Home Server System/Until Room
My Utility room is still under construction as you can see. The server on the left is an AMD 1400mhz with 400gig storage. The server runs several devices in my home with a program called HomeSeer. Click here (use Guest/Guest) to see some of the devices in action. You cannot change any of them as you are a guest. The joystick port made a good interface for HomeSeer as I use the analog inputs for the x axis and y axis for sensors. The button inputs I have only one wired right now for an input for a downstairs thermostat. I have this run my floor heat in my basement as concrete has a different response time than a normal furnace. All of this I program into HomeSeer and it works quite well. No failures.
The thermostat downstairs. The basement is unfinished still so you see the drywall, and yes, wire. I wanted an easy way that everyone is used to be able to set the temperature desired. With leaving control up to the home server it can decide to leave the heat off based on weather conditions, therefore you can set this thermostat and forget about it cause when summer arrives, it will keep the basement colder in the morning, and then I just circulate the air in the afternoon.
This is a display in my upstairs hallway that tells me anything I want it too from my server. It works great as a nightlight! I never thought about that but its great.
The two small gray boxes are cable TV runs from several places in the house, each room has one run per 2 cat5 at every jack, with about 4 jacks every room. I feed them with a normal TV antenna. I am too cheap to buy cable, and what is the point. I use the home server for entertainment and with broad band TV on the internet, I have enough entertainment.
The large Grey box with the handle is for my Wind Power project. Its a transfer switch that switches between Enmax, and my shed outside. I don't have a Wind Generator yet but the shed has a stat power, a few bats, and a homemade generator for standby power. I have built small windmills that keep the bats charged.
In the transfer switch box I have a DrDAQ Installed that reads my power consumption and sends data up my parallel port to the server. I can actually use any computer in the home to see my power consumption. It will even log for whatever period of time I set it too.
Here is the pickups on my mains
The next white box we all know is my breaker panel. Above the breaker panel is my relay setup to control my furnace fan for air circulation.
Here is my relay setup. I am cheap so I just took a X10 module, adapter, and drove a relay coil directly, works %100 so far. To the right that's just my door bell. Left lower is my X10 phase coupler.
This works great. Its my cheap, cheap sprinkler control system. All it is, is a bunch of X10 plugs with adapters. They each drive a relay in the white box that closes the 24VAC adapter (currently laying on top and not plugged in) to the valves on the sprinkler system to each zone. I buy the X10 stuff from www.x10.com, when they have sales like ten for $50.
The real advantage is the script I have in HomeSeer that reads the current weather conditions from the Lethbridge airport. Right now it updates every hour so I can also control the sprinklers the same way, such as, if the wind is over ?km then don't water.
This is a last resort, its my backup lights so I can see my way to pull the handle on the transfer switch if the power does go out.
Ok, this is not a good picture, but I will explain it. I built a condenser and placed it into my furnace, ran my lawn sprinkler system through it, and I have an even in HomeSeer that in the summer, while the sprinklers are on (usually in the evening) turn the furnace fan on to circulate the air. This helps lower the house temp about 2 degrees on those hot days. My cheap air conditioner.
This is just a shot of my headers to show that I put a pressure balanced system into my home. No more cold showers when the toilet is flushed!
The left is my floor heat for downstairs, and the right is the pump. The pump is just plugged into another X10 module that HomeSeer controls.
As you see, all my wiring is not done yet. No patch panels, and allot of home runs not used. If you look at the bottom and see a small Alpine amp, it is fed of the computers 12VDC line and runs the audio to a main speaker upstairs, so the computer can talk to me. I use AT&T natural voices and it actually sounds pretty good.
The best thing, if I get frustrated upstairs with the computer, I tell it "you suck" and it blabbers back to me telling me off. It does quite well recognizing several different commands.
There is so much more details to what this system does, I have not really even begun to start. In the future as time permits I may add newer details.
I have High Speed internet due to my wireless long distance link project. Right now you are viewing this page from my home server and this works so great. The price for internet is $15 month for me as I split costs with my buddy, sharing his internet. Gotta love it!
I'll write that one up some other day.
