Hello again!
I know it has been a long while since I have posted here, but things were at a bit of a standstill regarding my install and my project sat dormant for MONTHS. I was eagerly awaiting roofing contractors’ arrival to get things moving on this, but for some reason I fell to the bottom of their list up until a few weeks ago.
‘What do roofing contractors have to do with home automation?’ you ask. Well, directly, absolutely nothing. Indirectly, everything. The roofers didn’t just replace shingles. They built up the roof 6 inches and insulated it as well. (I guess the original home owner/builder didn’t think he required insulation OR lights in the house). I took this opportunity to wire my very dark house with 35 light fixtures, 6 in-wall switches, 10 micro-switches, 4 plug-ins, 2 ceiling fans, and over 1000 ft. of electrical wire! All of the wiring had to be ran on top of the roof due to the unique construction of the home, namely cathedral ceilings and log walls. Insulation was then sprayed on top of the wiring, then a new tin roof installed. I basically had one shot at this before it was sealed up forever, so I had to make sure it was done right! I had the install planned down to the wire months ago in anticipation of this happening, and managed to have everything installed correctly with the only mistake being that I installed a 3-wire run where a 2-wire run was needed. Better than the other way around…
This also meant that all the wiring had to make its way from the top of the roof to the new sub panel in the basement thru a chimney way, which meant ripping out one of my few drywall walls for access. Small price to pay.
I installed most of my micro-switches and dimmers in light boxes instead of switch boxes as the octagon boxes provide much more space than the receptacle boxes, and wire fill rules dictate that installing them in receptacle boxes would require a huge oversized box. I had already installed 1-1/2" box extensions on most of my light fixtures so they had plenty of room. I am controlling eave lighting with micro-dimmers, but due to our chilly winter climate here in Canada, I had to install them in boxes inside the house since the outdoor temperature extremes would be outside the operating temperature range of the device. This made for some very creative wiring runs!
I also installed 6 alarm panel zones; 2 door sensors, 2 motion sensors, a CO detector and a smoke/heat detector and ran to my panel in the basement thru the same chimney way. That cost me 500 ft of sensor wire to complete.
While I was at it, I figured I would also address internet connectivity as well, and installed 2 runs of Cat6 into the master bedroom for the soon-to-be-installed big screen in the bedroom with an MX III Android XBMC box and hardwired Sonos connection. This will be connected to an ethernet switch installed in the electrical/server room in the basement of the house where it will be connected to my router. I prefer hard wired connections over WIFI connections any day; more robust, quicker, and much more reliable.
I installed more IKEA 12V cable lighting, so dimming via Z-Wave with these devices is not an option as they use 120VAC to 12VDC transformers. I was hoping that an Arduino PCB for LED dimming would be available to use as a controller but I see it has yet to come available for use. I have built one on a prototype board but it will not fit inside the enclosure and its a mess of wires. Would much rather have a custom PCB built for purpose and the one that @rosskinard was working on looked fantastic. I am unsure if he managed to work out the bugs tho.
I get my final electrical inspection completed in two weeks when I can officially ‘flick the switch’, so the next few weeks will be spent getting the DSC alarm panel installed and wired so the panel talks with the Vera and the zones I have installed will work as triggers for scenes. I have already programmed the panel, installed all the cards in an enclosure, bench tested all the zones, and tested the plug in, so the final wire-in should bring few surprises.
I have also installed the sensor for my Dakota Alert driveway monitor so that will be wired to the panel via relay outputs on the receiver.
For those of you waiting for the results of the @RexBeckett fan controller, I ran into a few snags with an undersized voltage regulator and had to order a higher capacity unit. I still haven’t soldered it in yet but I promise I will do it soon as I need it for my fan controls on my newly installed fans.
Keep you posted!
However, I am very stubborn and persistent and don’t want to bother the ‘masters’ (Richard and Rex) with my programming problems. Instead, I am using all the tools they have created to try and find the solutions to these problems on my own. It has been very time consuming and frustrating, but I have noticed that when I finally get it work, the solution was clearly outlined in 
. Thanks