RE: Re: X10 Curtain Controller for Autoglide/Swish!

["Paul Gordon" <paul@xxxxxxx>]

Homeseer has power fail handling logic built-in... (Although I haven't
needed to use it), which may help - depending on how clever it is...

And a UPS too expensive?!? - they can be had for less than fifty
quids...

However, I thought about precisely this issue a year or two ago when I
got some "dumb" swish motors which behave as you describe, and I
came to
the conclusion that the only reliable way to get the right level of
intelligence is build a positive feedback loop into the system so that
Homeseer could detect whether the curtains were open or not...

I came up with the idea (although I never tried it) of using a
bog-standard magnetic door/window sensor, the idea being to put the
wired part either on the wall adjacent to the curtain track (depending
on how big the gap is), or maybe fixing it directly to the track itself
if the track design lends itself to that. I kinda anticipated that the
other part of the sensor (the half with the magnet in) might well be too
weak (magnetic field wise) to operate the sensor - these things only
seem to have an operating range of a few cm. I therefore planned to use
a different magnet attached to the curtain, and the best I found was
>from

- It's phenomenally powerful
- It's flat and small, and could therefore very easily be discreetly
sewn into the curtain header tape or lining

The idea was that the sensor would be positioned in the middle of the
track, where the two curtains meet when closed. The magnet would be sewn
into one of the curtains so that it was positioned immediately over the
sensor when the curtain is closed. With a little bit of adjustment, I
hoped to be able to get it to close the sensor when the curtain reached
the closed position which could then be wired to an input port on
Comfort/Homevision/whatever.

I've now got a smarter motor solution though, so I probably won't be
needing those Swish motors (so they may well be on offer here in a
couple of weeks!) so I may never get round to trying this method of
detection...

HTH

Paul G.


-----Original Message-----
From: m_surgenor [mailto:zen8432@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 07 November 2003 00:13
To: UKHA Group
Subject: [ukha_d] Re: X10 Curtain Controller for Autoglide/Swish!

--- In ukha_d@xxxxxxx, "paul_watkin" <paul_watkin@y...>
wrote:
> did anyone ever get anywhere implementing anything similar that
could
> be hard wired to say comfort which would allow disrete open close
etc?

I came home this evening to find all our X10 HomeSeer controlled
curtains open - when they should have been shut.  Turns out that
there had been a power cut during the day and when the power came
back on all the curtains shut. The HomeSeer PC re-booted (I've no
UPS) and then the close macros kicked in at the normal times in the
evening - except as they were already closed they actually opened!

Does anyone know of any way to determine at PC boot up if there's
been a power interruption rather than a normal controlled shutdown /
startup? That way I could stick some commands into HomeSeer to open
the curtains on this event.

As an alternative I did suggest a UPS to SWMBO but they're apparently
too expensive!  :-(

M



UKHA 2004: 15th and 16th May 2004

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
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