Re: non proprietary stuff

[Marc F Hult <MFHult@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 17:46:23 GMT, nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston) wrote
in message  <43665854.49931970@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>http://caraca.sourceforge.net/

This system addresses neither dimming nor the human interface.

There are all manner of homebrew projects like this that can switch lights
on and off. If that is all that is needed, one needn't look much further
than a 1-wire network There are many commercial sources and one excellent
npon-profit one: www.phanderson.com

Both the interface and the AC circuitry become significantly more
complicated if dimming is needed.

If an entirely _home brew_ dimming system is OK (as contrasted with
_standard_ 0-10vdc analog, DMX512 or DALI that I previously cited) ), there
are also other systems that are much better developed than the caraca  CAN
project. However much fun that might be, it addresses the parts of the
system that are/have been trivially solved and not the hard parts -- in my
opinion ;-)

Offerings from the Belgian company www.velleman.be stand out as one of the
more developed homebrew dimming systems.

See their K8006//K8037/k80038 etc  modules which are explained here:

http://www.velleman.be/Downloads/0/Velleman_dimmer_selection.pdf

Their offerings/system also includes a DMX512 dimmer (module K8039) and USB
DMX512 interface.

I've used their 0-10vdc analog input AC light dimmer in a commercial
application. Works well and much less expensive than a commercial 0-10vdc
input puck-style SSR dimmer.

Marc
Marc_F_Hult
www.ECOntrol.org