Subject: From: Date:

Re: Yet another 'newbie'! Mark Gilmore Wed, 13 Jan 1999 12:04:56 -0800

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Tony, My answers are inserted below.

ECS-USERS: Any answers for the latitude/longitude
questions a few paragraphs down ? tanx

Please send subsequent questions to ecs-list
(ecs-list@netbloc.com), so everyone can have
a shot at helping out.

Tony James wrote:
> 
> Mark
> 
> I have an HomeVision-PC which I bought a year ago with visions of writing my
> own Visual Basic programmes and communicating with HV via DDE. Well to cut a
> short story long I am not as clever as I thought I was! I did copy ECS
> across 10 months ago but couldn't make head nor tail of it. Having seen your
> announcement of the Windows version to the HV group I decided to try again.
> Using the quick start instructions I found that I could do things at last.
> However having joined the ECS mail group I realise I am not alone in having
> trouble getting to grips with the ECS language.
> Could you perhaps help with a couple of examples of how to do things so that
> my brain can get into gear?
> 
> First a question on Sunrise/Sunset. I am in the UK, will this work here (it
> doesn't seem to) as we have no time zones and how do you differentiate
> between Longitude North and South or Latitude E and W. I put in 50 and 0 and
> the times were not even close.

I will need to add another time-zone for the UK -
What would your zone(s) be called ?
I would need to know your latitude/longitude/sunrise-time
to do so, but I must plead ignorance on the 2nd question.
I will forward to ecs-list in hopes of an answer.

> 
> Down to my scenarios. I have a lamp that I want to come on at 0630 weekdays.
> No problem there, I can make ECS do this for me. However what I want is for
> the lamp to come on at 10% and increase by 10% every 40 seconds until at
> 100%. Obviously a counter and timer job, but how?

This would be the simplest approach:
	If time is 6:30 am
	and second is now 0
	then light set 12%
	else if time is 6:30 am
	and second is now 40
	then light set 24%
...
...

Note that most X-10 interfaces do not support even 10%
dimming increments, which is why I chose the above %'s.
WARNING: If the light is initially OFF, it will 1st come
%100 ON and then dim-down. If it is initially set to 0%,
you want have this problem.

> 
> Next one. How do I capture any infra red commands that HV picks up from my
> remote and then 'do' something? I've read the IR-signal-J bit but there are
> gaps.

	If IR-Signal-J Is 1
	Then ...

where "1" would be the ID of a particular signal,
as learned via the HV software. Note that instead of "1",
you could define a number Item whose name is say "TV:ON",
and whose initial state would be 1.
Your event-line would then read:
	If IR-Signal-J Is TV:ON
This would make your events easier to follow.

> 
> Like your last 'newbie' I am overwhelmed by the things that can be done with
> ECS. My feedback on the help/documentation would be that more examples of
> how things could be done would help. I tried to look at past postings but
> they have been removed because of concerns about privacy.

Mucho examples are in EXAMPLE.CFG.

> 
> Sorry for the length of this. I feel that ECS is going to be worth spending
> my hard earned pounds (or will it be Euros) once I have go the hang of it.
> However I guess that to make the best use of my HV-PC I will need the full
> version?

ECS-Lite will support record/playback (via any wave card), and
any/all x-10 capabilities, regardless of the hardware used.
It's enough to keep you busy for a while :-).

> 
> Regards
> Tony

-- 
Mark Gilmore
Omnipotence (ECS home automation software)
omnip@usit.net
http://www.usit.com/omnip

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