Planning & Waiting

I have a couple projects waiting in the wings - upgrading our security camera system and doing basic automation at our other place. I've been spending the last couple weeks figuring out what and how to go about things and I've finally got my plan together.

For cameras, I'm looking at upgrading to some day/night bullets. I still need to find specific cameras, but in the meantime, I can use what I have. I have re-purposed the D201GLY2 based kitchen PC to be a lower power camera server. I moved it from its slimline desktop case to a tower so I can fit more hard drives and an Avermedia NV3000 capture card. It has 4 video inputs and can capture at 30 FPS total, which shouldn't be a problem. I only have a couple cameras I want to monitor so this should be sufficient. I also moved the Sparkle Power SPI180LE high efficiency power supply into the tower, but since it's a low profile supply, I had to create a mount to use it. I ended up hollowing out an old AT power supply, snipping some parts off and drilling some holes so I could mount the SPI180LE inside it. Then I was able to install the unit into the tower. It looks pretty good. Now, I'm just waiting for the NV3000 and some BNC to Cat-5 baluns to arrive.

The remote home automation project will be starting shortly as well. I picked up another NSLU2 to use as the automation server. I will be installing OpenSlug on it and implementing very basic control with HeyU and a CM11A. The CM11A will be connected to the Slug via an Edgeport USB to Serial adapter. I may also pick up a W800 X10 RF receiver so I can put some sensors (like moisture/leak detectors) on DS10As. HeyU conveniently supports the W800. Finally, I got an Airlink wired IP camera to test out. It works nicely (and has a Java interface in addition to an ActiveX interface) so I will probably put it over there as well. I'm waiting for the Slug to come and then I can start working on this.