[schalliol]

I would like to find a way to either broadcast IR from my machine or control a power circuit (X10?) from it on an OS X Command. The idea is to cool down my equipment area when temparature reaches a certain level in different zones of the area (contains 4 computers and network gear in fairly close proximity).

Here's what I want to do (yea, I'm a bit nutty, but oh well):

I have an APC Smart-UPS with Web/SNMP Card and a dual probe temparature/humidity Environmental Monitoring Card in an expansion chassis. Through APC Network Shutdown 2.0 for OS X I should be able to have the system to run a UNIX command whenever a high temparature mark is eclipsed from the system. That part should now be pretty easy (given the hardware and software.

Now, the making a command through a peripheral that broadcasts either IR to an IR controlled fan I have near the network area or a different fan through a normal AC power connection. If I wanted to get fancy, I could command different speeds or rotation of the fan depending on which zone was tripped (External 1, 2, or UPS internal). So, how to emmit a learned IR signal? I do have a Pronto from Philips that I can use to read the IR signal and theoretically re-emit, but what hardware can emit this signal, i don't have any, unless I somehow used my Pronto, which I would not be doing since it would be in another room. If the IR isn't a possibility, has anyone used a Mac to control X-10 devices? If so there might be some way to run an OS X command that emits a signal with some hardware/software over the power line to turn on or off the device.

Thoughts?

[schalliol]

No one? Some of you guys/gals really pull off engineering feats, no idea here?

[schalliol]

I'm bumping this 6 months later....anyone?

[james@FISH]

G'day there,

I'm no expert, nor am I a regular on these forums, but I'll try to help you as best I can.

I can't help with the IR, but X10 is something that I've had a bit to do with and it's certainly a viable solution for what you're looking to achieve.

There are a number of Mac OS X applications which will interface with an X10 computer controller. The two better applications (Indigo and ThinkingHome) will allow you to control them using external sources such as an AppleScript, and you can certianly execute an AppleScript from the command line using a Unix-like command. Basically you get your UPS software to trigger an AppleScript which tells your X10 software to send an event to an Appliance Module to which your fan/cooler is connected which turns it on, and send another event to do the opposite when the temp drops appropriately.

There are plenty of resources you can look at on the net to figure out how all this is done. As an Aussie I use a company called Eon3 to source my X10 gear (www.eon3.com), but look at www.x10.com as a good starting point if you are in the US. For your basic setup you'll need a Computer Controller (which comes with a serial interface, so a USB-Serial adapter is also required for the Mac), an Appliance Module (essentially a module which connects between your wall outlet and the fan which acts as a remote controllable switch) and one of the two software packages described above. All of the X10 stuff should be available in a 'Computer Starter Kit' or similar, which usually bundles a Computer Controller with one or more Appliance Modules so you can get started with X10.


Of course, once you are into X10, you could also buy a thermostat module and use X10 to directly control the fan based on temperature values sent directly to the computer over the X10 interface. The possibilities move on from there.

Hope this is of some help.

James

Originally posted by schalliol:
I'm bumping this 6 months later....anyone?

[schalliol]

Thanks for the tips, I guess I need to see about whether I can take a command that's run (like from the terminal) and make it work with the X10 connection, etc.