Almost 225 metres...

I'm getting close to having all the electrical work done. I may hit 225 metres (738 feet) of electrical cable. And that's just 2-conductor cable. There's some 3-conductor cable in there too. All I have remaining to do, are the bar pendant light fixtures, the 3-way switch for the light over the stairs and terminating the lights that are currently tied off of circuits upstairs. The builders installed basic pull-cord lights in the basement that are powered by circuits from upstairs. I intend to remove the lights and terminate the lines at an outlet. This way, I won't have to terminate it in a junction box somewhere.

The House Is Still Standing. Go Figure....

I decided to take advantage of the warm weather on Sunday to put a 4 inch hole through the side of the house for the basement washroom exhaust vent. I started drilling from inside to discover that the drill bit wouldn't go deep enough. Now, no guy wants to discover that their tool isn't long enough so, feeling rather deflated, I went to Home Depot to find a solution for my small problem. Twenty minutes later, I was back in business. Using both a wood bit and a masonry bit to get through the stucco, I was able to bore a hole big enough for the exhaust vent. I installed a vent hood and sealed it with caulking. After all that, the house didn't fall down. So, I guess I did it right.

Aside from that I managed to complete the wiring for four more circuits. Just one more to go and then I can install the circuit breakers.

Construction resumes!

Well, I finally broke down and bought a new drill. I found a 2 tool combo kit that included a drill and an impact driver for about the cost of one tool alone. I stood there at Home Depot staring at this package wondering why it was priced like that. It seemed kind of too good to be true and usually when something is too good to be true, it is. I got it anyway. Maybe one of them will blow up later...

I finished wiring a circuit -- the outlets in the home theatre room. Most of the outlets are in the exterior wall which was already insulated and sealed with vapour barrier. So, it was a bit of pain in the ass cutting back the plastic and pushing the fibreglass out the way so I could drill holes through the studs. Not to mention the fibreglass fibres kicked up with the drilling. I wore a mask but it doesn't catch everything. But now, the plastic's all Tuck-taped sealed up again.

Five more circuits to go. Then I can move on to the home theatre speaker wiring, projector cables, control cables for the basement heating duct servo motors, data cables for the 5 temperature sensors and 2 humidity sensors scattered throughout the house (and a set outside in the backyard), microphone cables for the voice recognition, and a sensor cable for the kitchen cooking probe.

Receiver doesn't know what hit him..

So the software development continues. I finished writing the service that let's any other software module in the system to command the Pioneer VSX9120 receiver. This model includes a serial interface and the Pioneer engineers were nice enough to document the command protocol and place it on their website. The module that I wrote will allow the control of volume, listening mode settings and radio tuner. The receiver provides audio output to the home theatre set up but also the whole house audio installation for listening to music, radio or for the central computer system to notify me of anything, like incoming phone calls, emails, or whatever.... When listening to music or radio, I can control the volume from any touchscreen in the house. The automation system can have control of the receiver as well. I can have the communication module lower the volume of music playback so I can answer a phone call, for example.

Voice recognition update

I haven't posted in awhile. With the drill battery charger still on backorder, I've been busy working on the software side of this project.

I found a bunch of wall-mountable microphones which are specifically designed to be sensitive to vocal frequencies. Their primary application is for conference rooms but are ideal for voice recognition applications. I was also able to find a microphone mixer that automatically switches on the microphone receiving a vocal input. Today, I ran some tests to see how well the setup would work for voice recognition with a PC. I was able to get about 70% accuracy which is not the greatest but I spent only a little time training. These results are still not entirely conclusive to know if this will work fully installed in the house but I figure I'll give it a try. I wanted to see if at least some recognition would work so I'll go ahead and run the microphone wires throughout the house. The microphones themselves install in single-gang electric device boxes and look just like light switches. Worse case, if voice recognition doesn't work, I can pull the microphones out and patch the holes. Drywall is easy to fix.

So, if the voice recognition does work, it will provide another level of input alongside the various touchscreens to be installed throughout the house. The goal here isn't to replace everything with a voice command and tie myself to that. Everything can still be manually controlled so I wouldn't have to change the way I live my life. The voice command just fills in for those moments where it's more convenient to. After coming home after work and telling the system to playback any telephone messages is a simple example of an application for voice recognition.

If you want it done right...

I should have just ordered the charger for the drill myself. The guy I spoke to at the local Black and Decker supply store said they had chargers available but when I got there last Saturday, they didn't have any so they have it on order. So, hopefully, I'll have it for next weekend.

In the meantime, I've been moving the software development forward. I had previously developed the music playing system that allowed me to play any track out of my MP3 collection over my whole house audio. I have speakers in the living room, master bedroom and office. I'll be installing additional speakers in the kitchen, exercise room and eventually outdoor speakers for the deck when I build that. This week I'm upgrading the software to be able to support the new Pioneer receiver that I got for the home theatre. It will also support the house audio. Up till now, I've been using the PC's sound card as the amplifier. Now, I can use the receiver which will be much better. Plus, I'll have access to the radio. I don't really listen to the radio that much but since it's there, I might as well take advantage of it. I'll be writing a software module that will allow the music or home theatre software to control the receiver for volume control, audio characteric presets, and radio tuner.

The First Setback

I set out as usual to get some work done this weekend and discovered that the battery charger for my drill had died. So one battery was completely dead and I was able to get one use out the other battery. Fortunately, I was able to source a replacement charger but won't have time to pick it up until next weekend. In the meantime, I can switch gears and work on the other components.

I successfully got a TV tuner card to work in the HTPC. The only uncertainty there was that the HTPC is running XP Embedded and I wasn't sure if all the necessary software components were present to allow the card to work. Now with this working, I can watch TV on the big screen if I want. I may use this to send video to the living room TV and/or the exercise room TV. This will mean I would only have to get one HD terminal if I ever decide to upgrade my cable to HD.