The Home Automation Forum

The Great Garage Project
By The Home Automation Forum Users

With this setup, here's what you can do:

Action	X10 codes sent	Voice output example
Garage is opened by any means	A2-OFF	Garage is opening
Garage finishes its travel to open position:	A1-ON	Garage is open
Garage is closed by any means	A1-OFF	Garage is closing
Garage finishes travel to closed position	A2-ON	Garage is closed
You send A5-OFF (single garage)	A1 ON A2 OFF	Garage is open
You send A5-OFF (two garages)	A1 A3 ON A2 A4 OFF	Garage 1 is open, garage 2 is open

DISCLAIMER:This is just an example of what some users have done, intended for ideas only. Experiment at your own discretion and only if you're qualified.

Update: I have had bad luck with lightning storms. I've blown out two mini's with this, and not sure why. I have surge protection on the house and the second time this was the only thing to go. First time my reed switches got fused. One theory is that the reeds that are right on the metal garage rails pick up something, and I may try grounding my garage rails.

As a result of this project, there are other modifications that fell out of this, that the GGP uses. These are:

The x10 mini controller when modified as in the link above, lets us get triggers for on and off, and cause a "poll" to occur by briefly interrupting the on and off common wires. While you could rely on your software to know what the x10 status is, you can't be 100% because of collisions etc., so polling is a nice safety bonus!

The modification to the universal module makes it into two momentary devices rather than one. One of the sides (the off side) is used in the diagram to break/make the mini controller's on/off wires, which gives us that polling. If you didn't care about polling this could be eliminated.

The other side of the universal module (the on side) is to pulse the garage opener. For me (Rick), the pulse is too short for my opener. So I will get another universal an use that for a trigger or find a way to pad the pulse up.

To do a second garage because you use the other two mini controller buttons for that one and only buy an extra universal module to pulse the other door.

All of this assumes some good programming of a smart controller or computer with some straightforward if/then logic

Here is my "GGP on a stick". Smart of me to shoot a wood board on a wood table, huh? It's about 18" long, 4" high, with perfboard holding the relays, and terminal strips for wiring. I got two for $5 outlet strip with a circuit breaker, that way I can shut the thing off if something goes haywire. My worst hack is that wire holding on the mini controller, I'll have to think of a better way....

Here is the schematic...