Re: Basic alarm for dummies

["Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@xxxxxxx>]

>
>Thanks for the info, I saw previous messages about Girder but thought
it
>was only used for IR remote control.
>But it looks like it will do almost everything!
>
>

Absolutely! - I am using it with the serial input plugin to launch
WinTV/Winamp/Radio applications, and do volume & transport controls
over
each of those sources based on the input from the VIOM module with 8
momentary switches attached...


> > To put together a purely PC based system, you will need a way of
>interfacing
> > the PIR's 'to the PC, - a digital input board.
>
>With the serial plugin it is possible to connect switches to a COM
port.
>I managed (with some difficulty) to launch a program when a switch
>is activated. So it should work with a PIR also.

Indeed, - A PIR should provide a simple dry contact closure as well..
I struggled with the serial port options as well for a while, - until I
found the right combination of options...

>
>With a TW7223 and a TWSERIAL on another COM port, it should be
>possible to send X10 commands, lights on etc...
>

There is a girder plugin for the "X10 CM17 firecracker" (whatever
that is),
- if that's just a US version of the CM11/CM12 then you should be able to
use that to send X10 DIRECTLY from Girder. Another alternative is to run
another copy of Girder on your home automation PC (if you have one), and
use
the TCP/IP plugins to send girder commands across the LAN to the HA PC, and
initiate the X10 commands from there...

>Now I need to find a way to dial a number and play a WAV file on the
modem.
>Any suggestions?
>

Girder can probably do that as well, - connect a voice-modem to another
serial port, then use Girder, and the serial port plugin to issue the
"AT"
commands to the modem to dial the number "ATDT1234567", and play
the WAV
file over the line... (don't know the modem command for that I'm afraid!)

> > when (not if) the Win98 PC crashes...
>
>If it would be possible to setup Girder to output something every xx
>seconds
>on the comm port, then I could use this with some electronics as a
>watchdog.
>When Girder hangs it will reset and restart the PC....
>Still learning so don't know if this is possible
>

If you use the VIOM module, you could use the in-built timers and connect
one of the VIOMs outputs to the motherboard reset switch. Have Girder send
the command to the VIOM to reset the counter every few minutes, have the
VIOM configured to operate the output if the counter reaches zero. - Voila,
- if Girder stops sending the watchdog command to the VIOM module it
automatically restarts the PC!


The possibilities are endless!!

Paul G.



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