Arduino Remote Home #1

As I start this series of posts, I will try to keep it to the point. However this post is more of an extension of my introduction, please be patient. What follows will help everything else make sense.

As mentioned in my “introduceyourself” I am an electrician. In the early 90’s I wired a custom home for a guy who wanted his house pre-wired for, as he put it, “ easy computer interface”. What that ended up meaning was that every receptacle and every light outlet had a separate wire ran back to a very large junction box next to the electrical panel. In the future he would add the necessary hardware and software to make it all work. That was my introduction to the idea of home automation.

In the late 90’s I switched from a construction electrician, to a facilities maintenance electrician. At work I saw computers running all kinds of things, fire alarm, security, heating and cooling systems. Blood analyzers, kitchen equiptment, and a massive incinerator. You name it and to one extent or another there was a computer or a programable controller running it. So I began to wonder how I could harness that power to do stage lighting for my church. The best I could do was to use stuff I already had. Model railroad control switches, 24 volt latching relays and porcelain light bulb holders. I had all the other odds and ends needed except colored light bulbs. My solution was 100 watt bulbs. Home Depot sold G.E. 4 packs for $0.99. I then painted them with automobile high temperature engine paint. Color choice was limited, but there was enough to make the band look good. FYI, 100 watt light bulbs get hotter than car engines. After a few of these events, the primitive controller became obsolete. For the “Steak and Motor Show”, I had to create two drag-racing christmas trees. (image snagged from google)
One for each side of the outdoor stage. Now, I’m pretty good, but there was no way I was going to be able to run stage lighting and manually turn switches on and off, in the proper sequence, with the appropriate timing, to simulate a christmas tree. With some googling I found Weeder Technologies. http://www.weedtech.com/digital-io.html. They offer addressable, stackable, RS-232 modules and free, easy to learn, Mod-Com software. I purchased two of the Digital I/O modules and wrote a couple of routines that gave me exactly what I needed.

With all of that being said, I can get to the point. As, necessity is the mother of invention, a call from my neighbor at 11pm stating “you know your garage door is open”, was the mother of my home automation project. That un-acceptable condition occurred after I remodel the kitchen. I used to be able see the garage door through the kitchen window,but the new lay-out required shifting the window, putting the door just out of view.The problem is clear, the solution, not so much. First I needed to be able to “see” the position of the door. Next I had to be able to act on that information. Not just from home. What if I was out when the neighbor called? With more googling I discovered micro controllers. Specifically one that had a large community of users, lots of add on hardware, and like Weeder, a simple programming environment. Arduino was the answer to all my problems. Or so I thought. Barring the idea of remote door operation, I could have, and seriously considered, mounting a mirror. Several weather issues deterred me from that simple fix. So I jump in with both feet, and ended up with this as my Phase I central control hub. Clearly I’m nuts. You need to know, that did not happen over night. Next post I’ll start to go over what everything does and why I invested time and money into them.