Looking for a 120V Power switch controlled from EventGhost

[ijourneaux]

I need to use EventGhost to power cycle a device. I was wonering if anyone had a recommendation on a IR (or other type) of power swithc that I can control from Event Ghost.

My first attempt was to use an IR remote controlled power switch (from DealExtreme). I can get the swithx to work with a regular IR remote but the power swithc won't react to the IR signals coming from the IR Blaster on my Adaptec AVC-3610 (MCE compatible). The blaster works within EventGhost as I have ot controlling the volume level on my Speaker system.

Perhaps the IRBlaster on the Adaptec AVC-3610 is marginal. Is there a different recommendation for an IR blaster controllable from EventGhost?

Take Care

[zian]

In the past I have used x10 powerline control modules along with an x10 Firecracker (old com port style)
You can get them all pretty cheap on eBay etc.
Maybe not the best/up to date solution but once I got the Firecracker working with EG in WinXP (with the help of this forum and some code) it did the trick.

[ijourneaux]

Ok Found a USB X-10 Firecracker RF interface (CM19A) for the PC and a LM 465 X-10 Lamp Module that will allow me to power cycle the device I am working with.

Will I be able to output commands from EventGhost via the Firecracker Interface? Using the X-10 Plugin? Reading the ddiscussion on the X10 Plug in it seems to be focused on the X10 Remote.

[Killedbyalbany]

In the past I have used x10 powerline control modules along with an x10 Firecracker (old com port style)
You can get them all pretty cheap on eBay etc.
Maybe not the best/up to date solution but once I got the Firecracker working with EG in WinXP (with the help of this forum and some code) it did the trick.

Could you point me in the direction of how you got this working? Right now, mine is setup in a pretty inelegant way, where Eventghost is just sending the Firecracker program a bunch of keyboard presses, and it has a tendency to freeze up on me as a result.

Thanks!

[zian]

Sorry its taken me so long to reply.

Ok Found a USB X-10 Firecracker RF interface (CM19A) for the PC and a LM 465 X-10 Lamp Module that will allow me to power cycle the device I am working with.

Will I be able to output commands from EventGhost via the Firecracker Interface? Using the X-10 Plugin? Reading the ddiscussion on the X10 Plug in it seems to be focused on the X10 Remote.

I'm not sure if any of the setup or information that I used (long ago) will help with your cm19a. What I used was a cm17a (serial port style not usb).

Could you point me in the direction of how you got this working? Right now, mine is setup in a pretty inelegant way, where Eventghost is just sending the Firecracker program a bunch of keyboard presses, and it has a tendency to freeze up on me as a result.

Thanks!

I'm not 100% sure (it's been so long since i have used my serial port firecracker) but i believe this is the thread that helped me get mine working.
http://www.eventghost.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=667
I'll try hooking it up again today and see how it goes.

btw...
If you like elegant solutions I am probably the LAST guy you should look to. lol
But I sure can cut and paste and hack and smack some code... sometimes even successfully.

[zian]

I think some of my above post could be wrong (what else is new?)
(but it might help somebody so it's gonna stay)

It's coming back to me now.
I just dug out my old X10 Firecracker cm17a and plugged it into my WinXP PC and tried using some of my old old EG X10 lighting control scripts that I used to use.

At first (before reboot after plugging in Firecracker) I would try one of the macros and it would pop up an error saying some such thing as "X10 Hardware Not Present"...

I installed ActiveHome SDK and then rebooted...
(I'm not sure if I needed to even install the SDK...Will find out in a few minutes after a another reboot 'cause I uninstalled it.

I also remember now that I had it set up so that EG would fire up some batch files that I created way back when.
The batch files would end up firing up/talking to another lil tiny exe file called sct.exe

One of the batch files looks like this...
@ECHO OFF
"D:\Program Files\EventGhost\X10BatchFiles\sct.exe" /x10_Address A1 /x10_Command On /x10_CommPort Com1

Now again I'm not sure what driver (if any) is allowing my PC to talk to/see the serial port Firecracker.
I have loaded so many X10 drivers in the past that one of them might be doing the job and I don't even know about it.

If there is a way to tell how/what/who is getting/giving the data from the com port I'd be glad to try it and see if I can tell you for sure what driver is being used/needed.

Make sense?

I'll reboot now and see if the Firecracker still works after the ActiveHome SDK uninstall.
(that would rule out the need for that software/driver?)

[zian]

After (uninstall ActiveHome SDK) and reboot the Firecracker still works.

I also have a FireFly x10 RC...
That shows "X10 USB Wireless Transceiver" in Device Manager
and also "X10nets.exe" in Win Task Manager.

The Firecracker still works in EG AFTER I disable/end process both of the above.


Hope some of this helps somebody.

[ijourneaux]

Thansk xian. I just got my firecracker usb interface yesterday. Been dying to try it out maybe tonight.

[ijourneaux]

I have my X10 USB firecracker hardware. It is unclear to me how to actually control and X10 lamp module from EventGhost. I can't seem to locate and action where I would tell the X10 lamp module to turn on or off.

It wouldt be the first time I missed something obvious

[zian]

Do you also have an x10 Transceiver module?
That would be the doohickey that picks up signals from your PC or x10 remotes and then sends it on to any lamp/appliance/etc modules. It sends the signals through the power lines.

[ijourneaux]

I got my transeiver module today. and confirmed that it works. I won't have a chance to try and get it integrated into Eventghost until next weekend.

Take Care

[ijourneaux]

Ok finally have all of the parts.

Firecracker USB interface
X10 Transciever module
X10 lamp module

Using the firecracker software, I have confirmed that I can turn the lamp module on and off.

So what is the best way to control the X10 lamp module with EventGhost? It seems like the X10 plugin is really for the X10 RF remote. Am I missing something?

Take Care

[bhartta]

I'm exactly in the same situation as you, ijourneaux. It's been a good 2 years since your last post so did you manage to figure it out?

[blaher]

I use the EventGhost X10 plug-in in conjunction with a CM 11 http://www.marmitek.com/en/manual/9647.pdf, which has a USB to serial connector. You don't need the firecracker, or activehome,etc. software, just the EventGhost plugin.

[themaster1]

What is the end goal of all that ? Power up/down the psu ?