Bathroom automation questions... (LONG!)

["Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@xxxxxxx>]

Hi All, (and appologies in advance for the long post!)

I'm about to get started on extensive remodelling of the master bathroom at
the Gordon Intercontinental, and I'm still mulling over a few design
questions, so perhaps you might be able to offer some clarity?  (god knows
I
need it!)

1) Lighting first, - SWMBO definately *does* want dimabble lighting, so
that
gives us a couple of choices to make: - the lighting itself, and the
control
mechanism.. - The lighting choice consists of picking between LV or mains,
and we've pretty much already settled on mains Halogens (bought some last
weekend). The control mechanism is a little less clear-cut...

SWMBO wants dimmable, but also wants "normal" operation, - i.e.
quick on-off
by a single operation of a "normal" switch (be that a pushbutton
or a pull
cord) Her preference would be to use a bog-standard mains dimmer switch..
:-(

I want it HA-system controllable, and as little conflict with SWMBO as
possible ;-)

My ideal solution would be a momentary pull-cord switch to replace the
current latching pull-cord, and an LD11 above the ceiling in the loft.
Trouble is, I don't believe such a beastie exists? (I think this was
discussed before?) - does anyone know if it is possible to get a momentary
operation mains pull-cord switch that is OK to use in a bathroom, or if it
is feasable to modify a latching one to break the latch?

The second choice that finds favour with SWMBO is to mount the switch
OUTSIDE the bathroom door, and then use either a LW12 wallswitch, or
possibly an LD11 again and a clipsal switch..

Also, I considered using LV switching so that I then could put the Clipsal
inside the room, and wiring it back either to a zone on the Comfort panel,
or an input to my Ocelot controller... This finds less favour with SWMBO,
as
she intrinsically distrusts anything that gets too far away from
"normal"
operation (which decoupling the switch from directly controlling the light
does). I'm also concerned a little about any delay between operating the
switch and the light coming on, which SWMBO would not tolerate... (and god
help me if there was ever an X10 signal failure and the light didn't come
on
at all!!)

Finally, I even toyed with the idea of having 2 entirely independent
lighting circuits, one non-automated one, wired just as the existing light
is, and one automated one, with no switching other than X10, but I'm not
keen on this for several reasons.


2)In-room controller... I will be dropping in a CAT5 cable for a wired
phone
point, as SWMBO wants a phone in the bathroom. - It will be wired because I
don't want an expensive DECT handset being dropped in the bath!. Naturally,
as I'm dropping one cable, I'm going to drop several!! (daft not to!) -
I'll
probably drop 4 x CAT5 to the point where the phone is to be mounted on the
wall, which is also an ideal place for an in-room controller. Because of
the
conditions in a bathroom, I don't want to use anything fragile or
expensive,
which rules out Pronto/Epods/Fujitsu etc... I could use a HR10 X10 remote,
or indeed a cheapo IR remote, but again, I disklike the idea of anything
using RF (not reliable enough), or anything battery operated (batteries
always give out when you're in the bath). Plus handsets can also get
dropped
in the bath... So my preference was to design & construct a
purpose-made
wall-mounted room controller, just using some LV switches going back to
inputs on the Ocelot. I only need about about 6 or 8 switches, - source
select, Ch+/Ch-, Vol+/Vol- and possibly a couple of others I've not yet
decided on. Feedback can be via the in-ceiling speakers, (or by observation
of the actions!) so no need for LCD displays or anything... (LCD + Bathroom
= not good!). My questions re this are: Can anyone recommend some nice N/O
push to make momentary buttons that have transport icons on them? (or that
have removeable caps to put an insert under) - the main thing is that they
must look good.. Also, I'm considering dedicating a PC to handle the
bathroom automation functions, and also to provide the audio feeds (via a
WinTV-FM card) - the audio sources required in the bathroom are:
Terrestrial
TV, FM radio, and the MP3 jukebox. It could also handle the HA functions as
well, in which case I'd like to get a I/O board for the switches on the
bathroom controller to talk to, rather than using up inputs on the Ocelot.
One board I quite like the look of is the WTDIO-M from www.weedtech.com for
just $59 which offers 14 fully configurable input or output lines. Does
anybody know if there's a UK source of these Weeder modules?

3) Dual-fuel heater - the radiator in the bathroom will be a heated
towel-rail type radiator, which is both plumbed in to the CH, *and* has an
electric heating element for operation independently of the house heating.
The heater part has to be powered via a fused spur outlet. I want to put an
AD10 in the circuit as well, as follows:

supply----AD10----Fused outlet----heater

Question? - the fused spur outlet is a switched one, - so do the AD10's
have
the possibility of local control via sensing through the load, like
ordinary
appliance modules do? (I'm guessing not, seeing as they have a proper local
control via their switch terminals, but being a bathroom, I can't really
put
a mains switch in the room for local control, so ideally I'd like to have
local control through the switch on the spur). If not, then I guess I'll
have to include a switch on the in-room control panel discussed above for
switching the radiator via X10.

Phew! finished!

TIA for any insights....

Paul G.



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