The CurrentCost power monitor has become very popular amongst amateur home automators and those technically-savvy who want to keep an eye on how much electricity they are using (and ultimately how much they are going to have to pay in bills). A couple of months ago I purchased the CurrentCost device and a USB cable [...]
As promised, here’s the source code for my VAMS-0808 interface. It’s in C#, with C# projects included, and can be opened in Visual C# Express or full Visual Studio 2005 or greater. There are two test projects included – one which just writes status changes out to the console, and a WinForms project (which runs [...]
Over a year after it began, the whole-house-audio project is complete. 4 rooms around the house can now be filled with the sound of any of (currently) 4 audio devices thanks to a mixture of hardware and software.
One thing that has been lacking since the first build of the rack is ventilation. With both sets of doors closed, the inside can get quite warm, especially when iron is turned on. Not any more though, having just completed the installation of 2 active ventilation zones, lighting and a low voltage power supply system [...]
The audio system that I’m building requires 2 low-power computers: 1 for the touchscreen controller (not using an iPod Touch for the moment) and 1 to act as a webserver and serial-console server. Once again eBay has come to the rescue, and by searching for ‘geode’ – a low-power processor for Thin Clients & Small [...]
Here in the UK there are a few ways to receive digital TV. Some of them are free (after an initial outlay for equipment) others are based on a subscription model. Here are some of the most common ones: Digital terrestrial, received through a suitable TV antenna (DVB-T) Cable, in most cases through Virgin Media [...]
Yesterday I completed and successfully tested the control software for the audio system. The software works with the matrix switcher and the APC MasterSwitch remote control PDU to allow the audio output devices around the house (TV, radio, CD player etc.) to route their sound to any of the 4 audio zones. I’m now waiting [...]
The speakers for zone 2, the dining room, have been installed without much of an issue. They sound pretty good after a test of zones 1, 2 & 3 using the DAB radio in the kitchen. The left-hand speaker helps to hide the cable route from the pantry to the dining room & kitchen.
There are 4 audio zones in the house, each requiring it’s own amplifier and pair of speakers. I’ve just purchased the last of the amplifiers, which completes the selection of hardware that’s necessary within the cabinet. I took the opportunity to rearrange the order of things in the rack a little to tidy things up.
A recent electricity bill has prompted me to investigate how much power is being used by each device in and around the cabinet in the hope of figuring out what can be replaced to reduce running costs. I’ve had a power monitor from Maplin for a while, but most of the time it’s been monitoring [...]