Quantech Appcon kit - UK

["Dave Saville" <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Some years back an outfit called Quantech, based up Durham, UK way, made a
control system called Appgen.  Ran over alarm cable in star configuration.
Controller was serial connected to a PC. Was featured in the PC mags at the
time.

I bought into this and my heating and extras system has worked flawlessly for
nine years.

Now the main control board has failed. Quantech are no longer in business and
trouble shooting a dead board without a schematic is difficult to say the least
:-)

So I am looking for solutions.

First, obviously, does anyone have one of these control boards they no longer
want? Quantech made two types and I need the one with onboard sound.

Second. It would be nice if I could use the outlying boards somehow. They have
temperature sensors and mains switching functions amongst others. I have rather
a lot :-( I was thinking of trying to couple them up to something that had
ethernet on board - The house has a lot of CAT5 about.

Third. Go ethernet with new kit. I know you can get ethernet temp sensors but
what about mains switching or keypad entry that is not silly money? Is there
anything I can plug into a linux box that can read an IR control and thus send
commands if I can't get a keypad?

What ever happens I want to retain the control software that I wrote myself. It
is extremely flexible and other bits of software on the PC hook into it. I
would just replace the bit that polls the controller. Would that rule out X10?
I get the impression that one downloads control info into a specific X10
controller and then turn the PC off. Of course that would mean junking the
entire kit I have and starting again.

TIA

--

Regards

Dave Saville

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