RE: Automating the loo lights and other cool stuff- was: Re: "Breaking" the latch on a pull switch

["Kenneth Watt" <kennethwatt@xxxxxxx>]

Mark,

I have not used an MS13 for several reasons, one is reliability and the
general consensus is that RF is not as reliable as hard wired. Another is
that it's just a pain in the ass resetting them when the battery does
eventually fail in them, if you know what I mean. So basically I hard wired
the contact switch, bog-standard magnetic door/window contact from B&Q
or
somewhere, and a standard PIR. IMO, hard wired is the way to go here as you
do need reliability 100% wherever possible, but I was using this for
convenience as well as to save energy so there was little point in doing it
if was not totally reliable. I can report that I used this system for over
a
year in my last house and had no failures, once I got my programming right
of course ;-)

What I did was this:

At one corner of the bathroom I mounted a PIR and on the door I mounted the
door/window magnetic contact switch. I wired both back to an input port on
HV so HV could control and track the status of the bathroom and or the
lights and extraction fan. I think you can do much the same in other
systems, but I have no experience with them.

Next I wired the lights up to an AD10, simply as they were LV lighting from
three electronic transformers, so no dimming available there, that thought
did not cross my mind until much later, typical. Anyway, next I hooked the
extraction fan up to an AD10 as well, seems extravagant but it's not. The
trick was that the bathroom was right next to the bedroom and if one of us
got up during the night the light from the fan could wake up the person
sleeping, so I set it up so that during the night the extraction system was
disabled, and let's face it, it's not often I wake up at 2AM wanting a
shower!! So I had independent control of lighting and the fan, of course I
disabled the humidity sensor on the fan and the timer as I just programmed
HV to handle this automatically and shut the fan off when the door was
opened after a set time.

The effect of all this was that if you walked into the loo during the day
then the lights would come on, then a few seconds later the fan kicked in,
if the door was closed then the lights and fan continued to run and if not
then they shut off, saving me (or anyone else) inadvertently leaving the
lights and fan running, a particular problem with kids so I believe! F you
went in after 10PM then the lights would engage but not the fan, unless you
override that with an IR signal from Pronto, again, what's the point of
burning juice that you don't have to?

What I want is this:

A BIK sensor in the new bathroom and en-suite to accomplish the same thing
only with a greater sense. The BIK can tell if there is a body in the room,
therefore everything would only engage if there was a presence in the room
thereby saving me (STILL) walking out of the loo and leaving the lights on
whilst still retaining the functionality of and, hopefully expanding on,
the
original design.

One serious word of caution to anyone thinking of doing this though; I
still
walk out most bathrooms expecting the lights to go off of their own accord,
you do get used to it rather quickly ;-)

Now if I could find a humidity and a (possibly) IR sensor that can pick up
steam and/or heat, I intend automating a cooker hood internally so that it
can operate the lights and fan from an appliance DIN module. CDA
manufacture
such a beast but it is expensive (£400+) and it ain't the most reliable as
well as not X10 compatible, so I fancy a go myself and since I work with
appliances this should not be a problem for me to rig a system to do this
successfully. Internally modifying a washer or a dishwasher is no problem
for by actually finding somewhere to mount the module - so long as it is
not
an electronic machine, this is extremely important, as some need a constant
feed! If anyone needs any info just get me the make and model and so long
as
I can get a schematic it's no problem to figure it out if you want to use
white meter or suchlike.

Hope that's enough info for one night!

K.

-----Original Message-----
From: 	Mark Hetherington [mailto:mark.egroups@xxxxxxx]
Sent:	08 June 2001 22:22
To:	ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject:	[ukha_d] PIR  and door contacts - was: Re: "Breaking"
the latch on
a pull switch

--- In ukha_d@y..., "Kenneth Watt" <kennethwatt@y...>
wrote:
> I used a PIR in the bathroom to bring on the lights, then this
started a
> timer that lasted about a minute.

Which PIR did you use? I was just about to order a couple MS13E but
noticed this:

"For use in-doors, or in sheltered outdoor positions where it will
not come into contact with rainfull/moisture "

Does this mean the MS13E is unsuitable for a bathroom which is
obviously going to generate a degree of moisture?

Also, what door contacts did you use? It would be nice if there was
some form of X10 RF door contact but I have come across any so far.

I really would like to get the bathroom light motion automated
especially for the night time dim since that has long been my
intention. I hadn't considered the door contact system before but as
you said it does have it's problems. The second sensor is to light
the path along the landing in a similar fashion in conjunction with
door contacts to cover "blind" areas without having lots of
motion
sensors.

Mark.




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