Recent content by beerguy

I had the electrician put an outlet up in the attic right above the touchscreen. I took the power cord and transformer that came with the touchscreen, cut the low voltage wire and spliced in a piece long enough to drop down the wall plug into the screen. The plug and transformer are in a...

Chris, I've had UPB installed for almost 3 years (about 40 switches) and at least once or twice a year, and always when I'm out of town and my wife is home with the kids, something happens and I lose total communication between over half of my devices. My PIM can't see them, other switches can't...

I wrestled with the same problem for a long time as well. I finally settled on velcro and it has worked great. Been up for about a year and there is no way you can tell it is velcro. It passed the wife test so it must be ok.

Hi Todd - I've got several UPB slave switches that I don't have any use for. They are still new in the package. I've been meaning to post on Ebay but haven't got around to it. Make an offer for one or more and pay shipping and its yours. Pat

Hi Mike - I tried for hours to find out how to do this and gave up. Coincedentally my ELK keyapds are right next to my T-stats so I resorted to have the outside temp display on the keypads instead. I know that an HAI system displays outdoor temp on the stat just by defining a sensor as outdoor...

I've got UPB set up for my lighting so I got some of the UPB appliance modules and plugged a plug strip into them. That way I can have the plug strip powered off when the alarm system goes to Exit-Away. I've set up several of these around the house and it seems to be working great.

Steve, unless you have a multi-stage gas valve, which would be doing it automatically, I personally wouldn't mess with the gas valve. The blinking red light is the clue to the problem. You need to get more air flow across your heat exchanger. It is surprising that closing off registers would...

Dan, it's been awhile since I did this for a living (like 20 years) but if I remember correctly you can use an ammeter to measure the current the fan is drawing to get an indication if it is overworking due to registers/dampers being closed (too much static pressure in the system). If you have...

Dan and Steve Q - I spent a number of years in the heating/AC business which leads me to not want to try and answer this by answering a forum post, but maybe some background will help. That being said, and with all appropriate caveats of not knowing the make of unit, the model, etc, etc. there...

Is it electric or hot water radiant heat. I have hot water (actually glycol I think) radiant heat and the thermostats control solenoid valves based on demand for heat. These solenoid valves are 24 volt so they were always controlled by a standard thermostat. I replaced the existing thermostats...

That "violate zone" command is what I was hoping to find. Clearly it doesn't exist yet. I guess I'll resort to using Output 3 and run it into a zone input. Thanks again for everyone's help. Pat

Hi 123 - Thanks for the reply. I had thought about the hard-wired method but was hoping for a programming solution rather than hard-wired. Thanks for the idea though. Here's what I'm trying to do and perhaps someone has a better idea: I've got about 10 motion sensor around the house that are...

Does anyone know of a way to have a Task turn on and then have the ELK go through its normal Entry Delay Active mode? I'm looking to have a Task turn on controlled by Homeseer and then have the ELK go through its normal steps as if someone entered the house with the Alarm set i.e. if it gets a...

Hi Robolo - I'm sure my cable probably had the same mesh of wire around it also. That is the shielding. I'm certainly not an expert at shielding low voltage wiring and the pros/cons of it, but I'm sure I cut it off flush with the wiring jacket and didn't terminate it. I suspect that the...

Hi Robolo - I've pretty much got the same setup as you are working on. I ran serial instead of usb but other than that it is the same. I cut the low voltage side of the wall wort cable and basically inserted a 16/4 cable in the middle of the wall wort and the end. I'm not at home now so I can't...