Home Automation With RC Wall Plugs And Raspberry Pi

June 5, 2012 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

[Jake] took some cheap hardware and figured out a way to use it as a huge home automation network. He’s chose a Raspberry Pi board to connect the radio controlled power outlets to his network. He wrote about his project in two parts, the first is hacking the RC outlet controller and the second is using the Raspberry Pi to manipulate it.

These RC outlets are a pass-through for appliances that connect to mains (lamps, consumer electronics, christmas trees, etc). Often the protocol used by the cheap-as-dirt remote is difficult to work with, but [Jake] really hit it out of the part on this one. In addition to simulating button presses for up to fifteen devices on the remote, he replaced the DIP switch package. This lets him change the encoding, essentially allowing the one device to control up to 32 sets of outlets. Theoretically this lets him command 480 devices from the Raspberry Pi. Since that board is a web server it’s just a matter of coding an interface.

Some of the inspiration for this hack came from the whistle-controlled appliance hack.

Controlling The Power With Bluetooth

April 25, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 7 Comments

[Mike] dropped us a tip to show off a system he has built to control some power sockets based on his proximity. Initially the project started as a parallel port controlled box to switch the mains power. Then he got the idea of turning this into a little more interactive of an automation tool. He is utilizing the bluetooth from his cell phone as a locator. When the box senses that he’s in the room, the power is on. When he leaves the area, the power is off. You can see his ruby code on his web site if you wanted to give it a try or offer improvements.

UPS With Dead Batteries Reborn As A Whole-house Power Backup

April 9, 2012 by Mike Szczys 70 Comments

[Woodporterhouse] must deal with regular power black outs in his area. He recently converted a rack-mount uninterruptible power supply to feed a portion of his mains wiring. This one is not to be missed, since he did such a great job on the project, and an equally remarkable job of documenting it. It’s one of the best examples we’ve seen of how to use Imgur as a project log.

The UPS still needs to have a case, but it doesn’t need room for batteries as he’s going to use a series of high-end sealed lead-acid batteries. So he cut down the enclosure to about half of the original size. That’s it mounted just above the new batteries. For this to work you need some type of transfer switch which can automatically patch between incoming line voltage, and the battery backup. He already had one of these switches in place for use with a generator, that’s it in the upper left. The entire system powers a sub-panel responsible for his essential circuits — the electronics in the home and a few lighting circuits (we’d assume this includes utilities like the refrigerator).

One really great feature that the reused UPS brings to the project is a monitoring card with a NIC. This way he can check the server to see if the UPS is being used, and how much of the 14 battery life remains.

[Thanks Ross via Reddit]

Using Mains Wiring As An Antenna

December 31, 2011 by Mike Szczys 66 Comments

Make sure to brush up on your safety protocol if you undertake this project. The penalty for messing up when using live wiring as a radio receiver antenna is rather severe. But after reading about it in some old books [Miroslav] decided to give this technique a try.

We love the old-school chalk board he used to map out his test circuit. With safety in mind, he uses two high voltage capacitors in series. If these should somehow fail, there is also a fuse which would blow, disconnecting the apparatus from mains. But just to be sure, he isolated the circuit using a two coils. These step down the voltage, but would also burn out if hit with a voltage spike.

You can see the results he gets using the setup as an AM radio receiver in the video after the break. He tested against a meter long antenna and found that his setup far outperforms it. Actually, he found that a six foot extension cord which is not plugged into the wall will also outperform the 1m antenna. Something to keep in mind the next time the ball game isn’t coming in as clear as you would like.

Continue reading “Using Mains Wiring As An Antenna” →

Whole House Battery Backup Used For Lower Power Bills

November 17, 2011 by Mike Szczys 78 Comments

[Photonicinduction] has an impressive battery backup installation that powers his whole house. Unlike a standalone emergency generator which would require you to hook up all of the device you want to run, this setup sits in between the power meter and the breaker box, ready to step in when needed.

But get this, he’s not just using it as a backup system. It kicks in during the day to run everything including two freezers, a refrigerator, his lights, television, and computers. That’s because the price per kilowatt-hour is quite a bit higher during the day than at night. So after 10:30pm the system patches his house back into the grid and charges the batteries for use the next day.

What you see here is just a portion of his system. The control board is not pictured but is very impressive, including a network of relays which are used as a fail-safe system so that there are no conflicts between mains and the battery system. Check out his 15-minute walk through of the system after the break. Continue reading “Whole House Battery Backup Used For Lower Power Bills” →

Light Bulb, Diode, And Capacitor Step Mains Down To 12V DC

October 21, 2011 by Mike Szczys 64 Comments

[Todd Harrison] needed a way to run a 12 volt PC fan from mains voltage. Well, we think he really just needed something to keep him occupied on a Sunday, but that’s beside the point. He shows us how he did this in a non-traditional way by using the resistive load of an incandescent light bulb, a diode, and a capacitor to convert voltage to what he needed. You can read his article, or settle in for the thirty-five minute video after the break where he explains his circuit.

The concept here is fairly simple. The diode acts as a half-wave rectifier by preventing the negative trough of the alternating current from passing into his circuit. The positive peaks of the electricity travel through the light bulb, which knocks down the voltage to a usable level. Finally, the capacitor fills the gaps where the negative current of the AC used to be, providing direct current to the fan. It’s easy to follow but the we needed some help with the math for calculating the correct lightbulb to use to get our desired output current.

Continue reading “Light Bulb, Diode, And Capacitor Step Mains Down To 12V DC” →

Adding Ethernet Control For A 5.1 Speaker Set

May 16, 2011 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

[HuB’s] set of 5.1 surround sound speakers was gobbling up a bunch of electricity when in standby as evidenced by the 50 Hz hum coming from the sub-woofer and the burning hot heat sink on the power supply. He wanted to add a way to automatically control the systems and offer the new feature of disconnecting the power from the mains.

The first part was not too hard, although he used a roundabout method of prototyping. He planned to use the IR receiver on the speakers to control them. At the time, [HuB] didn’t have an oscilloscope on hand that he could use to capture the IR protocol so he ended up using Audacity (the open source audio editing suite) to capture signals connected to the input of a sound card. He used this to establish the timing and encoding that he needed for all eight buttons on the original remote control.

Next, he grabbed a board that he built using an ATmega168 and an ENC28J60 Ethernet chip. This allows you to send commands via the Internet which are then translated into the appropriate IR signals to control the speakers and a few other devices in the room. The last piece of the puzzle was to wrap an RF controlled outlet into the project with lets him cut mains power to the speakers when not in use. You can see the video demonstration embedded after the break.

Continue reading “Adding Ethernet Control For A 5.1 Speaker Set” →