BX24-AHT Printed Circuit Boards

Dave Houston has made available the remaining BX24-AHT printed circuit boards. They can be obtained on eBay for a nominal fee:

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His documentation is available at:

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This was a pretty capable unit, and some of you may still want to build one for yourselves.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Volp
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I took a pair of them Jeff - never can tell what I might use them for ;-)

I'm curious what you plan to use for automation in your new home.

John

Reply to
jmj1492

Hi John,

We had this house built for us in 03, and don't contemplate another new house for a loooong time.

I replaced every light switch that could possibly be automated with the older 16383 & 16293 "red LED" Leviton switches. These are now discontinued, but I chose them because they had true rocker action, AGC, and still used the code wheel switches. I installed the small Leviton in-line filters in every ceiling lighting circuit that could have compact fluorescent bulbs installed. The Ocelot runs the show. We have a bunch of palm pads and mini-controllers for manual control. I did use the BX24-AHT with a CM11A at the old house, but here I'm just using a single centrally located RR501 for the RF link.

We use thermistors to monitor outside and garage temperatures. X10 controls exhaust and intake fans to take advantage of cooler early morning temperatures. Sprinkler is a Rain8 controlled by X10. Hot water recirculation runs 75 seconds every 10 minutes during the day under X10 control. We have a bunch of Leviton 16400 indicating switches spread throughout the house to control things like all exterior lights, override sprinkler cycles, trigger scene macros, etc.

The main panel is outside, and that feeds the major loads - A/C compressors, stove, dryer. And it has the disconnect for the internal distribution panel. I installed one of those Leviton whole-house blockers at the inside distribution panel. I placed all circuits that could possibly use X10 control on the same phase, pretty much eliminating any need for an active signal coupler. When the house was under construction, I had the electrician route one circuit throughout the main floor to where we planned to locate electrical equipment. That includes the main PC, TVs, DVRs, and even clock radios. This circuit runs through a 20A X10 filter, and has the provision to be fed via a large UPS should power become unreliable.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, reliability is well over 99.9% with hundreds of commands sent daily. One module is a little cranky and ignores its off command every couple of months. It feeds a CF light, and that may be the cause. All Leviton X10 switches have been 100% reliable since installation.

I did not use X10 for HVAC. That's an 8-zone Carrier/Bryant Comfort Zone controller with digital thermostats in 8 locations. Security is also not X10. It's hard wired 16 zones with a intercom - pulled in almost 2000 feet of wire for everything.

That's the long answer to a short question.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Volp

If anyone would be interested in a completed unit, I have an extra one that has been just sitting around for awhile

$25 for the unit shipping included.

Reply to
Don

Don has a beta unit that he got for free although he never submitted any beta reports. Unlike any of the other BX24-AHT users he had ongoing problems and complaints. I'm not sure of the cause but it worked fine here both before I sent it to him and when he brought it back to me for testing.

If it >If anyone would be interested in a completed unit, I have an extra one that

Reply to
Dave Houston

John,

I have recompiled the code for the ZX-24 chip. It only uses ~16K of the 32K EEPROM (~10K less than the BX-24 version). I still have to rewrite sections of the code to take advantage of the ZX-24's full duplex software UARTs but anticipate there will be no problem in adding the features that I couldn't fit into the BX-24 version while still increasing the space alloted to user data.

The full duplex UARTs allow for multiple X-10 interfaces (so it can support the CM11A, Ocelot and others in the same version) and mean the unit can also "listen" for key presses, etc. full-time instead of having to poll peripheral devices.

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I'm going to take a hard look at the ezLCD-02 color touchscreen to see if it's practical to add support for it.

Reply to
Dave Houston

The BX24-AHT has been sold.

Reply to
Don

The BX24-AHT boards are going fast. They have been re-listed to correct a typo in the title:

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There are only a couple dozen left. Please, no more than two per person.

Dave's documentation is is available at:

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Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Volp

I got my assembled unit today along with some spare boards. It's quite a remarkable piece of work. If the feds had contracted a job like the BX24-AHT out, it would have cost them at least $250,000. The "transmogrifier" alone is worth the price of admission for me since I can now disable the pesky "All Units Off" key on my 8-in-1 remote that always seems to get hit in the wrong context. It's also the mute key IF you are still in the AV mode.

Compliments to Dave. The documentation is superb. A really neatly organized, well-presented document properly designed for PDF display. I'm not sure I'll ever understand all the nuances, but I do know lots of hard work and attention to the finest detail when I see it. I'll have lots of questions once I make sure the answers aren't staring me in the face in the manual.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

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