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...

Instant Karma's Gonna Got Me

Humph.

Just after "fixing" the front entry lights (Did I mention I also installed a rotary dimmer while I was at it?) the House of the Future got back at me.

Blown relay.  I think.

No, really.  Kids pushed the switch in too hard, jamming it in the on position, which sends a continuous signal to the realy, burning it out.  There is a technical term for this in the Archi/Electical world.  It is known as "shit be broke."

Now, it's possible they fried the switch, but I doubt it.  There's no clicky-buzzy sound (let me know if this is getting too technical) when you hit the switch anymore, on or off.

Lamp is good.  Brand spankin' new.  Works like a charm, provided, of course, that you screw it in somewhere else.  I'm sure you are all thinking of possible locations as we speak.

I believe the house just gave me a giant raspberry.

Well. This is awkward...

I finally got around to changing out that switch relay...well, almost.

Yes, yes, I know.  It's been on the Honey Do list for quite some time.  I've been busy, I swear!  First, my pet duck needed an iron lung.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a bespoke iron lung tailor? It's not easy.  Let's just leave it at that.  Then my personal balloonist, Guiseppe, went on strike, meaning I had no easy mode of transportation.  There was an earthquake!  A terrible flood!  Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT I SWEAR TO GOD!!!

Ahem.

Anywho, I have a new set of hand tools, having still not found the box the movers cleverly put all my old ones into, and we are having guests over, so it's time to be Handy Andy.

New relay.  Check.
Linesman's pliers.  Check
Needle nose pliers.  Check.
Slotted screwdriver.  Check.
Circuit breaker located.  Check.

Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more...

Take all the coats out of the closet, get everything laid out just so... hmm... never noticed that rotary switch before.

Now, before I go any further, I need to pause and say there are rotary switches all over this house.  Most of them control the in-ceiling speakers in the various rooms.  Some are still total mysteries. There are two in the china hutch.  No idea what they do.  But why a rotary switch in the front hall closet?  Curious... I wonder what it controls... there are no speakers over here.  Well, let's give it a turn, shall we?

And.....Presto.  The lights come on.  Yes, those lights.  Yes, those very lights whose relay I was fixin' to fix.

Well.  This is awkward.

Honey!  I fixed the lights in the front hall!

Relay Races

After a bit of searching, I've uncovered several relay panels strategically placed in closets around the house.  I didn't notice them at first - they're just a painted metal plate with 4 counter-sunk screws. And I have to say, so far things look pretty tidy inside them.  There's bits of white tape on each relay, with faded, handwritten descriptions of what the relay controls.  We'll have to upgrade that; the ink is pretty faded and it's written in longhand.

But enough about that, for the moment.  "What's a relay look like," you ask?  Well they look like this, compliments of the large box left for me in the basement, labeled "electrical parts."

The 3 small gauge wires are for the controls - the switch on the wall, usually, but it could be anything that provides momentary contact.  The 4 holes above the motor label are for the line level wires.  The round shaft has 4 long spring clips that you can kind of see in the first photo.

Holy Cable Salad, Batman!  

"See there, Norm, what you've got there is your typical 5x2 relay cabinet."  

     --Cliff Claven

The box is pretty simple - apart from a lot of knockouts on the top and bottom, there's just a single piece of metal.  It's punched with two rows of five holes, and when you stick a relay into the hole, the long spring clips hold it in loosely place.  It keeps the hot side hot, and the cold side cold.

After looking around on the Interwebs, I've learned I'm pretty lucky.  Most are poorly labeled, poorly organized, and full of 60 years of detritus. While some of the little white tape bits are hard to read, they are all there.  Through a process of elimination I've managed to identify most of them.  There's anothere identically sized panel to the left - I'll have to open and catalog that one as well.

Now, if I can manage to unpack my linesman's and needle-nose pliers this weekend, we should be Back to the Future! 

Back to the future!

This old new house has a rather unusual electrical system.  Nearly all of the electrical switches are low-voltage, 24 volt, with 3 control wires.  The low-voltage switch legs run back to a relay panel, where mechanical relays open and close the circuit, turning the light on or off.

"Huh?" you say.
"Yes," I say, "I know."

What would they do that?  It's the House of the Future!  Low-voltage switching allows you to put as many switches as you want on a circuit, wherever you want them.  This, in 1961, was amazing.  It's still pretty amazing now, if you are the kind of person that is likely to want more than one switch to control a single light. If you are not that kind of person, it's kinda cray cray.

The switches are mostly made by Remcon, and have a sexy, hourglass shape that screams mid-Century modern.

See?  You like them more now, right?  You kinda want to touch them, don't you?  Mmm-hmm. I know.  Too bad they went out of production years ago, and are impossible to find now.

But wait - there's more!

What's that honey?  A burned out light bulb?  No problem.  Gotcha covered.  New light bulb, et voila'.  
Hmm.  Still doesn't work.  What the....  Double check the light bulb - yep, it's good.  
Double Hmm.

This, my friends, in the House of the Future is what's known as a "blown relay."  (Fortunately, the relays are still available.)  Off we go in search of the relay panel.  It could be anywhere, remember.  Switch proximity is not a factor.  Mechanical relays make a noise when they trip, so finding one is like a game of electrical Marco Polo.  

Next up - The Relay Panel