received my AB8SS

[jruby]

Hi, I received my AB8SS speaker switcher today and before I start hooking everything up is there anything I should be careful of I do not want to burn anything out.

I have a couple speakers I would like to have hooked bo both amps, can this be done or will it kill it or reck something?

I was thinking of hooking one amp to the sound card, if so what jack should I use I have two of them and one for stareo.

Thanks. I'm not much good at keeping track of ohms and such.

[dkindred]

Hi, Jim,

The AB8SS has amplifier protection built-in, so you should be pretty safe with your hook-ups. I bought a bunch of 8 ohm speakers (that's the standard ohm rating) and hooked them all up to the AB8SS. In all likelihood, if you have standard household speakers (not car speakers) that are less than 20 years old, they're 8 ohm, as well.

I hooked my sound card line out jack to the Tape In left and right jacks in the back of an old amplifier, then clicked on the Tape In button on the amp to activate that input. I then hooked the Speaker Out jacks of the amplifier to the Speaker In jacks of the AB8SS. It was really straight-forward.

Let me know if you have any troubles, and I'll be glad to help.

--David

[skybolt]

I see you mention in a post, about a plugin for the ab8ss, but it is not listed. Is there a post for this plugin?

Orlando

[dkindred]

Hi, Orlando,

I have written a plug-in for the AB8SS, but I'm doing a little touch-up on it right now. If I get enough time, I'll try to package it up for the Updater this weekend. (Trying to fix a HomeVision plug-in bug right now.) I'm going to make it a pay plug-in as part of my current drive to develop WAF-ware to earn money to take my wife out to dinner.

I'll post as soon as it's ready.

--David

[mbell4]

Hi Daivd,
How do I connect the AB8SS to my stereo receiver and then the 8 pairs of speakers? Can I do this or will there not be enough power from the receiver? Is the second input to the AB8SS for an additional sound source or and amp for additinal power?

Thanks!!

[JimCirillo]

Use standard speaker wire for the connections. There is a chart on the AB8SS specs web page that shows the amount of power sent to the speakers as each of the 8 sets are switched in.

The A / B amp inputs are separate - you can select either input to drive the speakers (1 thru 8) that are enabled. You can only select one amp at a time, so you can't drive different sets of speakers with the two different amps at the same time.

[dkindred]

mbell4,

Jim did a good job summing up. Just to "amplify" (sorry, couldn't resist) what he had to say, let me paste part of a note I sent to another fellow who had some questions about the device:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Great news about the speaker switcher! I hope you're going to enjoy yours as much as I've been enjoying mine.

It's really easy to hook it up. All you have to do is, as you suspected, hook up a 9-pin plain vanilla serial cable from your computer to the AB8SS. You'll then want to run the configuration program from the HACS web site and decide how you want to run the thing. By default, it will look for IR, X10 and serial commands. But, if you're not planning on using X10 or IR, you'll want to disable those two input types to get faster response time.

After you've done that, download the plug-in, and run the setup on it (very simple procedure), and you should have a device group set up for your speakers. You'll be able to control them just as you would any other device.

As for the physical hookup, you'll want to run the audio out from your soundcard to a regular tuner/amplifier input (I'm using a 1980's era garage sale special, myself). The speaker outputs from the amp are what is fed into the input of the AB8SS. The, each of the stereo speaker pairs from around the house are hooked up to the outputs of the switcher. It's a really easy device to work with.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

--David

[mbell4]

David,

Thanks for the info. I just received it today and will be hooking it up this week. I have one problem, only 2 serial com ports. I just installed you WAF-NetCallerID on one (GREAT JOB on it!!!!)and CMA11 interface on the other. What are the disavantages to using the X10 interface on the unit?

[dkindred]

Mbell4,

It's a pleasure to help. And thanks for the kind words about the WAF-NetCallerID plug-in.

What did you mean by the disadvantages associated with using the X10 interface on the unit? Are you thinking that the TW523 attached to the AB8SS can be used by HomeSeer? If so, then I'm afraid that is not the case. The TW523 is used by the AB8SS solely for its own purposes. It doesn't pass any received X10 commands to HomeSeer. You'll still need to use your CM11A for X10 control.

On the other hand, if you're asking what the disadvantages are of controlling the AB8SS by X10, they would be:
* Speed (each X10 command takes about a second to transmit, so if you wanted to turn on/off 5 speakers each time the phone rang, you'd be waiting a while).
* Reliability (X10 collisions)
* HomeSeer wouldn't know how many speakers are active at a particular time

It looks as if you're going to need another serial port. Rick Tinker and I bought Stallion EasyIO ports from Ebay for about $50, and now have 32 comm ports. Other folks have liked the ByteRunner boards. Still others have been successful using USB to serial converters.

Have a good week!

--David

[automator9]

David,

We talked before. How do you hook up the IR and X10? I have tried both with no luck. DOn't want to use serial so I'm running out of options. ANy help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
John



<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by David Kindred:
Hi, Jim,

The AB8SS has amplifier protection built-in, so you should be pretty safe with your hook-ups. I bought a bunch of 8 ohm speakers (that's the standard ohm rating) and hooked them all up to the AB8SS. In all likelihood, if you have standard household speakers (not car speakers) that are less than 20 years old, they're 8 ohm, as well.

I hooked my sound card line out jack to the Tape In left and right jacks in the back of an old amplifier, then clicked on the Tape In button on the amp to activate that input. I then hooked the Speaker Out jacks of the amplifier to the Speaker In jacks of the AB8SS. It was really straight-forward.

Let me know if you have any troubles, and I'll be glad to help.

--David <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[dkindred]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by automator9:
DOn't want to use serial so I'm running out of options. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi, John.

What??? You want to deny my wife a dinner by not using my plug-in? Just kidding.

Have you run the AB8SS setup program that can be found on the HACS web site? With it, you can turn on/off IR and X10 control capabilities, as well as define what X10 and IR codes are used to control the AB8SS. I recommend you run it to see if IR and X10 are disabled.

Assuming that they are enabled, to control the device by IR, you need to either wire the IR terminals up to an IR repeater system, or make sure you have an emitter that can get to the IR receiver on the circuit board (some AB8SS cases have holes drilled in them to give access to this component).

If you want to control the device by X10, and have it setup correctly with the configuration program, make sure that you have a TW523 plugged into the AB8SS, and make sure the cable has the RJ11 plugs put on the correct way (see the HACS website for a picture). If you have the polarity reversed on the cable, the TW523 will not work. Do you have a TW523?

Best wishes to you, John.

--David