Homeowner Forum / Home Automation / April 2008

I am still somewhat new to all this so pardon the newbie questions...
I have 2 manual controllers, a CMA11, a number of modules (light and
applicance), and a couple switches (XPS3 alone and with XPSS or WS14A)
installed in my house. Generally, these work well and as expected.

I have an IR connecting block that only accepts a 3 conductor mini
plug and an IR receiver that has bare wires. I want to add a miniplug
to the receiver but I don't know which wire goes to which conductor on
the mini plug. Does anyone one know how this should be wired up? The

I have a two story home, and I'm thinking about going with the
IQvision IQ853 (5 megapixel cameras) for home security cameras.  I
want to cover all four sides of my home with four cameras (I might
need six).  That seems easy, but when I look at the angles and where I

Ok, I'm a dummy.   I put 4 ceiling boxes on the same switch, now I want to
control them separately.  What are my choices besides:
 1.. rewiring
 2.. pull chains

Given a table of sunset times, such as:
Day #    Sunset (H:M):
---------    ----------
1            17:10

I live in the Northeast and have an oil fired furnace which provides
hot water to heat the house and for domestic hot water.
During the warm months we turn off the oil furnace when we do not need
hot water to save energy.

I just can't imagine paying $550 for a cable:
AudioQuest Columbia Audio interconnect cables with XLR plugs (pair) 2-meter
http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-Columbia-interconnect-cables-2-meter/dp/B0013LGDOC/
Don <www.donwiss.com> (e-mail link at home page bottom).

Need help with Compact Fluorescent
California Home
Our vanity bathroom has a 26W  Nutone Compact Fluorescent 2 pin
light / with fan - ceiling light.

All the above are IP network cameras for home monitoring. The BLC-30
and the later BLC-131 feature remote pan/tilt while the BLC-131 also
features sound and MPEG-4 streaming. However...
I have found that the cheaper BLC-1 (wired) and the BLC-20 (wired and

I'm working on a whole house FM transmitter project and would like to
mount the xmitter in my cupola to get it good and high.  So I need to get
the audio line out signal from my wiring closet up there.
I'm considering pulling pairs 3&4 off a twisted 4-pair phone cable and

I have a remote wall switch that controls an outlet that I plug a lamp into.
This allows me to turn on/off the lamp from a remote and from the wall
switch.
Currently, this wall swtich is x10. Based on past experience, if I

Two questions:
(1) I have a remotelinc, a switchlinc V2 (in wall dimmer) with no load, and
a lamplinc with a lamp. How do I link all of them together such that both
the remotelinc and the switchlinc control the lamplinc, and the LEDs on the

I am somewhat new to all this so pardon what may be a dumb question...
I just ordered and received one WS14A/XPSS and two XPS-3 20 amp light
switches. I just took them out of the box and was trying there switch
action out. I expect the switch to have a solid toggle back/forth like ...

'afternoon.
I'm in the UK, and I'd like to connect some external wireless PIRs into
my home network. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of X10 compatible
devices because the frequency of the MS14 (external PIR) is restricted

I just bought an insteon starter kit to replace my x10 system. After I set
it up, I discover there is a delay between pressing the button on the
remotelink and the light turning on/off. This is one of the things I hate
about x10. Very disappointed insteon also has this problem.