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logbuilder
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Joined: February 03 2009
Location: United States
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Posts: 22
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| Posted: March 02 2009 at 21:11 | IP Logged
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I'm doing the webcamxp/powerhome integration. Cameras sense motion and lights turn on.
This last Saturday night, I thought I had everything working great. It was late at night and cold outside. All quiet and all lights off.
Lights come on. Ah hah I think. Must be a deer or bear outside. I look at the captured pics of the motion and at first don't see anything. Then I do. It is night so the IR illumination on the camera is on. It looks like a ghost is in front of the camera. Here is what I finally figured out. The propane heater had just come on. The exhaust vent for the heater is about 30 feet away from the camera that sensed the motion. The steam from the exhaust was creating clouds which the camera picked up as motion. In the winter months, going to happen a lot. The heater usually only stays on for a few mins and then turns off.
Here is what I'm thinking. Is there some Insteon device that I can attach to the heater and be able to tell it is on? I'm thinking maybe the 2450 1 input/1 output Interface. Like this one:
http://www.smarthome.com/2450/I-O-Linc-INSTEON-Low-Voltage-C ontact-Closure-Interface-1-In-1-Out-/p.aspx
I was thinking I might could hook it to the fan power line or one of the thermostat lines and sense when power was applied. When it is, hopefully PH will see that and be able to set a global to HEATER_ON. In my macro where I handle motion and turn on lights, right at the first I could test HEATER_ON and if true, exit and do nothing. When the fan goes off, hopefully the 2450 would inform PH of that change in status and set the global to HEATER_OFF.
Sound possible??
Also, I had bought a 2420M motion sensor. Try as I might, using the PH configuration wizard for devices, I never could get PH to see the device. My access points would flash when I pressed the setup button on the 2420 so I know they were seeing it but PH never added it to the device list. Do I need to link it to a specific access point? Any tricks here?
Thanks,
Robert
P.S. Here are a couple of pics with the steam cloud that triggered the motion.
And here is the same view but during the day. It had picked up the motion of me walking.
Edited by logbuilder - March 02 2009 at 21:28
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TonyNo
Moderator Group
Joined: December 05 2001
Location: United States
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Posts: 2889
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| Posted: March 03 2009 at 08:02 | IP Logged
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Sounds like a good plan. You could get a device that senses the load current and attach it do the contact input. If you give a bit more info on the heater, maybe some other ways will be obvious.
This and this are nice articles on CocoonTech on sensing power states on devices.
I think you need to link the motions to your PLC/PLM.
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grif091
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Joined: March 26 2008
Location: United States
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Posts: 1357
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| Posted: March 03 2009 at 11:03 | IP Logged
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Most blower/fan motors run on 120v ac. You can connect a 120v relay (Radio Shack 275-217) in parallel with the blower/fan motor and use the relay contacts to control the IOLinc. The IOLinc is looking for an IOLinc GND to Sensor connection to activate.
__________________
Lee G
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Topic: Prob sensing motions
