HS announcements using PC speakers throughout house?

[goddard99]

I keep reading "if you have a single line". I have 2 lines being used, 1 main line and the other is the fax. The second line is only in 1 room. Can I still wire in the speakers or am I stumped because of the second line?
Mike

[DarrenRainer]

Hi guys, I basically use powered pc speakers which are switched on and off using an x10 appliance modules. Only slightly irritating thing is the thud when the speaker power is switched on. Anyone know how to get rid of it ?
Darren

[MBenzo]

I'm doing basically the same thing. I am also irritated by the loud thud in the appliance modules. The Smarthome ApplianceLincs are supposed to have an 80% quieter relay. I was going to try them, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Matt

[Barry Gordon]

My anouncement system is similar to that of SMEE, but I use 4 ELK amplifiers each one driving a room speaker through a relay. I this manner I have individual volume control for each room (manual) and a master volume control under control of HS, I can select the room or rooms for anouncements. For example the Door bell "rings" in all rooms. If you direct a touchscreen to speak some text e.g. the weather, it only speaks in the room where that touschscreen is. If you set an "Alarm clock" then the alarm rings only in the room you set it for etc.

[twittydavis]

Ah that's a good idea. I've been struggling with how I would hook in a relay to switch multiple speakers. I've seen somewhere, and I think I downloaded them, plans for an impedence matcher or something like that. I obviously don't know a whole lot about this... I thought I would just insert the relay between the amp and the speakers and try it. I didn't seem to have any problems when I added additional speakers to the amp so I figured it would be ok. But the Elk amps are so cheap that I like the idea of using a seperate one for each room.

I'm planning on mounting everything inside a blank/empty rack mount cabinet so with all of the amps I'll probably need some ventilation and more room than I originally thought...

Thanks for the idea!

Mick

[Barry Gordon]

You are going to need some method of driving relays and the relays them selves. I use a Marrick Lynxport. It has 8 relays, 8 digital inputs (like from a door bell) and 4 analog voltage inputs all on an RS232 port. I am about to buy another one due as I need some more relays. Its packaging is very nice. I use the relays to control things like the garage door openers, the front doorbell light, the PC speakers. Digital inputs come from the doorbell (a contact closure) and a High security keyfob device with 4 inputs so I can arm, disarm, open garage close garage etc with very high security not X10.

I have a plugin for the board and I think there are other plugins available.

Not simple but not overly complicated.

[twittydavis]

I have a parallel port relay kit with source code examples. I figured I'd give that a shot first. I've managed to assemble kits like that before and the programming is no problem. So we'll see... worst case scenario I'll end up buying one.

Mick