The Home Automation Forum

				The Akers House Automation Project By Dan-O Oh My!!!!!! This is my first attempt at creating a web page. I can create, build and fix just about anything you can think of, but you'd think I was brain dead when I started working on this page. So... Please, be patient with me. Dan-O This is another chapter in the total computer control of our house using various X-10 products. The automation server is an IBM Aptiva with a 350 AMD K-6 processor. The server is running 24 hours a day and uses HomeSeer for both regular X-10 control and HomeSeer Phone for integrated voice-mail and automation control as well. I've been using HomeSeer for over a year and a half and have found it to be flexible and powerful enough to do everything I want with my home automating needs. With all the knowledgeable users of HomeSeer discovering new ways to use the program, I have never turned away an idea I've had using HomeSeer and X-10 products to accomplish my final desired outcome. Read and look on at my latest project which has finally come to an end on 1-21-01 after many months of spending, planning and building. This is what I started with. A big mess! 500' of Cat 5 cable, a box of of overstock speakers from PartExpress, 1000' of phone cable and several packages of RJ-45 connectors. On to the good stuff ! This is my dedicated web browser that I do everything else on, which includes all my experimentation and discussion about anything to do with Home Automation. Here's a peek inside the box I made to contain all the gear I use to distribute the audio from HomeSeer. Inside you'll find the whole house audio amp, the power supply for the amp, a terminal strip to distribute the audio and an X-10 universal module to shut the audio off to the house when needed. I have everything inside the amp box controlled by an X-10 appliance module to shut the amp off at night to give it a little down time. It makes it a lot nicer to work on and cleaner to the eye to have it all organized like I have it. Plus, in the future if I do need to diagnose a problem, everything is right there at knee level to work on. A close up view of the amp--> An ELK-800 paging amp. I can't say enough about this little gem of a find! It was less than $30 from Hosfelt Electronics It's a 10 watt single channel amp that is capable of driving multiple speakers and it's 2 ohm stable to boot. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, you can use 22 gauge phone cable for the speakers so you don't even have to buy expensive $$$ speaker cable. I have 8 overstock speakers through the house that I bought from PartExpress for $2.50 each!!! They're Ford leftovers from what looks like a rear speaker application. The speakers have a perfect slant to them which fit right in to whichever room they're mounted in. The amp is connected directly to my sound card in the computer running HomeSeer Nothing really special to see here. Just the back view of my server running HomeSeer Here's a picture of some more of my goodies. A Logitech USB video capture device, a Motorola cable modem and my LinkSys 4 port router. A view of one of my wall speakers Same speaker---> different view. Here you have it, folks. The final picture...... A dedicated home automation server running HomeSeer, with audio throughout the whole house to hear the voice output wherever you are. I guess that's it for now. My wife loves the new audio setup now as she can shut all the house speakers off except the bathroom's and listen to MP3's of her choosing while soaking in the tub. It's a good thing she enjoys this home automation stuff, heck she's right there next to me helping pull cable through the house or lending a hand whenever I need it! On to the next project......Whatever that may be??? Dan-O

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