manual push-on, push off control buttons, two Universal Modules are needed to remotely control the valve. One module pushes the on button, the other pushes the off button. See below. The WaterCop system consists of an electronic shut-off valve and three wireless, battery-operated WaterHound probes. The shut-off valve installs on the home's main water line, right after the main shut off valve. The electric water valve plugs into any standard 3-prong power outlet and features green and red LEDs indicating if the water flow is open or closed. On the WaterCop front panel you can see the Open/Close membrane switches and indicator LEDs. You can also see the RJ-45 jack that interfaces the WaterCop to the Sensaphone so you can get an automatic notification if one of the three WaterHound sensors detected water and shut off the house main water supply. The radio antenna is extending below the WaterCop motor. The two Universal Modules on the previous photo are used to remotely control the water valve. Two modules are needed because the valve has pushbutton on and off switches. One module electrically pushes the off button, the other electrically pushes the on button. The modules are configured for momentary operation. These Universal Modules are operated in conjunction with the setback thermostats. A Home Seer macro event has been programmed so when it receives the activation signal that the house is unoccupied (away), Home Seer signals the thermostats to enter vacation mode temperature settings and it tells the Water Cop water valve to close. When Home Seer receives the activation request that the house is occupied (home) it signals the thermostats to return to normal mode and signals the Water Cop water valve to open. The basement electric heater and air conditioner are also forced off when the house is unoccupied using this macro. [ Home ] The WaterCop electric valve is the black box on the left side of the pipe, mounted on a ball valve. This is the version for 3/4 inch pipe. The house main water valve is located below the WaterCop. To the right of the WaterCop I installed a bypass valve so that I can manually override a shutoff caused by the electric valve. Although you can manually open and close the electric water valve simply by pressing the open or close buttons on the motor housing, I thought it was prudent to install a fail-safe mechanical bypass for those times such as when the power is out. If you don't want a bypass valve, you can turn the water back on without power by removing a retaining clip, removing the motor assembly from the ball valve, and turning the valve on with a screwdriver. The pipe insulation serves a dual purpose. The basement is unheated during the winter so it will minimize possibility of freezing. Also, the city well water is quite cold. Without the insulation the pipes drip condensate incessantly during the humid summer months. The X10 system is located on the wall halfway up the basement stairs to position it in the center of the house. The RF signals from the door, window and PIR sensors are not industrial strength, so positioning the base unit in the center of the house affords optimal RF performance. The X10 base unit is also the RF receiver for remote lighting control, such as hand held remote controls and convenient stick-on "add-a-switch" light switches. Also in this same central location is the Linksys WAP-54g 802.11g/b wireless access point. This places the wireless network signal in the center of the house for best performance. I use this one in 802.11b mode to feed my Linksys WMLS11B Wireless Music Player. This keeps music streams off the main 802.11g wireless network for better performance. [ Home ] To use the VOIP phone service from a computer, see Gizmo, a software based VOIP client. To the right of the Leadtek BVA8051S SIP VOIP Adapter is another ATA which is a Linksys/Sipura SPA-3102. This Linksys ATA is a two port device which can be configured as a gateway into my regular phone line. When I call the SIP phone number assigned to the gateway port I get a dial tone from the house analog phone service which I can use to place calls from a remote location over the internet using the house analog phone line. Below the VOIP adapter is an older SMC 16 port rack-mount switch. Below the SMC Switch is a Creative Sound Blaster Live 24 External USB Sound Card (L) and the ICOM PCR-100 Computer Controlled Wideband Radio (R). Finally you see the laptop computer that runs all the software that controls the house, serves the audio streams, and provides remote control. At the very bottom of the rack not visible behind the bottom cosmetic panel is a small Tripplite UPS.
This is a view of the Linksys WRT54G router. It is a 4 port router and an 802.11b/g wireless access point. You have to check out aftermarket firmware that you can easily load on certain versions of the WRT54G. If you have a choice, get the WRT54GL (the Linux Version) or the WRT54G versions 2 or 4. The higher versions have less memory and can only load less-featured versions of the aftermarket firmware. DD-WRT is my favorite. With DD-WRT running on my routers I have built-in VPN capability, built-in access to dynamic DNS services like No-IP, stateless packet inspection, higher power transmit and even hotspot portal capability. Check our WRT54 Links section for more information about DD-WRT. The house is automated with Home Seer software running on an older laptop computer running Windows 2000 Server. Through the cable modem, the lights, basement electric heat, air conditioning and two zones of thermostat setback are controllable on a web pages or by email commands processed by Home Seer. The Home Seer software also controls scheduled events such as timers for the lights to give the home a lived-in appearance when we are not there. Here is a screen shot of the Home Seer web interface. You can see the controllable devices with the ON and OFF buttons (some with the ability to set the dim level) and some that are READ-ONLY such as the Low Oil Alarm. [ Home ] The laptop server also provides an audio feed from a computer controlled wideband radio receiver. I am using an ICOM IC-PCR100 Receiver (R). The receiver covers 10 kHz - 1.3 GHz and has modes for AM, Wide FM (broadcast) and narrow FM (communications) This radio does not have SSB capability. This is an older receiver (released around 1998) but is probably the only remote controllable receiver with FM Stereo. (The newer ones are mono only.) Many laptops today do not have a stereo line input jack. Sometimes it is available if you purchase an optional port replicator. It was easter to use the Sound Blaster Live 24 External USB sound card (L) to create the stereo line input for the computer. The audio output of the ICOM Receiver is connected to the line input of the Sound Blaster. The receiver is controlled using Shortwave Log, a comprehensive logging and radio control program. While I don't use the logging functions, the web server and remote access allows for remotely tuning the receiver, saving preset stations and controlling many of its functions including random access tuning over the internet. Alternately the receiver can be controlled by PCR Server which gives greater flexibility but can not be operated with a browser and requires the PCR Remote client to be installed on each remote computer. Because I like to listen to the audio streams on my Nokia N800 UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) which runs a variant of Linux I tend to stay with Shortwave Log. You only need a browser to use it.  One of the great features of streaming audio and wireless home networks is using an Internet Tablet (also called a UMPC - Ultra-Mobile PC) such as the Nokia N800 pictured above. These handhelds run Linux and have access to huge repositories of application software and OS enhancements. On my N800 I have access to all web controls for the house, a music player that plays my audio streams and any other internet streams I want, and I can use VNC to remotely control computer desktops and even create VPN connections. This device has WiFi802.11 B and G as well as bluetooth to allow tethering to a cell phone for internet access on the road. It also has a SIP client so you can use VoIP to place and receive phone calls.  Above is a screen shot of the actual HomeSeer Web Page to control devices in my house over the internet. Here's a photo of the Nokia N800 along with the iGO XTBT01 Stowaway ultra-slim bluetooth keyboard. The keyboard folds up to a size slightly larger than the N800. This is the computer room. Since this is not my primary residence, the equipment is scrounged. On the left is the network rack explained previously. On the desk to the right of the laptop is an old WinTel box. The system on the right is a Sun Ultra-30. To the left side of the rack (not visible) is an Apple LaserWriter-II with a serial connection to a Lantronix EPS-1 Ethernet Print Server (barely visible on the left site of the network rack.) Using this old, outdated technology, any computer in the house, including wireless laptops, can print to this printer over the network. Parts and recharge toner are still available for this Canon SX engine and the Apple Raster Image Processor (the built in computer) is Postscript Level 1 - still quite useful and delivers good quality prints at 8 pages per minute.
Now let's move on to the Heating System.
Each zone of the heading system is controlled by one of these Aube TH-135 Thermostats. I really only need a thermostat that can be set for "occupied" and "unoccupied" and I would like to change the mode over the internet. This thermostat is simple and it is not programmable. You can not program schedules to automatically control the temperature based on time of day or day of the week but it does have three modes: day, night or vacation. The vacation mode is remotely settable by a telephone controller or an X10 Universal Module. Applying this thermostat is so much simpler for my needs than the more versatile TXB16 and the thermostat is easy and intuitive for the family to learn and use. [ Home ] Here's the latest update to the heating system. Here is the Beckett AFG Oil burner with the new and improved components. Every oil burner has a primary control with a safety shutoff. This safety shutoff trips under one of two conditions: 1 - the flame does not light within a predetermined time (like 15-45 seconds), 2 - the flame goes out unexpectedly. Both conditions could be a hardware problem like a bad high voltage igniter (transformer or electronic), bad electrodes, bad oil pump, a clog in the oil line, air in the oil line, clogged filters (oil filter, pump strainer) a bad motor or empty oil tank. All conditions can cause loss of heat. So it's important to know when lockout condition occurs in a remotely monitored house. A primary control device with alarm contacts is available so you can be alerted remotely when your oil burner goes into lockout. The updated primary control unit costs about $90 at the supply houses. I got mine on eBay for $40. This is a Honeywell R7184U. Not only do you get the alarm contacts but you also get an internal processor that provides a 15 second lockout with three retires before lockout, intermittent ignition (the HV igniter shuts off after the flame is established), and pre-purge with oil solenoid control. To take advantage of pre-purge, you need to add an oil line solenoid. With pre-purge, the blower, pump and igniter turn on and wait 15 seconds before turning on the oil valve. This provides the opportunity to establish a draft and build oil pressure before lighting the flame. It gives a clean, smokeless start. Then 10 seconds later, the HV igniter shuts off, saving electricity and parts wear. Components from L to R are Electric Oil Valve (solenoid), Electronic Igniter (replaces old style HV transformer), and the Primary Control (Honeywell R7184U). The alarm contacts on the Honeywell R7184U are connected to an X10 Powerflash Module which will send a "device on" command over the power line to the Home Seer software. Home Seer will page me over email and the status indicator "Oil Burner Fault Alarm" will be shown "on" (lit) on the Home Seer web page. Warning! Use a competent professional heating contractor for all updates or repairs on a heating system.
The wires for the oil solenoid and the wires for the primary control box pass through the oil bruner main housing. It is important to use plumbers putty to block any air passage through these holes around the wires. The top cover for the high voltage module (or transformer) has air seals and there are air seals on the baffle plate that surrounds the photocell. The burner draws a controlled amount of air for combustion through the side where the air intake adjustments are located. If you allow air to leak in through other places you will change the combustion fuel/air mixture. Most likely this will reduce efficiency as the air is increased and more of your heat will go up the chimney instead of heating the water. Warning! Use a competent professional heating contractor for all updates or repairs on a heating system. The burner on the Utica boiler is mounted to a swing out door that makes maintenance and cleaning easy. However, with the standard 3/8" copper oil line it's easy to kink the line when swinging out the door with the line attached to the burner. Here is a view of the flexible oil line I used to attach the copper tubing to the burner. Notice there is a Fireomatic valve between the copper tubing and the flexible oil line. These are fusible valves. This means that in the event of a fire, the heat will melt a fuse in the valve and the valve will self-close, preventing oil from possibly feeding the fire. When dealing with oil lines never use teflon tape for any of the joint fittings. Always use pipe dope. The smallest amount of teflon tape fragment can destroy the oil pump. The pump manufacturers will not honor your warranty claim if they find teflon tape inside the pump. That will be a $65 lesson just for the part. Also, when dealing with oil lines never use compression fittings. Those are the ones where you place a ring around the tubing. When you tighten the compression nut the ring compresses around the tubing for a tight connection. These types of fittings are prone to air leaks. Remember, the oil pump is creating a vacuum to "suck" the oil from the tank. If these fittings are leaking even the smallest amount you may not see visible evidence such as a drop of oil on the floor. But when the pump fills with air and you lose the prime on the pump you get a burner lock-out and a call for no heat. Always use flare fittings. For this type of connection you need a tool to flare the end of the tubing (the end will look like a small funnel.) Remember to put the fitting on the tubing (facing the right direction) before you flare it! In the picture above there is a flare fitting on the copper tubing on left side of the Fireomatic valve.
Warning! Use a competent professional heating contractor for all updates or repairs on a heating system. Here's a picture of the rewiring of the thermostat and zone valve connections. The original was a ball of twisted wires and wire nuts. This one is more organized and neat but will probably drive most technicians out of their mind because it is out of the ordinary. On the right you will see a terminal block with three small light bulbs. These are surplus 24v indicator lamps. I wired them to the zone valves through a diode so the lamps do not light at full brightness (or draw unnecessary current). The indicators are helpful to see which zones are calling for heat and help speed diagnostics if something goes wrong. Warning! Use a competent professional heating contractor for all updates or repairs on a heating system. Even with automatic delivery of oil, it's still possible to run out of oil. I want to receive an alarm whenever the tank falls below 1/4 full so I can call for a delivery. The oil gauge on the 275 gallon tank in the basement is a rod with an indicator disk that rises up and down inside a calibrated clear plastic cylinder that screws onto the top of the tank fitting. The cylinder can be unscrewed, exposing the rod and indicator disc. I used RTV sealant to mount a small magnet to the disk. I also used RTV to keep the disc from rotating on the shaft. The magnet needs to remain parallel to the switch so the disc can not be allowed to rotate on the shaft. The switch works best in only one magnetic N-S orientation. If you have poor sensitivity, turn either the switch or the magnet around. Then I used a 3/4 inch plastic conduit clamp to mount a reed switch at the 1/4 full level mark. When the oil level falls to 1/4, the magnet will align with the reed switch and the switch will close. The reed switch is connected to an X10 Powerflash Module which sends a "device on" command over the power line to the Home Seer software. Home Seer will page me over email and the status indicator "Oil Level Low Alarm" will be "off" (unlit) on the Home Seer web page. I need some way of "remembering" the state of the oil sensor switch after a power failure. The Powerflash module does not send out its status when it is newly powered up. It only sends a new X10 signal when there is a change in condition on its input. So I used a ApplianceLinc 2-Way Appliance Module which is set to the same device code transmitted by the Powerflash Module. This 2-Way Appliance Module has a mechanical relay that stays in its on or off state during a power failure and can be polled for its current state by Home Seer. So Home Seer can determine the last know state of the Appliance Module (and therefore the condition of the Oil Tank Low Alarm) during power fail recovery. Completely running out of oil is a pain because you usually need to have the technician purge the air out of the line to restart the burner. Anything you can do to replenish the oil before running dry is a big advantage. I also added a second reed switch at the full mark on the oil tank gauge connected to another Powerflash Module to tell me when the oil tank has been refilled. I did not want to rely on the low switch turning off as an indicator that the tank was refilled because that switch would also turn off if the oil level dropped below 1/4 full and approached empty. Warning! Use a competent professional heating contractor for all updates or repairs on a heating system. Here is the bank of modules controlling the Oil Tank and Oil Burner Monitoring and the Thermostat control. The top power strip has a 12V AC adaptor (provides 12VDC to control the vacation mode of the thermostats), the 2-Way Appliance Module (to "remember" the state of the Oil Tank Monitor after a power failure), an unused Universal Module, and the Universal Module controlling the thermostats vacation mode.
Anti-Freeze in the Heating System - (How to Recharge) Problem Solved The hydronic heating system was installed years after the house was built. It replaced the original electric heat. Because the copper pipes on the second floor run through the unheated eves there is a concern of freezing and bursting during power failures or extremely cold weather. I turn the heat down when we are not home so the concern is high. I tested the original antifreeze and it only had freeze protection down to +20 degrees F. The most trustworthy way to test the antifreeze (propylene glycol) is with a refractometer. Typically, a 50/50 mix of propylene glycol and water is used. This gives freeze protection to -30 degrees F (burst protection to -80 degrees F). When you perform maintenance, such as changing leaking vents and valves, plain water is introduced to re-pressurize the system (unless you have a stock of glycol and a pump on hand). This dilutes the glycol concentration. I purchased a refractometer for testing the glycol mixture. This is a sensitive and accurate scientific instrument and is the only way to ensure you have freeze protection short of completely draining the system, measuring the number of gallons you drained, then refilling completely with 50/50 glycol solution or half filling with 100% glycol and the rest with water. There was evidence of corrosion as several valves were visibly corroded and oozing at the seals. There were several plumbing issues that needed to be addressed before recharging with fresh antifreeze. A zone valve, air vent valve, pressure relief valve and return-side ball valve were all leaking. Since the glycol needed to be completely replaced I needed to measure the total system capacity. The system was totally drained and the volume was measured at 20 gallons. The parts were replaced. There was no obvious service connection for introducing the propylene glycol into the system. Some people have used the boiler drain to connect a hose and pump in the antifreeze. I heard that if you do this and shut off the valve while it is under pressure from the outside it could cause problems with the valve. Because of this, I installed a tee on the boiler side of the fill regulator along with a ball valve and hose bib. The system was recharged with water and was allowed to run for a few months to purge out any air in the lines. For the new antifreeze I purchased 10 gallons of Cryo-Tek AG (Arctic Grade) propylene glycol. This is 100% concentrated propylene glycol. Since the system volume is 20 gallons I introduced 10 gallons of concentrate to dilute the total volume to 50% glycol. I shut off the return valve, manually opened one zone valve and pumped 5 gallons of concentrate into the new supply fitting while I drained off the equal amount of water from the return drain cock. I repeated this process closing the first zone valve and opening the second to pump the remaining 5 gallons of concentrate. Using this method I did not introduce any air into the system. I used an ordinary electric water pump with hose connections on both sides (about $40 at the hardware store). It took much longer to pump up to the second floor but it was worth the wait. After I pumped in the 10 gallons of glycol I added city water until the final pressure increased to 15 PSI. After a period of operation the solution totally mixed. I tested with the refractometer and was happy to see 47% glycol with a -27 degree F freeze point. Just for experience, I used a Cryo-Tek 35-271 test strip. It has two color pads at the end of the strip. When dipped into the solution one pad changes color to reflect the concentration. The other pad changes color to reflect the corrosion protection. My strip showed 50% glycol and the highest corrosion protection. Now I To preserve the labor and materials investment the glycol will be tested every year. Concentrate can be added if the freeze point increases. If corrosion protection decreases, I can add Cyro-Tek 35-276 Corrosion Inhibitor. The greatest problem with glycol in heating systems is the homeowner's "set it and forget it" mentality. Decrease of the glycol pH will eventually cause many corrosion problems unless it is controlled by testing and adjusting the level of inhibitor. Adding glycol to a heating system reduces heat transfer by 10% (for a 50% concentration), so it is more costly to run glycol not only from a maintenance perspective but also from a system efficiency (cost of fuel) perspective.
Here's the equation to determine how much 100% AG glycol to add to a running system: (% Glycol Desired - % Glycol Present) X System Capacity in gallons = Number of gallons of concentrate to add Warning! Use a competent professional heating contractor for all updates or repairs on a heating system.
[ Home ]
The Panasonic BL-C10 Internet Camera sends live video through the Internet to a web browser anywhere in the world! It is capable of 640 x 480 video, remote control by any web browser, Heat sensor, Email alerts and more. You can pan and tilt this camera and even click on the part of the image you want to see, bringing that part to the center of the screen. This camera was not designed for outdoor use. It seems to work OK but I suspect the CCD array would be subject to burnout in sunlight. [ Home ] The camera has a PIR heat sensor that can cause the camera to point to sources of motion and e-mail you a picture. Keep in mind that the heat sensor can not see through glass so I can not use this feature having the camera inside the shed behind the window. In February 2007 our firewall had a fatal error. A new firewall was purchased and is in the process of being built and configured. The new hostname is Abby, shown above. Finally, I would like to add redundancy in the security system alert. Currently the X10 security system feeds a zone on the Sensaphone which causes a telephone call to be placed to my voice mail, which pages me with a voice announcement. I would also like to receive an e-mail page over the internet so that I would always get paged unless both the phone line and the internet are out of service.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Updated on Saturday, 29 November 2008 15:06 |
have a sample referenc
e solution from the first day of the recharge along with the reflectometer reading and the test strip.
