In reverse chronological order, starting from the last thing done on Sunday April 20.
1. Installed new bedroom light switch at doorway. Uses an Insteon Remote Switch, with intuitive up and down operation just like a real Decora switch. I've never had a working doorway switch, and until now it was necessary to walk into the darkened room and fiddle with a tiny remote control by the bedside to get the light to turn on. (I could also use a keypad switch in the adjacent computer room, but it was impossible to explain to friends, and not always convenient either.) Last year I inquired of electrician John Jones as to what it would cost to install a light switch by door. I never got an answer, I suspect it would have cost at least $700 because of numerous technical difficulties with the location and the need to put in an all new outlet box to go with the switch box as well as doing lots of drywall cutting and repair. But installation of a battery powered remote switch was easily done by me starting late on Sunday night. The original home builder put a switch box in an inconvenient location inside the room, and as it turns out it could not control anything useful in the room, including the ceiling fan, for technical reasons, except a distant outlet that I preferred to have unswitched.
2. Adjusted and successfully tested Swann security camera DVR for the first time. After I installed it two years ago, I had never successfully tested playback on the Swann DVR (a successful test would be catching some known event, such as me opening the gate). After several initial unsuccessful attempts back then, I figured that if it ever became a serious issue, I would somehow be able to get the recordings off the hard drive, even if I hadn't done so before. But that wasn't a reassuring idea. Every now and then I would try again, but kept running into roadblocks in the awful user interface. But this Sunday, after replacing the hard drive, I finally figured it out, and I also figured out that since I am recording from all 3 cameras 24/7, the Motion Detection feature actually makes recorded events harder to find. While recording is done normally in 30 minute blocks, if motion is detected, it interrupts the normal recording block and makes a special "alarm" recording just after each motion event (which could be trivial, such as wind blowing the rose bush). Then, after a few minutes recording to a special alarm segment, it resumes recording to a normal segment. So the recordings were broken up into an endless series of separate little files. If you really are recording 24/7 like me, the best thing to do is turn all motion detection off, which I finally did, otherwise you have to identify endless alarm and non-alarm segments within the desired interval and play back each one separately (the DVR does not merge separate recorded segments for playback--a huge misfeature IMO). After turning all motion detection off, I was able to scroll through a 30 minute "no alarms" recording segment and see myself opening the gate. I also set the DVR clock for exact time. My unit is, by my personal choice, not connected to any computer networks--if I were to do that it would set time automatically. But somehow, despite having been disconnected for more than a week, and untouched for years, it still did at least have the date correct.
3. Got Swann DVR installed and operating over TV network and with remote control instead of mouse and computer monitor. For some reason, the Swann control menus do not, by default, appear in the VGA output device. Instead, they show only in the video output, unless you specially enable menus in the VGA output. Anyway, rather than continuing trying to buck the system, I decided to go along and connected the video output of the Swann DVR. I connected the Swann to an unused input of one of my DVR/DVDR's and watched it from two different TV's in the house. And now the remote control operates like it should.
4. Installed and formatted new hard drive in Swann security camera DVR. I installed the new very quiet and cool Western Digital Green hard drive I discussed earlier in this blog--which sounded like a vast improvement over the original hot and noisy hard drive. But then, I was then discouraged to find out that the previous hard drive was also a Western Digital Green drive! But the new one seems to be very much better, fortunately: very quiet and cool as advertised. I suspect the old one has had serious issues for a long time, possibly since I bought it, and wasn't living up to it's allegedly Green status. The earliest version of the Western Digital Green drives may have had a misfeature in constantly trying to repark the heads. My original drive was making a shrieking noise for at least the last year as if the bearing was about to go out--but I thought it was a noisy fan (which the DVR doesn't even have). It had been the loudest thing in the kitchen, and now it's the quietest, in fact I can't hear it at all above the sound of the fans in my other three DVR's. UPDATE: after a few days, I've started noticing the hard drive noise again. It doesn't make a whine like some old (or new) hard drives, but a kind of bumping sound when the head seeks. I think this is exaggerated by the way Swann (or actually, the original OEM manufacturer) mounts the hard drive upside down. The label inside the DVR insists that you mount the drive this way, and the right handed SATA connector only lets you mount the drive that way. I think the reasoning was that the circuit board of the drive is the hottest part, so mounting the drive upside down lets the heat escape better. But I've already made adjustments for the heat with the holes in the case on top and bottom, and the newer version Western Digital Green drive does run much cooler anyway. So I've ordered a new left handed SATA cable which will permit me to mount the drive the normal way, with circuit board on the bottom. I might also apply some electrical tape underneath the drive where the fins are in back to help absorb the noise from head seeking. Once I started hearing the head seeking noises, the unit is now clearly noisier than the two other DVR's in the kitchen, which make zero head seeking noise.
5. Modified Swann security camera DVR chassis for cooler operation (so the next hard drive will hopefully last more than 2 years). I was planning to cut a big hole in the bottom of the case with a chassis punch. But that would have required drilling a larger hole than I felt comfortable doing with all the circuitry still in place. So instead I nibbled a couple of existing holes in the bottom into one much bigger hole, using a chassis nibbler, right underneath the most critical part of the hard drive. And I did drill three holes in the top cover above where the hard drive would be mounted. And I added 3/4 inch feet to the bottom of the chassis to allow more air to flow upwards into the chassis. And I mounted the hard drive as far up from the bottom of the case as it would go (whereas the factory had done the reverse). The result was a success, though I can't say for sure how much difference my chassis changes made, because I also replaced the hard drive itself--which may have made most of the difference. But with the modified chassis, and the new hard drive, the chassis is running about 15 degrees cooler than before. It barely gets to 87 degrees F now, which is about 10 degrees above ambient. Running at a low temperature like that is how I've kept my Amiga hard drives running for 20 years.
6. Gave Queen's Room the dog test. Friend came over on Saturday night with her big and imperfectly trained dog. We watched most of a movie in the Kitchen, only occasionally having to advise the dog to get away from stuff. Dog did start sniffing cord of vaporizer (and especially the plug, which I figured might soon be chewed off) which had been left on the floor so I moved it up to cabinet. Then, with 20 minutes remaining in the movie, we moved to Queen's room and lay down in bed to watch rest of the movie. The dog remained well behaved in the Queen's Room mostly (only twice trying to jump up into bed), and did no damage to anything, even after a couple hours of our napping in bed. Of course I had spent a week preparing making sure there was nothing on the floor to be chewed.
7. Potted new plants by front door and planted rosemary near driveway. (Many thanks to friend who enjoys doing these things and insisted on doing it this weekend.)
8. Installed new six outlet adapter in Kitchen so that coffee maker can still be plugged in where I have lots of technology stuff also plugged in. Actually, because of the large size of special power supplies and Insteon modem, I can only use 4 outlets even with the 6 outlet adapter. But that still permits the crucial one "extra" outlet for actual kitchen appliances--in particular the essential coffee maker. With additional rewiring (hard to contemplate) I could make it two extra outlets. (This screw on outlet adapter was ordered online with rush shipping and installed just in time to be ready for a contemplated overnight stay. None of the ones sold in local stores had screw on capability for added security. One doesn't want outlet adapter power home automation system to fall out of outlet.)
9. Got SL1000 Dust Cover packed in original packing (stored for about a month in Lyndhurst) and picked up by UPS.
10. Removed LP records and drawer junk from Queen's room. (And brought home laptop so that Queen's Room now has a useable computer.)
11. Mounted door bumper in Queen's Room (and removed junk video on floor that was serving that purpose).
12. Installed new ISY994i home controller, linked my new Insteon devices and controllers to it, and set up some initial timer programs. (In above picture, the ISY994i has a bright blue light. Most of the other stuff visible relates to household A/V networking.)
13. Mowed front.
11. Installed new Insteon home automation devices replacing unreliable X10 devices and X10 timer controller (for the first week, used the Mac program Indigo, but decided to replace that with a more serious hardware based ISY994i controller).
1. Installed new bedroom light switch at doorway. Uses an Insteon Remote Switch, with intuitive up and down operation just like a real Decora switch. I've never had a working doorway switch, and until now it was necessary to walk into the darkened room and fiddle with a tiny remote control by the bedside to get the light to turn on. (I could also use a keypad switch in the adjacent computer room, but it was impossible to explain to friends, and not always convenient either.) Last year I inquired of electrician John Jones as to what it would cost to install a light switch by door. I never got an answer, I suspect it would have cost at least $700 because of numerous technical difficulties with the location and the need to put in an all new outlet box to go with the switch box as well as doing lots of drywall cutting and repair. But installation of a battery powered remote switch was easily done by me starting late on Sunday night. The original home builder put a switch box in an inconvenient location inside the room, and as it turns out it could not control anything useful in the room, including the ceiling fan, for technical reasons, except a distant outlet that I preferred to have unswitched.
3. Got Swann DVR installed and operating over TV network and with remote control instead of mouse and computer monitor. For some reason, the Swann control menus do not, by default, appear in the VGA output device. Instead, they show only in the video output, unless you specially enable menus in the VGA output. Anyway, rather than continuing trying to buck the system, I decided to go along and connected the video output of the Swann DVR. I connected the Swann to an unused input of one of my DVR/DVDR's and watched it from two different TV's in the house. And now the remote control operates like it should.
4. Installed and formatted new hard drive in Swann security camera DVR. I installed the new very quiet and cool Western Digital Green hard drive I discussed earlier in this blog--which sounded like a vast improvement over the original hot and noisy hard drive. But then, I was then discouraged to find out that the previous hard drive was also a Western Digital Green drive! But the new one seems to be very much better, fortunately: very quiet and cool as advertised. I suspect the old one has had serious issues for a long time, possibly since I bought it, and wasn't living up to it's allegedly Green status. The earliest version of the Western Digital Green drives may have had a misfeature in constantly trying to repark the heads. My original drive was making a shrieking noise for at least the last year as if the bearing was about to go out--but I thought it was a noisy fan (which the DVR doesn't even have). It had been the loudest thing in the kitchen, and now it's the quietest, in fact I can't hear it at all above the sound of the fans in my other three DVR's. UPDATE: after a few days, I've started noticing the hard drive noise again. It doesn't make a whine like some old (or new) hard drives, but a kind of bumping sound when the head seeks. I think this is exaggerated by the way Swann (or actually, the original OEM manufacturer) mounts the hard drive upside down. The label inside the DVR insists that you mount the drive this way, and the right handed SATA connector only lets you mount the drive that way. I think the reasoning was that the circuit board of the drive is the hottest part, so mounting the drive upside down lets the heat escape better. But I've already made adjustments for the heat with the holes in the case on top and bottom, and the newer version Western Digital Green drive does run much cooler anyway. So I've ordered a new left handed SATA cable which will permit me to mount the drive the normal way, with circuit board on the bottom. I might also apply some electrical tape underneath the drive where the fins are in back to help absorb the noise from head seeking. Once I started hearing the head seeking noises, the unit is now clearly noisier than the two other DVR's in the kitchen, which make zero head seeking noise.
5. Modified Swann security camera DVR chassis for cooler operation (so the next hard drive will hopefully last more than 2 years). I was planning to cut a big hole in the bottom of the case with a chassis punch. But that would have required drilling a larger hole than I felt comfortable doing with all the circuitry still in place. So instead I nibbled a couple of existing holes in the bottom into one much bigger hole, using a chassis nibbler, right underneath the most critical part of the hard drive. And I did drill three holes in the top cover above where the hard drive would be mounted. And I added 3/4 inch feet to the bottom of the chassis to allow more air to flow upwards into the chassis. And I mounted the hard drive as far up from the bottom of the case as it would go (whereas the factory had done the reverse). The result was a success, though I can't say for sure how much difference my chassis changes made, because I also replaced the hard drive itself--which may have made most of the difference. But with the modified chassis, and the new hard drive, the chassis is running about 15 degrees cooler than before. It barely gets to 87 degrees F now, which is about 10 degrees above ambient. Running at a low temperature like that is how I've kept my Amiga hard drives running for 20 years.
6. Gave Queen's Room the dog test. Friend came over on Saturday night with her big and imperfectly trained dog. We watched most of a movie in the Kitchen, only occasionally having to advise the dog to get away from stuff. Dog did start sniffing cord of vaporizer (and especially the plug, which I figured might soon be chewed off) which had been left on the floor so I moved it up to cabinet. Then, with 20 minutes remaining in the movie, we moved to Queen's room and lay down in bed to watch rest of the movie. The dog remained well behaved in the Queen's Room mostly (only twice trying to jump up into bed), and did no damage to anything, even after a couple hours of our napping in bed. Of course I had spent a week preparing making sure there was nothing on the floor to be chewed.
7. Potted new plants by front door and planted rosemary near driveway. (Many thanks to friend who enjoys doing these things and insisted on doing it this weekend.)
8. Installed new six outlet adapter in Kitchen so that coffee maker can still be plugged in where I have lots of technology stuff also plugged in. Actually, because of the large size of special power supplies and Insteon modem, I can only use 4 outlets even with the 6 outlet adapter. But that still permits the crucial one "extra" outlet for actual kitchen appliances--in particular the essential coffee maker. With additional rewiring (hard to contemplate) I could make it two extra outlets. (This screw on outlet adapter was ordered online with rush shipping and installed just in time to be ready for a contemplated overnight stay. None of the ones sold in local stores had screw on capability for added security. One doesn't want outlet adapter power home automation system to fall out of outlet.)
9. Got SL1000 Dust Cover packed in original packing (stored for about a month in Lyndhurst) and picked up by UPS.
10. Removed LP records and drawer junk from Queen's room. (And brought home laptop so that Queen's Room now has a useable computer.)
11. Mounted door bumper in Queen's Room (and removed junk video on floor that was serving that purpose).
12. Installed new ISY994i home controller, linked my new Insteon devices and controllers to it, and set up some initial timer programs. (In above picture, the ISY994i has a bright blue light. Most of the other stuff visible relates to household A/V networking.)
13. Mowed front.
11. Installed new Insteon home automation devices replacing unreliable X10 devices and X10 timer controller (for the first week, used the Mac program Indigo, but decided to replace that with a more serious hardware based ISY994i controller).
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