Hi Joerg,
That is difficult to vent.
Already vented. Part of the (wacky) way homes are constructed, here.
Openings on each end of each "space" (between joists). In theory,
air flows in one end and out the other. Probably helped by convection
along the way (the natural pitch of the roof)
Plus you'll have to fish the cables and that
can only be done from two directions. Typically blocked by fire stops
somewhere :-(
Firestops only in the walls -- prevent the "chimney" effect of the
spaces between studs carrying a fire into the "ceiling".
I've had no problem running wires so far. All the drops for
the audio clients, etc.
I think I may try the roof (outside the house). That will
give me much more flexibility in siting the device (and, I can
MOVE it!!) as well as better coverage in the neighborhood.
(I'd like to cover my "walking route" which would be about a
3/4 mi radius)
X10 has two main problems. One is a shitty AM carrier on-off protocol,
Well, the transmission protocol could have been enhanced with
some brains on each end. But, they opted for "cheap" :-/
the other is even shittier device quality, design bugs and so on.
Yup. I am at a loss as to how I will eventually deal with
controlling AC loads (and still comply with local codes).
Not many options out there that are easily retrofitted.
That's ok, as long as the devices work autonomously and can be
programmed locally if needed. That's what we do with X10 nowadays, use
the buttons on the wall switches because half the time X10 doesn't work.
The only way to "program" (lets say "configure" to differentiate
from software updates) them is via network interface. I.e.,
*something* has to be able to talk to them in order to tell
them to behave differently. Whether that is a PC running
a client application or a server doing similarly.
The point was to make them smart enough that they can do
their "typical" routine without intervention. And, to
define "typical" in such a way that LONG "UI dropouts"
are tolerated. So, instead of thermostat maintaining
*a* set temperature (and having something "external" tell
it how to adjust that over the course of a day), you tell
the thermostat how to handle a typical workload and never
need to talk to it again (unless you want to redefine that
workload/schedule)
Similar here, only on occasion are clients here but it does and has to
happen at times. Still, even for myself I like to keep things totally
separated. This can mean 2-3 clean-ups per day, tabula rasa as the
Romans used to say. That way I never have a mix-up of gear, parts or
<gasp> documents. Every client has a code and it's on everything. Only I
and the client know it so if I get hit by a truck things aren't lost.
The projects I work on probably tend to be much longer time scales
(many months to a year-or-two). And, I tend to only work on
one project of a particular type at a time. E.g., design a
circuit for client A; write code for client B; prepare documentation
for client C; etc. Makes it easy to keep things separate (in my
head).
That's the problem with software -- you can design a circuit
in a WEEK for which it will take you a YEAR to craft the code.
(actually, writing the code isn't the problem -- typically 20%
of the effort; usually the specifications and documentation are
the hassle -- as well as the tedium!)
The only time things get truly messy is if I have to fiddle with
a prototype (some of these are very large and might need to
be staged out in the garage, etc.). And, in those cases, I
definitely *don't* want things "cleaned up" each day or I'll
spend forever cleaning and setting back up each day! :-/
(sort of like rebuilding an engine in a car... if you had
to put everything away at the end of each day, you'd get
very little *done*!)
