Please help me, renovating the house and need help soon...

[oreoboy13]

I have bought a two storey flat with a large double bedroom with an on-suite, and a small second bedroom/study, with a communal bathroom upstairs. Downstairs is a hall, large sitting room generous kitchen and toilet. There is natural light in every room, and access to the roof through skylights upstairs.

It is a georgian building in some disrepair, as such i will be renovating all the bathrooms and kitchen, sanding and making good the original floorboards, and general decorating.

Now this would seem to me to be the perfect time put in all the cables i need for future toys.

However i need some help; i am not completely useless, i am a mech eng, built a PC last weekend and took 6 floorboards to hide the s-vid cable/speaker wire as a temporary solution in the sitting room.

Maybe if i spell out what i would like to do i can be pointed in the right direction;

What i would like to do;

UPSTAIRS; have in ceiling speakers in all the rooms including bathrooms; with PPC control and Dimmer switches (for volume) on the walls. Have all the lighting(lamps aswell) and curtains controlled/automated via the PPC1.

I know how to do some of the stuff but not all, i would run a music/video server with xlobby/mainlobby and interface with a wireless lan. BUT i dont know how i would use the dimmer switches or the lighting or the wiring?

DOWNSTAIRS;

Have the Home cinema (amp, hcpc) stuff in the cupboard under the stairs controlled by the PPC2 (another instance of xlobby server, pulling from the file server upstairs), but have a dimmer in the kitchen to control the volume on the amp. I also wouldn't mind sending a stream of the SKy box to the second bedroom.

Have all the lighting(lamps aswell), curtains controlled by PPC2


I have SOME idea in theory how to do the Hifi stuff using file servers, xlobby, wireless networks etc (i imagine i can pay for mainlobby if xlobby is to buggy), but i am Totallly lost on the lighting, curtains, Dimmers and integrating the control with the PPC.

And i am totally lost with the wiring though.

I am thinking about going in and seeing a specialist dealer and having a chat with, but they are so expensive.

If you have a read this far, thank you! If anybody can point me in the right or give me any help, i would be very grateful.

[antipasto]

Some things I've learned in the HTPC world:

1. For short unbalanced runs (RCA, Stereo, otherwise analog connections, speakers, SVideo, etc)... just use CAT5 with your connectors. If you do any networking, you probably have a bunch lying around, and it's good cable. It is usually not shielded, but unless you have a very very noisy motor or exposed wire that you're wiring around, it shouldn't matter.

2. For longer runs, go with balanced connections (ala XLR)... This is a bit expensive to step up and step down these cable runs, but your audio will be superb, and this is what most churches, etc use. I *think* you can do this with video signal as well, but I haven't ever done that.

3. You can use 2.4gz wirless networking, 2.4gz stereo wireless television, or a microwave oven, but not more than one at a time ;p 900 mhz doesn't have that limitation, but has a shorter range and is more lossy. Video stuff on 900mhz usually only has mono audio... so get two sets of transcievers heheh ;p

4. If you're having ground loop problems, isolate your cable TV system or get rid of the VCR at the least. To create a 1:1 transformer, use two opposing rabbit-ear adapters (one with terminals, and one with leads... hook them together, both will have coax connectors on them, available at RadioShack), and this will isolate the CATV ground from your system.

5. Check your digital audio connections, they are subject to CAT5-like cable length limitations... Same with SVideo.

6. If you use SB Live! or Audigy cards, check out the KX Driver project... it allows you to have two seperate stereo audio outputs among other cool things...

... that's all the stuff I can think of at the moment... Oh! Most houses in the last 10 or so years have some sort of metal framing in the walls that act like a faraday cage to some extent.... If you're having reception problems, move your antennae away from the walls, and think about line-of-sight on 2.4ghz.

Take care,

Thom

[jmv]

For some good reading go to AVS Forum and search for Mastiff...he has done a lot of home audio distribution (although not using the Xlobby route)...Rhinoman here is probably the most advanced.

You can also go to Smarthome.com and take a look at the stuff they sell there (although they are expensive so I wouldn't buy from them).

Regarding in-wall dimmers, Niles audio sells impediance balanced stereo volume controls that you wire between your amps and your speakers...although I have to admit I don't like them (I have them installed and have bypassed them and use the amps volume control)...the problems with the dimmers are that they get turned down and then you have to go walk over and turn them back up...I prefer using the PPC / remote for volume control at the amp level for independent amps for each speaker.

The topology of an Xlobby driven network is:


PPC/Client 1---> XLobby Server (stereo pairs on multiple sound cards e.g. MAudio Delta 410's) 2---> Power Amps 3---> speakers

Path 1 is 802.11 or wired ethernet
Path 2 is Line level RCA jacks to the amps
Path 3 is Speaker Wire to the individual speakers.

You would insert the dimmers into path 3 if you wanted that route, But I think installing something that could send feedback to Xlobby to control the volume would be prefered since that just requres the Client to reverse the process...

If you have more specific questions please post them.

mv

[ThE ScReW]

if you are able to use everthing wired (exept the ppc) then do it wired : with wired connections you are sure of a connection. I still here problems with wifi : bad connections, routers that hangs, .....

If it is possible i should use wired connections !

Another thing : better to much then less cables and pipes, install some empty pipes where you can add cables in later if that should be needed!

sory for the bad explaination, my english

[rhinoman]

For speaker cables run wires, for ceiling speakers, even mid-end stuff then cat5 or 79strand is fine.

If your running speaker cables then run network cables where you can as they are infinitly more reliable than wireless. I use wires for connecting PC's and wireless for for my PPC's and a laptop for internet browsing.

My server and main xlobby machine has 2*delta410's feeding phono outs to nearby amps/poweramps, largly the cheapest I could find secondhand. The quality of multiroom playback is not critical for me. These feed 7 zones + a 15m phono run to the HTPC's amplifier in the lounge. This allows the whole house to be synced for party mode. For critical listening In the lounge the HTPC runs its own version of xlobby pulling files from the server and has a RME card feeding nearby amps.

For volume control we just use the PPC's, the skin modded a bit to make the control a bit easier to get at. I looked at volume controls for each room but decided against it on hasstle factor of installation and getting round it another fashion.

The bit that I really wanted in addition was to playback a radio source through the multirooms with volume control through the PPC. Steven has added support for a workround for this that I explained in another thread.

Was there any answers amongst my ramblings??

[andylaurence]

Rule number one in home automation, you can never have enough CAT5. The more you get into it, the more you will realise how useful it is. I'd suggest you start by running at least 2 CAT5 runs to each corner of each room, whether you terminate them or not. Add to that at least 2 more CAT5 runs everywhere you expect to have a TV, and two to every light socket and set of curtains. If possible, double the above.

The reason for all that CAT5 is you can run more than just Ethernet over it. For example, you can run Ethernet, audio, video, infra-red, lighting control and other low voltage controllers over it.

As for mains cabling, I suggest you put each light on its own circuit all of which terminating in one location. This enables you to use whatever method you like for turning lights on and off (normal switches, X10, CBus, Idratek, DMX, etc.).

For audio cabling, I'd run good quality cables from a central location in each room to every position you anticipate having speakers (each corner as a minimum). Bear in mind you'll want some form of power control at the central location you choose in each room, and you will want CAT5 there to get control signals to it.

For video cabling, I'd try and keep it all local, as you'll get maximum quality that way. See http://ha.andylaurence.co.uk for what I've done so far, and what for some people is a rather minimal install. http://www.automatedhome.co.uk is a great place to learn all about the subject.

HTH,
Andy