When in doubt, install TUBING. All wiring becomes obsolete, eventually. Conduit is much less likely to become obsolete. In your case you might want to install REALLY BIG CONDUITS, everywhere. Maybe you should make the walls thicker, to accommodate such bigness. Enjoy your hotel. Impress your neighbors, and your friends. Your wife probably won't care. Sounds to me like you are getting carried away. Yeah, I did something like that 15 years ago. My attic is full of wiring, and the labelling is fading and falling off. Now I listen to music at my computer, with the best speaker system I could find. I hope you appreciate my comments.
I think you will have trouble meeting all of your specs. There are lots of industrial/military PCs for harsh environments but few with specs for temperatures below 0°C (32°F) or -20°C (-4°F) and none are cheap.
Examples:
formatting link
(discontinued)
formatting link
formatting link
You might be better off with a PC-104 style embedded PC like...
formatting link
formatting link
What do amateur astronomy web sites and news groups suggest?
You could do the entire thing with a pair of Russound's CAV6.6 systems. These allow up to six independent zones with up to four "slave" zones (same source, independent volume) per CAV6.6 controller. Two units can be daisy chained, giving you 20 rooms of audio.
Zones such as the outdoor areas which require additional power can be fed through a multi-channel amplifier such as Russound's DPA4.8 (4 zones) or DPA6.12 (6 zones) units.
Each CAV6.6 series distributes audio and video over conventional cabling to the six primary rooms. Control and IR signals are sent to the CAV from keypads in the rooms over CAT5 cable. Audio is distributed to sub-zone rooms over CAT5 using A-BUS technology. There have been several threads discussing A-BUS here in the past which may also be of interest to you.
In fairness I should point out that I sell Russound online so I'm not entirely unbiased, but it's excellent stuff. I've installed tons of Russound hardware over the years. Other competing manufacturers, such as Niles Audio (which I don't carry) are also worth considering. They make some pretty slick multi-room systems too.
As to the HA system, you might want to consider the ELK-M1 Gold controller. ELK's M1Gold does pretty much the same things HAI does, except ELK can also read analog inputs. The controller can compare indoor and outdoor temps, humidity, ground water, etc. to make qualitative decisions about whether to run the AC, furnace or just fans. It can not only decide when to water the lawn but how much water to use.
On my new home we'll control the solar collector for the pool based on temperature differentials rather than a simple threshold test. I have additional information on these systems and quite a few more on my website if it's of interest to you.
First, do you really need 16 independant zones?? A zone is typically defined as an area or single room that has the ability to play one source while a different zone is playing another, or the ability to play by itself while the other zone is mute. If you have a Master Bathroom adjacent to the Master Bedroom, do you really need the ability to separately control them, or can you combine those two into one 'area' zone? If you can combine a few, then you could cut your costs significantly if you were able to get to
12 zones instead of 16. Another area is your 4 outdoor zones...Are you really anticipating playing four different sources to the outdoor zones, or playing one zone and not the other three? If not, then you can combine a few of these too.
If you do end up combining some, you'll have to be wary of impdence matching. Each time you add another speaker in parallel to a single output you are reducing the impedance. Most amps are good for 4 ohms (two sets of
8 ohm speakers in parallel), but if you go below that, you'll need to add an impedance matching block/switch to bring the impedance back up. Nothing major, just keep it in mind.
I would consider the Russound CA6.6 (two of them ganged together for 12 zones).
formatting link
In addition to the speaker 'out's the Russound has line level outputs that you can run through an amplifier for those outdoor zones. The normal 20W is more than sufficient for indoor music. Everyone gets hung up on wattage, but 20W will play annoyingly loud indoors if so desire.
Look at the manual above. It gives very good pictorials that will answer your questions. Basically, the Cat-5 will connect your keypads to the Russound. Your sources will connect to the audio inputs of the Russound. If you have more than one Russound, you use the pass through of one Russound and connect the audio out to the audio in of the second Russound. Your speakers will connect to the Russound also. From the Russound, you will run IR emitters to your source equipment so that the keypads and remotes can operate the equipment for changing channels, stop, play, etc.
Russound CA6.6
OmniPro II is a popular controller, especially since it can handle security needs in addition to automation.
Not really. There are a few publications, but about the time they hit the newstands, they are out of date. I suggest hanging out here and
Probably good news and bad news. The good news is that you have done the easy part. The bad news is that if you expect each zone to be totally independent from the other zones, then you may need totally independent audio systems for each zone. These could probably be controlled by a central computer control system if needed. An example of the issue would be zone 3 wants to listen to track 12 of CD XXX, and zone 8 wants to listen to track 2 of CD YYY, all at the same time. Even a multiplexing system doesn't usually address the independent audio sources you may need.
PLIX Chip and TW523 Parallel PLIX is an 18-pin CMOS chip which provides an intelligent communication interface between a computer and X-10 AC power-line control modules. PLIX removes the burden of complex X-10 programming protocol from the designer by providing a simple parallel interface. It takes care of the complex zero-crossing timing for sending and receiving X-10 commands so you don't have to. An otherwise simple embedded controller can now also feature X-10 power-line control by simply adding a PLIX chip to the design. PLIX are available in both a Parallel and Serial version.
SERIAL PLIX is designed to interface with the Serial port of any embedded controller or computer. Using simple ASCII commands, the user now has a simple way to communicate with the X-10 powerline adapter module (TW523) to control electronic devices over the existing powerlines. With a little imagination and software support from the user, Serial PLIX also has the capability to transmit and receive data segments via the powerlines. The user can select the baud rate and other parameters to obtain the desired communications protocol.
We've been using RG59 for CCTV cameras in the alarm industry for decades. That said, some of the new CAT5 cameras are worth considering too.
That depends on what you mean by audio. If you're planning to distribute music at line level you can use ordinary shielded cable. Several firms like Russound make CAT5 audio distribution and control systems based on an Australian invention called A-BUS technology. Other popular systems use CAT5 for command and control and conventional speaker and video cables to distribute media.
I sell a number of these systems online (URL below) in case you're interested.
Let's retake the subject, because it resulted in a discussion about pahses and so on...:-)
The micromint PLIX chip seemed perfect for the task until I found out I also needed another module (TW523) whose size is huge (apart from the cost).
Once again, I don't want to shut the doors just to X-10. I need an easy to implement and unexpensive protocol to communicate over the PLC. Even I can lay a data cable for this matter, because I have a spare electrical tube between each pair of boxes I asked just for this purpose. When I heard about X-10 I thought I wouldn't need to use the spare tube, but now when I see the complexity, I do not discard using it.
Someone mentioned Lonworks. Does it make my problem easy to solve?
Another commands protocol for remote switching over the PLC, or over a dedicated data line which can be implemented mostly on one chip and unexpensively?
Well, if you've got a wire... PIC16F87Xa. Builtin serial port, whether you need level translator depends on length and noise. Onechip, lots of i/o. Probably can find a cheaper more current part with enough capability. mike
I have 18 zones in my place and am using the Channel Plus MDS6 system. Each unit has six sources and six zones and you can gang three of them together for a six source, eighteen zone system. The only downside to the system is that it only takes input from keypads; it has no control input, such as an RS-232, for automated control. However, I'm working on a unit that tricks the MDS6 into thinking it's getting input from one or more of the 18 keypads when, in reality, it is being controlled through the OmniPro through my interface. I've had a preliminary version of this working for nearly a year now while I work on the final version, so external control is possible.
Also, I agree about PLC. I use the hardwire ALC lighting control with the HAI unit and have been very happy with it. Response is fast and reliable.
I don't know about an "all-in-one" chip. It would have to handle 120V or 220V power input to synchronize with the zero crossing. The PL513, TW523, LM465 and CM17A units that X-10 sells are fairly cheap. But you'll need a TW723 (or is it TW7223?) for 220V, 50Hz systems, if that's what Spain uses.
formatting link
There's an article in the current Circuit Cellar about using a CM17A with an RS232 UART.
These are ruggedized, and they have compactflash storage options if you worry about the operating temperature of the hard drives (although I suspect that the fanless enclosures will actually withstand some pretty low temps).
"Balun" means "balanced to unbalanced" and the original definition implies that some kind of impedance control is going on. You can find baluns to go from 300 ohm twin lead (balanced) to 75 ohm coaxial cable (unbalanced). The four-to-one impedance ratio is common (because it's easy) but is by no means necessary.
Since there is no "characteristic impedance" associated with transmission lines used for frequencies in the audio range, any transformers that have the appropriate frequency response and voltage ratio will work just fine. Put one at each end of the line.
I know there are some at really high prices but I've had good luck with some $15 ones from
formatting link
(click on Security and then Video Baluns which takes you to
formatting link
price I don't think there's much savings in rolling your own.Their catalog is filled with great stuff at very good prices and they'renice people to deal with.From: snipped-for-privacy@fuckspam.nizon.ca> Since AV to cat5 baluns are so stupidly expensive, I've considered> building my own. I've seen a few ICs from analog devices that may be> of some use, but right now I'm just wondering if anyone here has> tried building their own baluns?>> - Paul
I'm not sure what this has to do with Home Automation but Kazaa is notorious for loading spyware/adware which really bogs down a system. Got to
formatting link
and download the free Ad-Aware.SE program. Run it and you'll see all the crap that's infesting your system and it will fix it all for you. I run this program weekly.
I don't think baluns use ICs since they don't require power. Baluns are traditionally just transformers. I think they are a few windings around the right ferrite core.
You are maybe thinking of using op amps with differential outputs? That would work too and if you were building a circuit anyway thats probably the way to go. I'm still designing my HA circuit boards but I'm pretty sure they'll have mic inputs driving one of the wire pairs in a cat5 cable differentially, unless I make them smart enough to do the audio A/D and send digital audio...
Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.