Suggestions wanted for Motion Detector delay/time-out

"E. Lee Dickinson" wrote in

I find the same problem. Got a lot of stuff in boxes waiting for either the time, the education or the last missing piece to put it all together. I realized this weekend that I really need audio to go with all the CCTV cams I have installed. I wished I had known that *before* I pulled the cable.

Yep. Same here. Between Bruce R.'s setup and what I've seen on the ADI site I have a much better feeling for installing the new gear.

Sounds interesting. What sort of lift technology are you using? Working from a kit? DIY? I need to build something similar for my folks so that they can raise and lower the pet dishes without stooping. I've been thinking of ball bearing drawer slides and linear actuators since it's not a very heavy load. But it's way on the back burner for now.

-- Bobby G.

"John W"

Yes, you don't need an Ocelot to play with CMAX.

"John W" supply, camera's have their own WalWarts, and the Waterbug is on a 12vac

Why on earth would they make the Speakeasy a 12VAC product when everything else is 12VDC? That sort of screws up my plans to run the entire operation from a single large U1 gel cell. That's mighty weird. Glad you clued me in up front.

Agreed. There's nothing the reaches the X-10 price point and breadth of offerings, at least yet. I had high hopes for ZigBee but it seems to be pretty well stalled at the moment.

I finally got to see your whole installation. Very nice. Very interesting solenoid valve. I bought a nice one from Smarthome that I am about to hack. It runs from low DC current (back up batteries are AA's) so it will be able to stay on line deep into a power failure.

Did you modify your EagleEyes to run from a wallwart?

-- Bobby G.

I assume this has something to do with audio and the requirements of the chip they use? I looked at running everything from a battery with a homebuilt charger but it turned out to be just as cheap to buy a good-sized UPS which gives more flexibility and also allows my PC to shut down gracefully.

Since I'm on a well, my flood exposure during a power outage is limited to the water in the pressure tank so I haven't worried about backup power there.

No, batteries seem to last about 18 months and I still have hopes of replacing them with outdoor rated PIR's so I never bothered. I seem to recall discussions about false triggering due to "noisy" DC in any case?

John W

"John W" > in

Mebbe. My many MP3 players don't seem to need AC to record or play back. I'll save the question for when I join the ADI forum. It just seems so incongruous to have an entire fleet of add-ons powers from 12VDC with only one requiring AC current.

UPS's always have a power loss so you never get the same AH's transforming

12VDC up to 110VAC and then back down to 12VDC again as just using straight 12VDC. My PC isn't any part of my HA system so there's no need for me to tie it in. I wonder if there's a cheap DC to AC converter that won't drain the battery too quickly. I'll have to check the specs for what these units consume in the standby mode before I make a decision. It's always something!

An interesting benefit of well water! Here, a busted valve can make your basement a swimming pool.

Yes. I recall that discussion as well as this 12VAC SpeakEasy one! Ah, senility! At 18 months, the battery life is pretty much a modern miracle, anyway. It's easy to fold in their maintenance with gutter cleanings.

-- Bobby G.

All of the ADI devices will work with 12V AC or DC.

Great. Thanks for pulling my head out of searches for turning old car amplifiers into 12VDC to 12VAC converters. It really did seem way too weird for a company that got so much other stuff "right."

-- Bobby G.

Hi Dave!

I believe you are correct that you can run all ADI equipment on AC or DC. The SpeakEasy however comes with a 12vac supply.

Here's Guy Lavoie's explanation of why from:

"Normally an AC supply is recommended for the speakeasy to avoid the noticable ripple of cheap DC supplies which only have a half wave rectifier, but your unit mentions "IC Regulator", which means it looks like a better made unit that puts out constant, filtered DC. In that case, you would be better off sticking to that one."

Based on this explanation, it sounds like it would work on 12vdc from a battery supply or a good 12vdc supply?

John W

I don't know about the SpeakEasy but the CPU-XA, Ocelot, SECU, etc. all have full wave bridge rectifiers and their own filters.

"John W" >>in