Mister House Firecracker Issue

[elemenoh]

Hello I am currently undertaking a huge project that requires the
program Mister House to control lights for an art exhibit. I have been
really frustrated with the program because I cannot get it to control a
single light with a firecracker (CM17). I have read through the
provided FAQ and documentation severaltimes. I have combed through
message boards, fourms and gropus for a solution but I cannot find
anything. So I turned to this group.

I have attempted to run Mister House in both Linux and Windowds
enviroments. I would prefer linux but I was having many problems with
Tk and GD installing correctly so I thought what the hell I whould try
it on windoze. To make sure that I can actually control the lights
with the firecracker I downladed a simple utility called "firecracker"
off the X10 site. It is a very simple interface that mimicks the
remote that comes with the X10 starter kit. I pushed the button 1 with
it set on A and it successfully turned off my light. So that
eliminates any problems with the com port or the firecracker itself.

I have configured the mh.ini in a way that it will know where my
firecracer is (COM1) in linux its something like /dev/ttyS0 and in
windows it is COM1. Neither worked however. I could not control that
light in either windows or linux. I checked if there were anyother
config files that I needed to setup inorder for Mister House to detect
the firecracker but according to the documentation I should be all set.
Does anyone have the slightest idea as to what I should do? I have a
dead line that is in a little over a week so time is important. Thanks
very much.

- Clint M Chilcott

[Dan Wilga]

In article <1109275736.985266.241840@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups. com>,
"elemenoh" <elemenoh@spymac.com> wrote:

> I have configured the mh.ini in a way that it will know where my
> firecracer is (COM1) in linux its something like /dev/ttyS0 and in
> windows it is COM1. Neither worked however. I could not control that
> light in either windows or linux. I checked if there were anyother
> config files that I needed to setup inorder for Mister House to detect
> the firecracker but according to the documentation I should be all set.

Do you get any error messages about the CM17 when MH starts up? You
should see something like this if it works:

- creating cm17 object on port /dev/ttyS0

Did you remember to enter your X10 devices in .../code/items.mht ?

Are you sure the user MH is running as has permission to write to
/dev/ttyS0?

By the way, I personally run MH with the "-tk 0" option, so it doesn't
use a GUI. If you do this, it won't matter if Tk and GD are missing.

--
Dan Wilga dwilga-MUNGE@mtholyoke.edu
** Remove the -MUNGE in my address to reply **

[Si Ballenger]

On 24 Feb 2005 12:08:57 -0800, "elemenoh" <elemenoh@spymac.com>
wrote:

>Hello I am currently undertaking a huge project that requires the
>program Mister House to control lights for an art exhibit. I have been
>really frustrated with the program because I cannot get it to control a
>single light with a firecracker (CM17). I have read through the
>provided FAQ and documentation severaltimes. I have combed through
>message boards, fourms and gropus for a solution but I cannot find
>anything. So I turned to this group.
>
>I have attempted to run Mister House in both Linux and Windowds
>enviroments. I would prefer linux but I was having many problems with
>Tk and GD installing correctly so I thought what the hell I whould try
>it on windoze. To make sure that I can actually control the lights
>with the firecracker I downladed a simple utility called "firecracker"
>off the X10 site. It is a very simple interface that mimicks the
>remote that comes with the X10 starter kit. I pushed the button 1 with
>it set on A and it successfully turned off my light. So that
>eliminates any problems with the com port or the firecracker itself.
>
>I have configured the mh.ini in a way that it will know where my
>firecracer is (COM1) in linux its something like /dev/ttyS0 and in
>windows it is COM1. Neither worked however. I could not control that
>light in either windows or linux. I checked if there were anyother
>config files that I needed to setup inorder for Mister House to detect
>the firecracker but according to the documentation I should be all set.
> Does anyone have the slightest idea as to what I should do? I have a
>dead line that is in a little over a week so time is important. Thanks
>very much.
>
>- Clint M Chilcott

Any particular reason why you have to control the firecracker
using MH? I know of two command line applications that will
operate the firecracker, and these just use a batch file. Do you
need computer control of the firecracker?

[elemenoh]

I tried using a CM11 unit from a friend and I was able to control a
light. I am no quite sure how... but it worked so I can't complain. I
really dont understand MH. It is confusing to me how you set up you
lights and appliances. I don't like that they have a preconfigured
"house".

I guess I don't need to use MH. So you understand my application of
the X10 technology I will explain my situation. I am going to New York
to instal an art exhibit called "One Minute Rave". In this there is a
button that you press which triggers a video file on a projector, an
audio file, a lazer, strobe, & black light. Once a minute is up they
all stop.

I was planning on using M Player to play an AVI file in full screen
through the VGA port to a projector. There are 9 songs that I want the
program to cycle through. The lights and everything I will control by
X10. As far as the button is concerned the only things I could think
of were to buy a weeder board or hack up a keyboard and select a key
and then solder 2 wires to the connection points and then attach them
to a button.

If you feel that MH is not the right application and that a simple
command line app would work better let me know. I have been working on
this for several weeks and have been having problems the entire time.
Thanks much for your quick responses. :D

[Si Ballenger]

On 25 Feb 2005 06:19:49 -0800, "elemenoh" <elemenoh@spymac.com>
wrote:

>I tried using a CM11 unit from a friend and I was able to control a
>light. I am no quite sure how... but it worked so I can't complain. I
>really dont understand MH. It is confusing to me how you set up you
>lights and appliances. I don't like that they have a preconfigured
>"house".
>
>I guess I don't need to use MH. So you understand my application of
>the X10 technology I will explain my situation. I am going to New York
>to instal an art exhibit called "One Minute Rave". In this there is a
>button that you press which triggers a video file on a projector, an
>audio file, a lazer, strobe, & black light. Once a minute is up they
>all stop.
>
>I was planning on using M Player to play an AVI file in full screen
>through the VGA port to a projector. There are 9 songs that I want the
>program to cycle through. The lights and everything I will control by
>X10. As far as the button is concerned the only things I could think
>of were to buy a weeder board or hack up a keyboard and select a key
>and then solder 2 wires to the connection points and then attach them
>to a button.
>
>If you feel that MH is not the right application and that a simple
>command line app would work better let me know. I have been working on
>this for several weeks and have been having problems the entire time.
>Thanks much for your quick responses. :D
>

A little over half way down my page below are links to two
command line applications to operate the firecracker (you need to
use a "real" hardware serial port to operate the firedracker).
Use this in a batch file to send the x10 commands. You can put
multiple command lines in a single batch file to have it operate
several things at a time. You can also use the apache web server
cgi function to be able to do this via a web page. I'm assuming
you are wanting computer control of your project and the x10
devices.

http://www.geocities.com/zoomkat/

<embed src="http://www.johnwpb.com/hs/jeopardy.mp3">

[Charles Sullivan]

For Linux, try either 'flipit':
http://www.lickey.com/flipit
or 'bottlerocket'
http://mlug.missouri.edu/~tymm/

With 'flipit', I had trouble making it work unless I first
ran:
$ stty -F /dev/ttyS0 -hupcl

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 06:19:49 -0800, elemenoh wrote:

> I tried using a CM11 unit from a friend and I was able to control a
> light. I am no quite sure how... but it worked so I can't complain. I
> really dont understand MH. It is confusing to me how you set up you
> lights and appliances. I don't like that they have a preconfigured
> "house".
>
> I guess I don't need to use MH. So you understand my application of
> the X10 technology I will explain my situation. I am going to New York
> to instal an art exhibit called "One Minute Rave". In this there is a
> button that you press which triggers a video file on a projector, an
> audio file, a lazer, strobe, & black light. Once a minute is up they
> all stop.
>
> I was planning on using M Player to play an AVI file in full screen
> through the VGA port to a projector. There are 9 songs that I want the
> program to cycle through. The lights and everything I will control by
> X10. As far as the button is concerned the only things I could think
> of were to buy a weeder board or hack up a keyboard and select a key
> and then solder 2 wires to the connection points and then attach them
> to a button.
>
> If you feel that MH is not the right application and that a simple
> command line app would work better let me know. I have been working on
> this for several weeks and have been having problems the entire time.
> Thanks much for your quick responses. :D

[elemenoh]

Thank you all VERY much for all of your help and suggestions. I ended
up using Flipit to control the lights in combination with a little bash
script. If Charles Sullivan wouldn't have told me to use "stty -F
/dev/ttyS0 -hupcl" I honestly don't know what I would have done.

If you are in New York on March 10 you can attend the opening at Canada
gallery. http://www.canadanewyork.com/ Thanks again.