I’m feeling a bit retro for the holidays, so here’s another classic: If you’ve got a non-dimming X10 switch, you’ve experienced the incredibly loud, obnoxious sound that it makes when you switch it on or off. (Mine’s in my stairwell) There’s a simple mod to silence the thing: remove the triac relay and replace it with a solid state relay. SSRs are a bit expensive, running at least $10 each last time I checked. [Willis Dair] realized that he could build his own, inexpensive SSR with an optoisolator and an alternistor(AKA Triac). The resulting circuit runs about $3 in parts.
home hacks1912 Articles
1-wire Thermostat Control
For some reason, computer controllable thermostats are pretty freakin’ expensive. I found a reference to a 1-wire thermostat in this(mirror) sample senior project on home automation. It turns out that Dallas Semiconductor put one together a while back as an application for their TINI platform. (web-application server on a chip). The write-up has since vanished from their site, but I found it thatnks to archive.org. The thermostat used to run about $50, and a similar model still seems to be produced. The 1-wire interface is pretty simple – Maxim’s TINI board to control it: not so much. Just using the 1-wire interface with an inexpensive thermostat and controlling from a PC seems pretty viable to me. Just in case, I mirrored the 1-wire interface schematics here.
Breathing Walls With Shape Memory Alloy Wire
When you need something quietly bending or moving, don’t underestimate SMA’s (or Shape Memory Alloys). The Living Glass project by architects [David Benjamin] and [Soo-in Yang] catalogs an experiment in building interactive, flexible, “breathing”, walls out of SMA wire and microcontrollers. Although they use Basic Stamps, the project could easily be extended to more cost-effective microcontrollers for large surfaces. The project is well documented with videos (AVI) of each prototyping step and even includes the ideas that were ultimately scrapped. Even if you don’t build a wall of interactive gills, this project should give you plenty of ideas for uses of SMA wire embedded in semi-flexible materials.
Remote Control Your Blinds
I was dredging my brain for interesting topics to cover and this vertical blind hack popped into my head. The page isn’t the prettiest, but it’s the hack that counts. The mechanism is constructed from PC board. A motor fitted with a ball chain drive gear pulls the chain in either direction. When the end of travel is reached, a micro-switch is triggered by the stand off that’s actuated by the chain. The motor is driven by a pair of relays that latch to form a simple direction control. When power is triggered on or off, the motor starts moving until the stop is triggered.
GardenMon(itoring Project)
[Ken_S] sent in his GardenMon (coral cache) project. It’s a set of light, humidity, moisture and temperature probes that monitor the surface and below ground conditions in his garden. He’s using several picaxe micro controllers to take readings with a variety of off the shelf and commercial sensors. Once he started collecting the data, he added a programmable servo controlled watering valve with a configuration that he tweaks accordingly.
The site is on geocities, so use the cache.
I had a few requests, and this fits, so I added a home hacks category.
Peltier Desktop Drink Cooler
i found this link in my inbox, courtesy of j. peterson. we’ve posted a peltier beverage cooler before, but i think this one deserves mention as well. it hasn’t had the finishing touches, so it’s not as pretty yet. however, this one does come with a digital temperature readout. more importantly, it’s big. you could countersink a couple of these babies into your dining room table and start living the 21st century good life, as imagined way back in the mid-1900s.
just think, your home of the future, complete with soda-cooling, plate-heating countertops and a kitchen computer.
Basic Stamp Controlled Kegerator
evan jensen sent us a link to his basic stamp kegerator. the microcontroller monitors and regulates the temperature, and outputs status information and the name of the current beer to an lcd display. this looks like a fun project if you are looking to get started with hacking electronics. for our non beer drinkers, i can assure you that root beer is also best served cold and from a tap.
i’ve never used a basic stamp before, but i’ve noticed that a lot of other people are using the microprocessor to do cool things, including james the weather ballon hacker from earlier this week. i just ordered a starter kit last evening, so if people are interested maybe i can post an introduction when i receive it.
