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DIY Smart home thread

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Got a response back from the vendor:
Hello,

The only drape blinds controllers that we have are from Add-A-Motor. They only have two different models, one for drapes only and another for pull-chain blinds only.
http://www.smarthomeusa.com/Shop/Home-Garden/Drapery-Controllers/

If you have two pull chains, one for rotate and another one for open/close you can use two Add-A-Motors at the same time and control both operations from one butler remote.
http://www.smarthomeusa.com/Shop/Home-Garden/Drapery-Controllers/Item/800DR/
http://www.smarthomeusa.com/Shop/Home-Garden/Drapery-Controllers/Item/1361/

We do not have one product that does both operations at once.

Please let me know if you have any questions.
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Looks like I was right and there is not a readily available controller for what I need. I'm glad I dont have those blinds in the new condo now!

If I do get blinds I will either have to DIY the controller/motors or have seperate motors for each portion.

On to the other issues now!

While Smarthome has just about everything for home automation, (I've bought many things from them for my home automation needs) the Vertical blind controls pretty much are a sad sight there. When I was in college I had a part time job with a family friend in Marblehead that was an interior designer, he sold the customer (generally rich people with more money than sense, you've seen the type, the ones that change their carpet every year because they are tired of the color and change their draperies like I change underwear) the blinds or drapery or whatever, and I installed them. As far as verticle blind controls, what you want is an all in one units, (full tilt and traverse) the one's at Smarthome have two controls as you saw, one is mainly for drapes (the one they are hawking as the vertical blind horizontal control) and they sell that goofball contraption to turn the blinds via a separate motor. (the only good news is usually they can be programmed into your home HTPC remote to move the two motors)

What your looking for is a Full Tilt and Traverse vertical blind motorized unit.

Now the problem with the all in one unit is a simple problem, they are fairly expensive, in fact I only installed 2 and a 'half'. One customer backed out of a installation after we ordered and received an all in one vertical blind motorized unit track, the bad news is I had cut it to size, and now it could not be returned to the manufacturer, so I got to keep it.

Take a look at their (HunterDouglas's) site, they have a video with all sorts of motorized controls for pleated shades, vertical blinds and much more. Not show in the video is the product I like, it's the micro pleated blinds that are sealed inside the window(Between the panes of glass)

Now back to the full tilt and traverse vertical blind unit, my advise is to set up a Ebay search to e-mail you when they are listed, or you might just find one the first time you look. The reason I say Ebay is because when people with more money than sense buy one thinking they can install it, then find out they measured incorrectly, they then refuse to hire an installer and they buy something else. (They can't figure out how to cut it and reinstall the end cap or have rod problems (Any member here could do this, as it's simply to do, and theres lots of guides on the net of you get stuck)

Just shop around, if your patient, you'll snag a vertical blind motorized tilt and traverse unit on the cheap.

PS, I'm not knocking Smarthome.com, in fact they rock, their customer support is very good, once I recieved a defective product, they sent a new one overnight air and let me keep the broken one :)
 
Thanks SSS, I knew that somebody HAD to make them..

One other problem I have thought of when I was going through and listing what I would like to do is, I cant use dimmers with the CFL I have.

I was looking at having a controller set to automatically turn the lights on to 50% if it detected movement.

Oh well back to the drawing board.
 
Thanks SSS, I knew that somebody HAD to make them..

One other problem I have thought of when I was going through and listing what I would like to do is, I cant use dimmers with the CFL I have.

I was looking at having a controller set to automatically turn the lights on to 50% if it detected movement.

Oh well back to the drawing board.

They make special CFL's that are dimmable, they also make the Three in one, it's a 3 stage CFL with three settings, hell they even make CFL bulbs with built in ionizer wicks, I just bought one last week, I'm not talking about the goofy Titanium dioxide coated CFL's, but a different technology. They Puralite with the wick cost $20.24 shipped Very few places sell them, most require you place a min $100 order or buy them by the case. Here's the link to the one for $20.24 shipped

PS, I bought this just to see if they work :beer:
 
Well, after going up there today and being in the condo working while it got dark I realized something.

I CANT SEE IN THE DARK!

and then I realized that my low voltage lighting idea, just might work.

I dont need the super bright ultra expensive LEDs. All I would need to do, is wire up some LEDs to provide a subdued but useful light on either a timer or a photocell + timer.

Just gotta figure out if I want it to slowly change colors, be only one or what.

I currently have about 700 leds sitting behind me in one of my work boxes.
 
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Cant have anything in the common areas of the building.

I will probably have it in place of the peephole though.

There are creative ways to deal with that, I had the same problem, so I put a very small camera in a tree with a Li ion battery pack (Its very small, one inch thick x 5" long x 3" wide, this is wired to a very small solar cell. I also used almost an entire can of liquid electrical tape to weather proof it all.

You could look at the tree all day long and not see it, and even if you did, unless you have a ladder or you're a squirrel, reaching it isn't easy. This camera monitors the side of my building, specifically my home office window, the same window they broke and tried to gain entry to my home (WITH ME INSIDE MY HOME OFFICE)
 
There are creative ways to deal with that, I had the same problem, so I put a very small camera in a tree with a Li ion battery pack (Its very small, one inch thick x 5" long x 3" wide, this is wired to a very small solar cell. I also used almost an entire can of liquid electrical tape to weather proof it all.

You could look at the tree all day long and not see it, and even if you did, unless you have a ladder or you're a squirrel, reaching it isn't easy. This camera monitors the side of my building, specifically my home office window, the same window they broke and tried to gain entry to my home (WITH ME INSIDE MY HOME OFFICE)

good idea, wont work for two reasons in my building:

Im about 70' or so off the ground (6th floor)
the hallway is an interior hallway.

great idea though.
 
ok now that I am in the new condo and mostly setup, I can start work on this.

Comcast showed up today and reconnected my cable and net connections (then I had to call them to redo it because the net connection was set up wrong and disabled itself at 12am this morning...

no blinds/drapes/curtains in the condo so I really dont NEED to worry about automating them (im behind a bunch of trees and facing a highway, you might get to see my naked butt if you looked at the right time and in the right spot when you drove past at 75mph)
 
Very interesting thread! I was thinking to myself "This doesn't have anything to do with overclocking" and after 30 seconds of reading I'm hooked. :beer:

If funds allow, I'm going to be doing a slight living room remodel and I'm going to be building a built in home theater wall. I would like to have some automation with lighting and various components. Great thread, keep updating as you go.

*Subscribed*
 
ok plans are updated/on hold due to money constraints.

Plan is still to migrate an existing machine over to one of the MCE (Linux probably but possibly 2003) editions if I can find plugins that will let it do HA.

Linux MCE is the likely candidate (its free), I just need to burn it and test install it on a rig.

I need to make sure that whichever I choose, will work with my Harmony if possible.

gotta also find out how/if it works with which HA companies and get that info as well. BUT I need the backend first.

Ok now to the bad part, Comcast is back to their stupid tricks and anytime I plug in my smoothwall, it blocks their probes and kills my connection(had this issue in the old condo after I Dled a couple Linux torrents). I am stuck on a WRT v6 (not happy). Gotta figure out something but a classies purchase may happen very soon so I can use the 2u as the HA server.
 
Linux MCE is the likely candidate (its free), I just need to burn it and test install it on a rig.

I think if you snoop around the Linux MCE forums and watch their demo video, maybe spend some time looking through their wiki, you'll be incredibly happy with what it has to offer. You can set it to have your media follow the remote around the house, it will auto adjust lights for movies, and it has a home security suite.

Here's the video I was talking about, Linux MCE sounds like a pretty ideal solution for you.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2176025602905109829&hl=en
 
http://www.scendix.com/tapirex/

It looks more and more like I will be leaning towards using Vista Ultimate for my MCE needs due to programs like the above link which I plan on testing and incorporating if at all possible.

System that will be used is going into a 4u rackmount case.

I havent pinned down the specs yet but it will probably be either my old 478 rig (2.8C, 2gb A data that I cant find DDR 400, 1x 400gb PATA, 1 250 GB PATA, CD/DVD drive, etc) or when I upgrade I will use my current rig (x2 3800, 2gb G skill DDR400, various HDD, CD/DVD drive etc). I want to look at getting a better soundcard as I dont think that the USB Soundblaster I have will be sufficient.
 
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