From Analog to Digital

One of the reasons we fell in love with This Old New House was all of the built-ins. Solid cherry, beautifully detailed, in so many rooms. But...it was designed with a specific use in mind, and in the case of the family room, that use was a big ol' tube television, and shelving.

Hand drawings...[drool]

It was also designed by an Architect who was on top of his game. Everything is tightly fitting; there are no nooks and crannies available through which to sneak wires.

I'll just have a salad...

When we first moved in, I hastily got everything plugged in so we could get U-Verse installed, and (more importantly to some inhabitants) get the Wii working. This resulted in some serious Kabalsalat (cable salad). If you know me well, you know how I feel about Kabalsalat [shudder]. Fortunately, there's a broom closet right behind this lovely wall o' millwork. A closet which can become a home server/media closet.

AIIIIIIEEEEEE!!!!!!

Time for Back to the Future!

First, some shelf standards, fake cherry shelves, and a power strip...

Brooms not included.

OK, that's a good start. Things are looking up.
"Hey! Kerr!" you say, "That's still pretty messy looking!"
It's a work in progress photo! Back off! Don't make me cut you with my wire strippers...

I had planned on using some kind of IR blaster to make all the remotes work with the equipment in the closet. But then I stumbled across iRule.

iRule? Why yes, thank you, I do.

It's rare to find a product that has such a high WAF (wife acceptance factor) that you get the unmitigated green light.

Note: Steph is not a bald English dude.

iRule is that product. It allows you to control nearly anything - electronics, lighting, drapery - via an iOS/Android app.

If it can be controlled via IP address, infrared (IR) remote, RS-232 (serial) cable, etc, it can be controlled by iRule. There are add-in modules for Apple TV, iTunes, Sonos, Lutron, Levitron and several others. And best of all, it's dead simple to set up. You use a web interface to select the equipment you are trying to control, and just drag and drop the commands onto the buttons.

Want to turn on your receiver? Find your make and model, find the 'power on' command, and drag it onto the power button. Done. Want to turn on the TV, and DVD player too? Just drag them onto the same button. But why stop there? Set the receiver to the DVD input, set the sound to THX playback, adjust the volume, and open the disc tray on the player. All with the click of one button.

The Home screen that made the sale

A lot of newer A/V equipment is IP controllable nowadays. Of course, that means there will be quite a few network patch cables. Add in the network cables running to the office and bedrooms, and all of a sudden you need a network backbone. Time for a patch panel and a CAT6 switch. Once all the bedrooms are re-wired, this will be mostly full.

I really need to do something about that lone blue cable...

Mmmm...That's better.

I am not naked in the reflection. Quit trying.

Yes, that's a new screen. The old one (and I do mean old) was way past its prime. Time to join the world of hi-def.

For want of a nail....

Scene: A lovely, snowy day. Fluffy flakes falling gently against a backdrop of White Birch trees. A fire crackling away. Good friends over, sipping wine, eating delectables.

Say, it's getting a bit dark in here. Perhaps I should turn on some lights.

Click. Click-click. Click-click-click. Click-click-clickity-click.....click........click. 

Hmm.... that's odd. Typically, when I press the switch lights go on. But not now.

None of them.

A quick spin through the house reveals fully 1/3 of the house is in the dark. Outlets are working just fine. Intuitively, I know this cannot be a circuit breaker. At least, not a single circuit breaker. It's just far too many switches. But it's all I have to go on; I make my way through the panels, checking for badness.

Nuttin'.  Now I'm both physically and metaphorically in the dark.

My friend DF loves a good puzzle - there's no way he's staying out of this mystery.  We wonder - all the regular voltage is working, could the problem be with the low voltage? Now, if you follow this blog, you may remember us chatting about the crazy-pants lighting in the Back to the Future house. Relays. Lots of 'em. All those switch relays are low-voltage, electromechanical devices. When they fire, there's a satisfying buzz-chunk sound from the relay panel. If there's no low voltage power, we shouldn't hear any buzz-chunk when we press the wall switches.

No buzz-chunk. 

It hadn't crossed my mind previously where all that low voltage came from. But it had to be somewhere. And the somewhere should be near the relay panels. After a thoroughly fruitless search above the panels in the attic rafters (except the the insulation mess we made, that was quite fruitful) we head to the basement aided by the meager light of our flashlight apps, to try and find the step-down transformers.

The "good news" is, the relay panel in question is located in the part of the basement that is crawlspace. I can hear my father's advice from some 30 years prior to never buy a house with a crawlspace. I'm sure he's having a good laugh as I do my best Army crawl over to the area below the relay panel. And sure enough, there it is. A 24v transformer. Except.....there are no wires attached to the low voltage side.

Well, there's yer problem!

If only that were the case. We do manage to locate the other two transformers, one under each relay panel. There's a 20VA one under the kitchen panel, and a 40VA under the panel for the rear of the house. They look exactly as they should. Low voltage control wires attached to the 24v posts. As much as it chaps my posterior to admit, I think I need to call in a pro. My Scottish upbringing bristles uncomfortably. But... the baby-sitter is here, we have an evening out planned, and I'm out of ideas. Until Steph asks,

"Will the night-light in the boy's bedroom still work?"

"Of course," I say, knowing full well I'll have to go check. "See? All of their lights are on. They're on a different relay panel. The rest of the house is..."

Click. Click-click. Click-click-click. Click-click-clickity-click.....click........click. 

Hmm.... that's odd. Typically, when I press the switch lights go off. But not now.

And that was when the proverbial light bulb went on. (Sorry.) You cannot turn the lights off without the low voltage either. One of the transformers was 20VA, but the other was 40VA, because it was driving two relay panels. 

Sure enough the next morning, with new $14 transformer in hand, I restored lighting control to 2/3 of the house. 

Talk about your Achilles heel...