Recent content by ronaldbeal

I'm not sure what I could do with this, but it begs to be integrated into someones HA setup. USB Missle launcher Cheers, and have a good holiday season. RB

I use the GCE700 KVM extender. (it is branded is IOGear, Aten, Lindsay, and I've seen it under a few other names as well.) It includes the Local unit, Remote unit, and 2 wall wart power supplies. It does not extend audio, serial, and only extends mouse/keyboard functionality of USB. Hope...

A different perspective: I do concert and television lighting professionally. For temporary lighting setups we often run unshielded Cat5, 5e and 6 wiring along with all the other power runs. From dozens of feeds to hundreds of feeds, 10-20 amp circuits across 3 phases of power up to 100...

Not sure what specific touchscreens, but in general, a VGA or DVI splitter to get the video to the touchscreens, and then a USB hub to combine the inputs. Extron, and Geffen make vga and dvi splitters. Yoy can probably find them at Markertek.com or BHphotovideo.com Hope this helps, and good...

I forgot about the EZ8. My house currently has a DSC 1500/1550 alarm system that is not used. I suspect I can just swop the board and keypad for the EZ8 and kp1 for similar functionality. Which bits are needed to get the EZ8 to talk to Insteon? I'm assuming the M18ez main serial interface...

I'm looking for a low cost programable logic controller that can send and recieve Insteon commands. Ocelot would fit the bill, except it dosn't recieve Insteon. Elk, Stargate and the like are a bit pricey for my needs, and I currently want to stay away from a 24/7 PC based solution...

Since I am fairly new to HA, here is my decision calculus as to what I would purchase if I were getting a dedicated HA controller. My current house has about 20 Insteon devices I bought to add some appeal when I go to sell it in the next few months. (In a cookie cutter subdivision you need...

I have to agree with Dean on this one. according to: http://www.cowsoutside.com/yak_tasting.html Yak's milk is generally more pure and twice as rich as cows milk, whereas coconut milk is extremely high in saturated fats. (1 cup of coconut milk has 51g of saturated fat, over 250% of USDA...

>>"But wouldn't the coexistence of TCP/IP and non-TCP/IP protocols on the same wire effectively require that every computer on the network use a special card that encapsulates and passes through TCP/IP data so that all the PCs see it but the other devices don't?" Not at all. In fact most...

>>"I agree with the idea, but no one has the oomph to push such a standard onto everyone. It'll take way more than a couple of companies using it. Plenty of companies will not use it just because they didn't invent it." And there is the rub. I know it won't be something I see anytime soon...

>>"If I had to pick between everyone using the same protocol and keeping their current design, and everyone using a different protocol but have a design that actually works well with the automation system, then I'd pick the latter in a heartbeat." I still think there is a third option... A...

>>"Ronald, why don't we develop a DMX-based home control system? Unfortunately, as wide spread as DMX-512 is in the event lighting world, it is still an extremely limited protocol. The problem is DMX is based on a single output broadcasting model. The lighting console spits out 512...

I agree that lack of a common protocol is not a big problem, however I think it can be a good solution. >>" If more devices were well designed in terms of external control, that would do us more good than having all the existing badly designed interfaces using a single protocol." What would be...

I am new to Home automation, however I am a professional concert lighting technician. My career involves installing, maintaining, programming and operating the large automated lighting (and sometimes video) rigs you see at rock concerts, theaters,and live television "events". What I see...

Is it considered off topic if my solutions don't involve automation? With a family of farmers, and deer as a constant pest...I've found the following to be the 2 easiest (and fairly reliable) methods for keeping deer out: 1: Irish spring soap (just keep it off the ground) (for the garden, not...