RE: RE: Stargate

["Dr. John Tankard" <jtankard@xxxxxxx>]

I will have a PC for HA but I dont want to use it as a link in the chain, I
want my system to connect direct to the controller, the extra link, could
be a weak link.

Your DIN rail approach looks good as it give flexibility in the future. My
system is this:-

every light fitting in the house (including side lights) is home run back
to one of three wiring closets, each closet has two boxes one containing
the dimmer hardware the other containing the low voltage side, each light
switch position is home run back to one of the three wiring closets in CAT
5, each closet is interconnected with CAT5.

Each dimmer controls 4 channels for each room, which can be either 240v or
12v, the dimmer TRIAC's are controlled by a PIC16C65 1 for 4 channels. At
the moment my prototype also reads a 4x4 keypad which allows for each room
channel to dim/brighten separately or select 1 of 4 lighting scenes. When
finished however I will separate the functions onto another PIC all of
these will be connected to a RS485 network which will allow them to talk to
each other. Giving a separate dimmer module and a keypad/input module the
two will talk to each other on there own link and keypad/input module will
live on the 485 network.

What I really want is a system which will be very reliable but also
flexible, I dont want to stick bits together and worry if it will still
work in 5 years time

My inspiration is from Dr Edward Cheung
http://members.tripod.com/~edward_cheung/
who built his own system some
time ago, although he uses his own system for a front end, where I want to
use either Stargate or HomeVision 2 (wish)

As for the price of Stargate USD950 !

John

-----Original Message-----
From:	Mark McCall [SMTP:Mark@xxxxxxx]
Sent:	03 September 1998 15:29
To:	ukha@xxxxxxx
Subject:	Re: [ukha]  RE:   Stargate

> Yes, I have considered HomeVision But the problem I have with it is no
> second serial port,

I take it you don't have a PC to dedicate to your HA project then
John?  I plan to buy one of the multi serial port cards for my
"old"
P233MMX and retire it to help the HomeVision run the house (then
I can build that P2 I want!).  Spare serial ports will allow modem,
callerID etc etc to hook up to HV.

> The reason I have gone for hard wire is that I have gutted my house
and
> completely renovated it so it was easy to hard wire, I also am not
happy
> with X10's reliability of transmission, hoping a ride on mains may
have
> compatibility problems later and last but not least lamp control tends
to
> be a bit basic with brighten and dim commands.

I'd love to hear more about your lighting system as I am trying to
decide between DIN rail X10 modules and some sort of hard wired
system instead!

> If HomeVision had the second port preferably RS485 then I would use it
> because it is going to cost less.

What price are you being quoted for a Stargate and does this
include the IR interface now or is that still an extra?

Thanks

Mark


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