Ab8ss alternatives?

[stevea]

Hi Steve - Where did you purchase your "two cheapo 15W ELK amps." Gary

Well, first off, it looks like I mis-spoke: It's a 10W amp, ELK-800. It's the one on the ELK page here: http://www.elkproducts.com/product-c...module-10-watt

I don't remember where I got them (two for stereo), but it wasn't from ELK directly. Smarthome has them, but is WAY overpriced.

Steve

[cabbage]

Hi,

I have a working prototype of my switch. I am just wondering if I can get some pointers on control of the switch via HS. What I have implemented in the prototype is to switch all zones on:- send m1111111110 via RS232, where the string of 1111111110 is zone 1-9 (I have 9 zones) and the A/B switch. once this command has been actioned the string A1111111110 will be sent to confirm the action. For single zone commands I am using the format sXx where X is the zone number (decimal) with 0 being A/B and x is either "1", "0" or "T" to toggle.

Obviously this is just a simple setup for testing but is there anything else people think I should include to make interfacing with HS easier.

cabbage

[Michael McSharry]

I do not have application for audio switching, but generally speaking Homeseer is easiest to interface if each end point is associated with a single device code. If you have 9 switches then I would expect to see 9 devices. The user will turn on/off a device at a time and the plugin/script will interace with the hardware. In your case it seems to be ascii serial at the hardware level. The data returned will show up as DeviceStatus ON/OFF and/or DeviceValue 1/0 for each of the nine devices.

[cabbage]

Michael,

Thanks for the tip. I will have 10 devices 9 zones and an A/B switch. I think I will concentrate on switching single zones individually while interfacing with homeseer and leave the multiple zones until I get that sorted.

Cabbage

[Michael McSharry]

For the Vaux Aris 700 8x8 switch I organized the user interface to according to 8 output devices and each has an enumeration (DeviceValue) of the possible input sources. The same was true for Volume control where 2db increments were used. I followed the pattern for the status, bass, treble, turn-on level and turn-on mute features the switch provides. This hardware has a ascii serial interface.

For scene control I expect the Homeseer user to define an event for each scene where the Device Action on the event is set the devices to their desired DeviceValues.

[johnnybwis]

Just wanted to mention... the waf ab8ss plugin I use can run an event (actually its a script)and then set the hardware back to the previous settings. Very useful for such things as listing to music - announce caller ID - and then switch back to music setup.

[cabbage]

Hi,

I have now got a working rs232 interface to homeseer and a script to control it. I am going to use it to build my alternative to the AB8SS.

The basic features are as follows:-

RS232 control interface
A/B Amp Source Selection (Max Amp Power Approx 125W RMS)
9 Indiviual 8 Ohm Stereo Zones(Max 14W RMS Per Channel)
Static Impedance Load To Amp
Hardware Supports Single Zone On/Off/Toggle commands and Direct Setting of all outputs simultaneously.

I am considering selling these if anyone is interested. I will be finalising the PCB this week. Let me know if there are any other features you would like.

Cabbage

[cabbage]

including shipping