Recent content by draythomp

Hah, this is a communication problem. I do supercool the house in the morning and let it coast through the afternoon however, my definition of cool and yours are different. In my case, I start to shiver and get the jacket out when the temperature drops into the low 70s. Heck, I get the...

Dan, that's actually a really good idea. I'll take a look at doing something along those lines over the coming months. I saw the Enphase advertising a while back and was intrigued, but life got in the way and I forgot about them. Thanks for pointing them out.

Demand metering, while it sucks, does offer opportunities to beat the system. I started looking at a battery bank and house size inverter to store power during the off peak periods and then use it during peak. The problem I had with this is that there are no incentives to defray the costs...

You're going to hate this answer.....extension cord with a wall wart at the end of it. I experimented a little bit with a solar-battery arrangement and was totally unhappy with it. The batteries died in a few days because of the heat, the solar cell turned opaque when the cheap plastic gave...

Once upon a time I had baseline billing, and you're right, it was very hard to keep the bill down. In situations like that you have to use completely different techniques. Here in AZ an awful lot of people don't have natural gas service (I don't) and have to rely on the electrical for...

I haven't gone from TTL serial to RS232. Instead, I've been using XBees to communicate. These little radios are pretty slick and have saved me a ton of wiring around the house. Like I show on my web page, I have gone TTL serial to RS485, but only for the one specific purpose. I started out...

Yes, I have several of the little devices. Two thermostats, a real time wireless power monitor, a cool power display that I put in the wall so I could watch it, the pool controller and a new box that incorporates input from all the others. If I had known what I know now (we all say that from...

I've been watching these forums for quite a while, but never had anything substantial to add. Well, I still may not have anything to add, you be the judge. I got into serious home automation a while back when I got an electric bill for over U$400. After I picked myself up off the floor I...