{"id":8292,"date":"2013-02-08T17:31:56","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T22:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/?p=8292"},"modified":"2013-11-15T11:58:26","modified_gmt":"2013-11-15T16:58:26","slug":"x10-for-raspberry-pi-on-the-cheap-north-american-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/08\/x10-for-raspberry-pi-on-the-cheap-north-american-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"X10 for Raspberry Pi on the Cheap [North American Edition]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now I’ve got my X10 system running and know its limitations, I could have saved a wheen of money not buying stuff I don’t need. Our house appears to have been wired by an, um, spirited<\/em> amateur, so powerline signalling is of limited use. Thankfully, the tiny and cheap X10 FireCracker CM17A<\/a> (warning: too many flashing GIFs at this link!) can be driven from heyu<\/a> [previously<\/a>]. You can score these on eBay for under $10<\/a>, and all you need is a serial adapter to drive them.<\/p>\n

\"Leviton<\/a>The really cheap bit in my system was discovered in Active Surplus<\/a>. I found a case of Leviton “Plug-in Frequency Transceiver Modules” for $4\/each. One was out of its case, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the same as a RR501<\/a> module, which typically retails for about $30. Sure, these are old stock and are a nasty beige colour, but they provide a way of switching a two-pin appliance. They can also relay remote commands from RF to wired controls.<\/p>\n

The only X10 controller I can’t get to work with the Raspberry Pi is the CM19a USB PC Transceiver<\/a>. I suspect it draws a bit too much power to run from a Raspberry Pi, as it makes the machine unresponsive if it’s plugged it. Running from my bench setup it works fine with the mochad<\/a> driver, but no dice with the other machine. The CM19a reads wireless RF X10 commands, and it would be useful if I’d added a motion sensor. As is, I’ll stick to the lights going on and off.<\/p>\n

(Update<\/strong>: there’s a good chance that my CM19a problems are down to the ancient dwc_otg*<\/a> fixes I still run on my Raspberry Pi’s kernel. You probably don’t need them, and this device could work fine. One day I will find time to fix ’em \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6)<\/p>\n

(Incidentally, this is the “North American Edition” because X10 RF controls are completely different in Europe, and none of the above is useful to you. Yeah, I know this article is the equivalent of PC Load Letter<\/strong> to you; sorry.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now I’ve got my X10 system running and know its limitations, I could have saved a wheen of money not buying stuff I don’t need. Our house appears to have been wired by an, um, spirited amateur, so powerline signalling is of limited use. Thankfully, the tiny and cheap X10 FireCracker CM17A (warning: too many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[2581,2619,2600,2510,2601],"class_list":["post-8292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers-suck","tag-active_surplus","tag-cm17a","tag-heyu","tag-raspberrypi","tag-x10"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQNZZ-29K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8292"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10155,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8292\/revisions\/10155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}