Drvnbysounds Projects / Introduction

[Sokoloff]

My front loader doesn't get out of balance either, but I know the wife isn't too happy with the smaller size compared with the top loaders.

You can CRAM the front loaders pretty full and they still clean the clothes and don't tear them up.

So, even though they're small on an interior volume basis, you can load them 90% full and they work OK still. If you did that to a top-loader, you'd get clothes that didn't get that clean and would get way more torn up by the screw.

 

[drvnbysound]

Update: I was able to get 2 coats of stain applied to the cabinet for my garage this weekend. I still have to work on getting the inside of the cabinet stained as well, but good progress so far, and I really like how its coming along. It was very foggy out yesterday morning when I decided to take the pictures so none of the ones I took from any distance (including the first one posted below) came out well. Nonetheless, here are a couple of pics:

I am hoping to get the rest of this stained this coming weekend, and likely start on the shelves, doors, and drawers the following weekend.

 

[drvnbysound]

I got some more work done on the cabinet over the last 2 days .. Daylight Savings Time FTW!

I still have to add a second coat of stain on the shelves - thats why they are lighter colored than the rest of the cabinet. I am hoping to get the 2 doors made this weekend and be finished with it all...

 

[felixrosbergen]

You must save a TON of money building cabinetry youself...

Then again all that money is probably invested in tools instead..

 

[drvnbysound]

You must save a TON of money building cabinetry youself...

Then again all that money is probably invested in tools instead..

The cabinet for the garage has cost me a total of about $200, between wood, stain, drawer hardware and other misc. stuff I needed for the finish work. I certainly couldnt have found one the size I wanted, and Im certain that it would have been much more than $200 to have someone build the same thing. I love doing DIY work of any sort, because I realize how much money I am able to save by doing any work myself, the thing that makes is nice for me currently is that I am able to find the time to actually do the work.

I generally take any profits from any of the "jobs" I do for other people and re-invest it into tools that I dont yet have. Over the past 6-8 yrs of doing that when I can, I have built a decent arsenal of tools. The nice thing about investing in the tools is that it enables you to make whatever you want.

 

[drvnbysound]

I have been all over the place with various projects and haven't really documented any of them well.

I just started working on a cheap project for work - a Wiimote Interactive Whiteboard. We have a conference room which has a 150" 4:3 projection screen, primarily used for presentations and demonstrations. With this large of a screen it doesnt leave a lot of wall space for a white board. I came across this project about a month ago, and have decided to pursue trying it out.

Here is the site I got the information/idea from:

http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/

Here is a picture I took last night after my first shot of making one of these pens:

 

[drvnbysound]

I found these same "pens" done for $17.99 here:

http://www.wiiteachers.com/

Project total parts: ~ $11.50

'N' Battery Holder $0.99 - http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...oductId=2062250
Momentary Switch(es) - $2.99 - http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...oductId=2062546
IR LED - $1.99 - http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...oductId=2062565
LED Holder - $1.49 - http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...oductId=2062558
'N' Batter(ies) - $4.99 - http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...oductId=2146411

 

[drvnbysound]

More non-home related work.. I have had the back seats out of my car for about 6+ months. The original intention was to cut some simple plexiglas speaker rings and mount LEDs to the side of the ring allowing it to be lit up. Well with both the lack of time, and the lack of a "simple" ring to actually work for my application I had to cut something pretty intricate...

Nonetheless, I finally got one of the speakers installed yesterday:

Here is a shot of it with the LED's turned on:

 

[opie]

That looks really cool!

Off topic, but I have the exact same counter top pattern in my kitchen.

 

[drvnbysound]

So I have been doing quite a bit of work over the past 3 weekends - primarily pulling multiple strands of Cat5 to each of my TV locations, as well as a few select locations in my home for me to connect for wired Internet access (and converting my wireless router to an Access Point in a central location in my home). With all of the wire pulling, including having to add power to the new Access Point location, I figured I would add a dimmer to power an outlet above my kitchen cabinets, and wire under-cabinet lighting to the outlet. I snapped a quick cellphone picture:

Over the next few weeks I am hoping to get all of the Cat wiring (including the home's phone lines) and all of the coax pulled into an SMC....

 

[drvnbysound]

I forgot I actually had a Showcase thread, so I thought I would also post some of my recent project work over here as well... especially since this stuff is actually related to Home Automation.

This past winter/spring I spent quite a bit of time in my attic, re-running some cables, and retro-fitting a lot of stuff that I wish I had originally done. Around the middle of May I actually cut a cut out some drywall and started running wires into our utility room to really begin the structured wiring:

Shortly after the above picture, I realized that I needed to move the power wire to the top panel to the other side of the stud, so it was not behind the lower panel (in case I, or anyone else, decided to drill into the panel). So I re-routed the power, and installed the lower panel.

... Started cleaning up the wiring and making connections....

At this point, I decided to orderanother half-panel bracket for (3) additional Cat5E boards (one of which is at the bottom of the last picture - I just had it there for reference location while I was routing the wiring), and a 12-port patch panel for F-type connections...

 

[drvnbysound]

I received the parts mentioned above, got a bit more done by the middle of June:

At this point, I still needed to terminate all of the Cat5E cables that are on the left of the image, into the 3 boards middle-right.

Just hoping I've got plenty of room left for the cable modem, router, and a switch - I think it's going to be fairly tight...

 

[drvnbysound]

I got all of the Cat5E terminations complete a few weeks ago. Shortly after I added the Linksys 8-port wired router; I scrapped the idea of putting a wireless router in the panel since it will be covered with a metal door. I converted my original Linksys wireless router into an access point, which is now centrally located in our home - rather than being installed in my office (the 3rd bedroom). I got the second Netgear Gigabit switch in yesterday, and got both of those installed tonight. Notice, that I realized while installing the router and switch, that there would be no room to add the cable modem. Fortunately, I have coax (and Cat5E) that runs between the panel and a gang box below the panel (not pictured); so the cable modem and a few other devices (e.g. HDHR Tuners) will reside in a cabinet/shelf to be built later. With regard to the wiring, the only thing remaining will be to add all the patch cables, as needed (and clean up a little bit of wiring on the bottom left):

In other news, I also got [the now discontinued] SageTV running a few weeks ago:

I currently just have Sage looking at a single HDHR tuner, but I've got another one of those to add, along with (2) Hauppauge HD-PVRs. For now, I've got almost 100 DVD's on one of the HDDs... more to be copied over later.

 

[drvnbysound]

One of the MAIN reasons I decided to go with Sage, even after it was bought out by Google (and the store was closed) is because of the size of the extenders. I now have (2) of them wall mounted; one in our MBR and the other in our 2nd BR. Below is a picture of the mounted HD-200 extender... it fits NICELY behind the TV:

Note the (3) Cat5E keystone jacks that are behind the TV. When running all the cabling mentioned in the above posts, I decided that I would run (3) Cat5E cables behind each TV in the home. I decided to go with 3 for the following: one for SageTV extender, one for SmartTV (none of the current TV's are 'Smart', but I wanted to future proof), and the 3rd that can be used for serial control of the TV's (if I choose to automate them).

I also choose to run (4) Cat5E cables behind my main entertainment stand in the living room: one for SageTV extender, one for PS3, one for serial control of my AVR (if I choose to automate it), and a spare.

 

[drvnbysound]

Up next... ELK installation

I currently have a number of GE-branded (Jasco) Z-Wave dimmers installed throughout the home. I bought these around a year ago when RadioShack was selling off all of their Z-Wave inventory. Unfortunately, I have found them to have an issue - the lights can sometimes turn off if a fan on the same circuit is turned on/off. This is especially true in the case of our MBA when the exhaust fan is turned on/off. I haven't seen any other Z-Wave dimmers that I like, but I need to maintain a Z-Wave network because I do have Z-Wave enabled deadbolts from Kwikset.I am not exactly sure what I want to do about this yet, but I need to find something that my wife will accept (she doesn't care for the Vizia RF+ models)... I would prefer that all dimmers and switches be from the same manufacturer so that they match, but I also need relay models that can work with fans as well as florescent lights (kitchen and utility room).

I have been thinking that I could swap out a number of our existing receptacles (probably most of them) for Z-Wave models, just to maintain a strong Z-Wave mesh for the deadbolts (I obviously want them to be as reliable as possible). If I did that, I could utilize UPB dimmers for all of our incandescent lights, and the UPB relay switches for fans and the (2) florescent lights we have. I'm just not 100% sure that I want to use UPB just for this reason...

I already have a Leviton VRUSB-1US to setup the Z-Wave network, along with the Leviton VRCOP-1LW (+3 version). I still need to get the M1XSLZW and a M1XEP.... man this stuff adds up!!

I really wish the ELK integration of the Z-Wave deadbolts allowed the user codes to be passed so that I could write specific rules based on the user who entered the home. Also, I just assume that the ELK integration leaves the Kwikset at only (2) user codes, but haven't really asked around much about that just yet. This could be disappointing, since the Kwikset manual states that "once the lock has been included into the (HAN) system, you can program up to 30 codes," and I had originally planned to have a unique code for various family members. Ironically, the manual states nothing about how to program more than 2 codes...