MiG, crazy mike; its time to join the Jetsons and look at Home automation, I just ordered some gear to start, I’m doing some basic wiring in the house to make at all possible, best part with some software you can use voice commands to turn lights on and off, check the weather, time, turn the heat up or down, the possibilities are endless and some what not too expensive.
will post video in near future as i progress and experiment with it…
Strange coincidence. I just finished modifying an old parallel port cable to control a transistor which in turn controlled a 250volt relay. This is controlled by software on your computer and allows you to switch on and off any electric appliance. even do Pulse Width Modulation to control the brightness of lights, etc. I just found out I don’t have a parallel port on my computer 
Back to the drawing board…
YEAH! I ended up using my serial port instead. Found a pinout diagram and wrote a bit of code to switch on and off the the “request to send” pin. Pretty excited!
ya or buy one its called the firecracker.
tinyurl.com/6yyv76
I think Mig will be most impressed when automation gets him fresh beans, grinds them and then serves his coffee to him piping hot.
Or mows my lawn.
or mutes the kids and wife or gets a beer for u
I’ve looked at X10 stuff a few times over the years. I’ve wanted to tinker with it, but just never got around to picking up some.
Mig check out this link
hackedgadgets.com/2007/03/23/rob … d-mop-bot/
And Astro I know I can buy all this stuff but I get kicks out of making it.
I’ve looked at X10 stuff a few times over the years. I’ve wanted to tinker with it, but just never got around to picking up some.
X10 is pretty good stuff and real cheap too.
I’ll get the hang of this yet lol
I’ll see your home automation and raise you two DC stepper motors and an Etch-a-Sketch.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3384/3280887094_3776095cf1_b.jpg
wtf lol
Have you ever tried to draw a spiral with an Etch-a-sketch? Only with robots, eh?
