Max no. of emitters

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Max no. of emitters

Postby yaccri » Sun Dec 26, 2004 8:38 am

I'd like to set several emitters (about 10).

Is it possible to put emitters in parallel to zones A/B?
If so, is there a limit to the number of emitters?

Also, do you plan to increase the no. of zones? I find it useful.

Thanks
yaccri
 
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Location: Tel-Aviv, Israel

Postby Frank Mc Alinden » Sun Dec 26, 2004 7:48 pm

Hi Yaccri

I believe the usb uirt uses 5v out so i would imagine a max of two in series would be allowed ...???(per zone)


I designed a little ir repeater sysytem (36khz-40khz) which allows you to connect multiple emitters...You can also locate receivers in each room...It has an opto isolated ir in which i have connected the usb uirt to and works fine..........Check out the link

http://skybax.rapidhoster.co.uk/~armagh/page80.html

I also have a multizone tx / rx ir transport system which i designed for my ha (Homevision) controller which connects using i/o pins.....I have recently built a prototype serial interface which connects to my ir transport system and using a pc ,usb uirt and xPL (FREE ha software) i can send an ir signal to any of my 8 zones ...The system also detects which zone an ir signal came from which is very useful...check out the link

http://skybax.rapidhoster.co.uk/~armagh/page25.html

The xPL software is available along with links to my ir system and usb uirt plugin...

http://www.xplproject.org.uk
HTH
Frank
Frank Mc Alinden
 
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Location: Melbourne Australia

Postby yaccri » Mon Dec 27, 2004 7:28 am

Thanks Frank,

This looks interesting. It looks like it matches my wish list. I would prefer though to keep it simple without adding extra hardware (if possible).

I would love to get Jon's response regarding my questions. Maybe he can suggest a simpler solution.
yaccri
 
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2004 9:48 am
Location: Tel-Aviv, Israel

Postby Frank Mc Alinden » Fri Jan 07, 2005 8:05 pm

Hi Yaccri
Have been thinking about this and although it still requires a single addon blackbox ,multizone (8) would be achievable...My previous solution required two boxes ..FirM Serial...and FirM....and of course both solution require the splitter boxes which the ir emitters connect to.

The idea would be to use say zone 1 ir out of the usb uirt as the "ZONE NUMBER" channel.... and this gets connected to an ir emitter located in the addon box....Zone 2 of the usb uirt would be the data channel...ie send vol up ...vol down etc.....

So to send a vol up command to zone 4 the following would have to happen...

The ir code for zone number 4 gets send out to USB UIRT Zone 1
Pause (approx 300msec)
The ir code for vol up gets sent out to USB UIRT Zone 2....

So the addon box is directing the data to the required zone ....

I have used this principle with my cbus lighting system which i have a two zone ir unit and connected the zone command channel to my ha controller...This has allowed me to control any device in any of my 8 zones using the cbus touchscreen ....

If anyone is interested in this let me know and i will consider developing such a device unless Jon is already working on a multizone device...

Frank
Frank Mc Alinden
 
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Joined: Sat Aug 28, 2004 3:05 am
Location: Melbourne Australia

Postby yaccri » Fri Jan 07, 2005 10:20 pm

Hi Frank,

That's a nice idea.
In my opinion, a 300 ms delay is far too much. Take for example a volume change. My receiver uses 200 volume levels (from -100db to 0, every 0.5 Db). Changing only 10Db of the volume level would take at least 6 seconds!

Would it be possible to broadcast the zone number (say on zone 1), and IMMEDIATELY after that to submit the IR code *on the same zone*? Would that reduce the delay?

If others think that more zones are needed and voice their opinion, maybe Jon will consider developing a unit with more zones. That would be the best.
yaccri
 
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2004 9:48 am
Location: Tel-Aviv, Israel

Postby Frank Mc Alinden » Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:51 pm

Hi Yaccri

In my opinion, a 300 ms delay is far too much. Take for example a volume change. My receiver uses 200 volume levels (from -100db to 0, every 0.5 Db). Changing only 10Db of the volume level would take at least 6 seconds

Depends on how its being used....If responding to a remote signal then it
may take a while but if commanding the uirt via some ha controller to send say a vol up command a number of times then the "delay"is ony required at the start to setup the zone , after that vol up signals could be sent one straight after the other....300msec is just a guess it could be shorter...

Would it be possible to broadcast the zone number (say on zone 1), and IMMEDIATELY after that to submit the IR code *on the same zone*? Would that reduce the delay?

IHMO It would be much simpler to do it the way i mentioned in my previous post ,as the addon box only has to watch for and decode only 8 ir signals (one for each zone)....Either way there would be some delay for decoding the zone command......


If others think that more zones are needed and voice their opinion, maybe Jon will consider developing a unit with more zones. That would be the best.

Yes would be interesting to hear what Jon has to say...Maybe hes currently working on something like this...

Frank
Frank Mc Alinden
 
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Joined: Sat Aug 28, 2004 3:05 am
Location: Melbourne Australia

Postby yaccri » Fri Jan 14, 2005 9:13 am

Hi Frank,

This zone control issue becomes more and more important for me.
I've been asked for a solution to control 30 air-conditioners.

One way would be to switch the current.
A better (and cheapper!) way would be to send the relevant IR code.

Frank,
Can your solution control 30 zones?

Thanks,
Yoram.
yaccri
 
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2004 9:48 am
Location: Tel-Aviv, Israel

Postby Frank Mc Alinden » Fri Jan 14, 2005 10:53 am

Hi Yaccri

Frank,
Can your solution control 30 zones?



Not in its current form.......multiple FirM units would be required with additional hardware as well as new firmware.......
Quite a task to say the least........

Frank
Frank Mc Alinden
 
Posts: 50
Joined: Sat Aug 28, 2004 3:05 am
Location: Melbourne Australia


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