Nothing too exciting today, just an update to the wiring layout of the house to incorporate the kitchen. Hopefully it helps make a bit more sense of the whole thing. Extension still to be added 
Archive for the ‘DIY’ Category
Wiring layout update
Thursday, August 27th, 2009Kitchen install completed
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009The kitchen Media Center install is now complete. I have updated the kitchen page so head there if you want to read about it.
Kitchen install almost complete… and a new remote
Friday, August 21st, 2009Well I’m almost there with the kitchen install. I spent last weekend finishing the breakfast bar and the next 2 days picking sawdust out of my hair from the router. It’s all but done bar a few small things like some silicone where it meets the wall and running more LED lights underneath. My camera’s currently knackered so it’s camera-phone shots for now, but once I get another camera I’ll sort out some proper finished photos.
However the wife also dropped the standard MCE remote in the kitchen sink so today I’ve a new one from Compro, a K100. Quite large in the hand but it’s only £12 and it has the coloured buttons for digital text etc so it’s quite a bargain.
Moving of the slot-dvd drive
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009As you may have already seen in the shots of Windows 7 on the projector, I finally gave in to the wife and had a gas fire installed in the lounge. However this meant that the slot DVD in the previous firebowl hole had to move and the only logical place was above the other switches in the right hand side.
I spent half a day and butchered the bottom half of the chimney breast to make way for the new gas fire. Because the speakers and TV are right above the fire I’ve also had a piece of stainless steel fabricated to mount directly above it so to reflect the heat out into the room and away from the TV. It was an idea from the CVO fires website.
But it was only after a while I realised I still needed to relocate the slot drive, so with access at its best I carefully cut out the hole for it and fed the power and data cables through…
And on the inside I supported it with various, er, strategically placed wooden blocks. You can see in the image below that the power and data to the drive come off an adaptor unit on the back; the power has been spliced to a 5V PSU and the 2 USB data cores have been spliced to a typical USB head that has allowed it to be plugged into a 5m USB extender that runs back up to the loft.
No shots of the new drive in place I’m afraid, but unfortunately I think the dust has gotten to it because it won’t read discs very well so a Blu-ray upgrade may be on the horizon. However here’s a shot of the fire in action; it kicks out so much heat that we only have it on for an hour then have to turn it off. I’ll take some newer shots of the drive, fire and steel plate and post them here soon. (click it for a larger version)
Wireless relay for screen and PC buttons
Friday, February 13th, 2009I have been asked several times about the relay that I have behind my TV that operates the projector screen and PC buttons. So here is an annotated photo to help explain it better. The 12V power for it is actually routed down from the loft so it works even when the spur in the lounge is off. This is so I can turn the PC on without having to turn the spur on.
This pre-assembled relay from Quasar Electronics has jumpers so that each relay can either latch or be momentary. For the screen and LED lights it must be set to latch, and for the PC buttons to momentary. You can click on this image for a larger version
Then inside the PC in the attic, the 4 core cable is spliced to the power and reset cables respectively.
And then the little RF remote works for me as follows from the comfort of my sofa…
…and this is the relay as it comes (pre-assembled model) from Quasar
To-do list for 2009…
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009In case you think I’ve come to an end on the work in my house, here’s a quick list of upcoming work (to stop me getting bored of course).
1) Install Windows7 Beta this weekend on lounge PC to see what the fuss is about 
2) Rebuild bedroom PC with new Gigabyte GA-P31-ES3G and Intel E7450 and rid the aBit and AMD to the bin (or use it to build a media server, hmmm…)
3) Remount the Music Player in the kitchen on the wall as the knock-through to the new extension meant it had to be moved. Also consider an Xbox 360 as an extender for a wall-mounted TV in the kitchen as the soon-to-be-built breakfast bar would suit a TV nicely! Then the music player could live in the extension.
4) Decorate new extension and think about the possibilities of media access in there…
5) I also want to run a few cameras around the outside of the house for security and now I think of it, the possibility of a media server (see point 2!) would work well.
6) Break all these ideas gently to the wife so she doesn’t get mad at me!