I'm moving to a new house and I'd like to make it "inteligent".
I'd like to comunicate several PICs around the house and spend
little money. I'd like to comunicate via main wires.
Does anyone have any ideas? Does anyone know an article in
Circuit Cellar magazine november 1995?
>There is a standard/protocol to do exactly what your looking for. It's
>called X-10. I'm sure you can find hoards of info on it on the Web.
>
>Brad Stevenson, CET
>The DPL Group - Telecom Techniques
>506-635-1055 or 1-800-561-8880
>http://www.dpl.ca
There was an article in "Electronics Now" sometime in either '92 or '93.
(I know that's a broad time frame, but you might find out the exact
issue on their web site".)
Anyway, the article described how to build a "Power Line Modem", which
was basically an X-10 modem which interfaced between a PC serial port
and you house wiring. That may not be exactly what your looking for, but
you should be able to gleen the tx and rx circuits and adapt them as
needed for your application. As I remember, the article also had source
code for a microcontroller.
Good Luck Octavio, I've been meaning to try something like this myself
for years now, I just never seem to find the time.........
Brad Stevenson, CET
The DPL Group - Telecom Techniques
506-635-1055 or 1-800-561-8880 http://www.dpl.ca
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Octavio Nogueira [SMTP:nogueiraspam_OUTMANDIC.COM.BR]
> Sent: Sunday, February 01, 1998 10:17 PM
> To: @spam@PICLISTKILLspamMITVMA.MIT.EDU
> Subject: Re: Home automation with PIC
>
> Thanks Brad,
> I know the X-10 is great, the only problem is you have to buy
> the modules. Do you know a way to generate and decode the X-10 pulses?
>
> Regards,
>
> Octavio
>
There is an opto-isolated device that looks a lot like a wall-outlet
power cube. It is called the TW523 and it has a RJ11 modular telephone jack
on the bottom. It contains a X-10 receiver and transmitter and gives one
a way to talk to the X-10 network without having to design any mains-rated
devices. The RJ11 provides a transmit line, a receive line, and a 60-HZ
square wave output for timing your transmissions. All the inputs are the
LED's of optoisolators while the outputs are the collectors of other opto-
isolators so your project must have pull-ups on input lines and current
limiting resistors on its outputs. The TW523 eats the first received frame
of data so it has trouble with some of the dimming and brightening commands,
but it works fine for the usual unit onn and off commands. There is a little
red LED on the TW523 that glows until a X-10 command is received at which
time it flickers. I don't know if there is a 50-HZ 230-volt version of the
TW523, but it seems like the best and safest way to interface your projects
to X-10. I haven't bought a TW523 in a couple of years, but they aren't
terribly expensive and they are fully isolated.
Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK 36.7N97.4W
OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Data Communications Group
Octavio Nogueira wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm moving to a new house and I'd like to make it "inteligent".
> I'd like to comunicate several PICs around the house and spend
> little money. I'd like to comunicate via main wires.
> Does anyone have any ideas? Does anyone know an article in
> Circuit Cellar magazine november 1995?
At http://www.marketto.demon.co.uk/electronics/has/index.htm you«ll find
info about a system using a 68000 processor to control some PIC-based
nodes through the powerlines, I have not read the part about the
PIC-nodes, but It will probably solve most of your problems, the 68000
part solved my 68000-problems anyway (best info I«ve ever read)
Why do you need PIC's? If you want the lights to turn on when you move into the
room, if you want the water to start when a light beam is crossed, if you want
the blinds to open when the sun rises, if you want the heat to be automatically
adjusted nighttime/daytime or if you want the garage door to open when the car
approaches, then there are already methods available to do that without the
need for a microcontroller.
> Why do you need PIC's? If you want the lights to turn on when you move into
> the room, if you want the water to start when a light beam is crossed, if
> you want the blinds to open when the sun rises, if you want the heat to be
> automatically adjusted nighttime/daytime or if you want the garage door to
> open when the car approaches, then there are already methods available to do
> that without the need for a microcontroller.
But I want the blinds to open when the sun rises except on Weekends.
I want the furnace to kick down at midnight, kick back up at 6AM,
kick back down at 9AM, and kick back up at 5PM, except on Fridays
when I go out so it doesn't need to kick back up until 10PM. And
of course Saturdays when I normally stay home it should be on all
day. Sundays it needs to kick on at 9AM so when I get up at 9:30
it will be warm, then it can kick off at 10:30 when I head normally
head out to breakfast with friends.
On weekdays I want my coffee just brewed when I get up, on Saturdays
I normally get up at 10ish so I want fresh coffee then. On Sundays
I don't drink coffee.
Most imporatantly, when I have a 3 day weekend or want to take a
day off I want to walk into my computer, connect up to the house
computer and say "Saturday schedule today". And forget about it.
I don't want to have to go to 12 different devices and say "do this,
do that." If I have to do this the house controls aren't worth
having.
>
>Most imporatantly, when I have a 3 day weekend or want to take a
>day off I want to walk into my computer, connect up to the house
>computer and say "Saturday schedule today". And forget about it.
>I don't want to have to go to 12 different devices and say "do this,
>do that." If I have to do this the house controls aren't worth
>having.
>
>Roger
>
______________________________________________________
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In a message dated 98-02-02 13:15:02 EST, you write:
<<
Good Answer!
Charles
BIG HUGE SNIP
>
>Most imporatantly, when I have a 3 day weekend or want to take a
>day off I want to walk into my computer, connect up to the house
>computer and say "Saturday schedule today". And forget about it.
>I don't want to have to go to 12 different devices and say "do this,
>do that." If I have to do this the house controls aren't worth
>having.
>
>Roger
> >>
Aw Cummon....Nothing a few thousand vacuum tubes could'nt do. When I was a
kid we only had relay ladder logic and we liked just fine..
Microcontrollers???? Pure luxury!
When my father was a child all they had was sticks and trained ferrets and
they liked it just fine...............
( Insert barefoot snow story here)
> In a message dated 98-02-02 13:15:02 EST, you write:
>
> <<
> Good Answer!
>
> Charles
>
> BIG HUGE SNIP
> >
> >Most imporatantly, when I have a 3 day weekend or want to take a
> >day off I want to walk into my computer, connect up to the house
> >computer and say "Saturday schedule today". And forget about it.
> >I don't want to have to go to 12 different devices and say "do this,
> >do that." If I have to do this the house controls aren't worth
> >having.
> >
> >Roger
> > >>
>
> Aw Cummon....Nothing a few thousand vacuum tubes could'nt do. When I was a
> kid we only had relay ladder logic and we liked just fine..
> Microcontrollers???? Pure luxury!
> When my father was a child all they had was sticks and trained ferrets and
> they liked it just fine...............
> ( Insert barefoot snow story here)
Well, when I was a child we had a voice activated home automation system.
My mother would say "go turn off that light" and the automation system,
me, would go turn it off. :)
It seems to me that the modules are cheaper than any alternative I'm likely
to dream up. But I think various X10 interface designs have been published
in Circuit Cellar INK, and in Ciarcia's column in Byte before that. There's
a PDF file of the tables of contents of each issue of CCI available on their
web page: http://www.circellar.com/backissues.html
mandic.com.br
