HMI in home

Has anyone ever used a HMI to automate their own or someone's residence? If so in what capacity? Why would you or wouldn't you recommend this?

I have not, but there have been several past threads from people who did.

Why would you do it?
1. Fun hobby
2. Educational
3. Better control

Why would you not do it?
1. You could create situations where you have no control!
2. You could get tired and fed up, but still you must maintain the system or your home is in trouble!
3. If you need to hire a local HVAC repairman, or security alarm contractor, or any other maintenance or repair person, he may take one look at your control system and say "not me, buddy".
4. When you go to sell your house, you probably will have to remove all your controls, or take a big hit on the price.

I use a PLC for my 200g reef aquarium system.

I do not have an HMI though. I use it for lighting timers, relays and water parameter testing.

It works like a charm

4 panelview plus units and 1 contrologix and a lot of flex I/O running gate, Pool Pump,Pool chemicals,Lights,and HVAC

I have acompact logix for christmas lights also.

Thanks! I'm excited about doing some things myself.

PLC control of orchid houses - temperature monitoring and control of fans and gas heaters, humidity (fogger), watering (solenoids). Also have a SCADA system connected via wireless Ethernet to trend temperatures and humidity and buttons on the SCADA to operate the fogger and watering as I wish.

Use one in garage

I have a used Panelview 1500 given to me by a electrical supplier that I plan on setting up with car repair software, and MP3 music. I guess could put anything else on it like Internet with shortcut to YouTube for watching a specific repair video or something like that. Internet music, you name it...

Benton said:

Has anyone ever used a HMI to automate their own or someone's residence? If so in what capacity? Why would you or wouldn't you recommend this?

Click to expand...

jfls45 said:

I have a used Panelview 1500 given to me by a electrical supplier that I plan on setting up with car repair software, and MP3 music. I guess could put anything else on it like Internet with shortcut to YouTube for watching a specific repair video or something like that. Internet music, you name it...

Click to expand...

Are you putting the music on it from the USB port? YouTube?

I'm using Mango M2M for my home automation. The RedLion Modular Controller controls my heating system for better control, and provides a way to track usage.
http://mango.serotoninsoftware.com/
Mango is nice for an HMI, because it makes the system web-based and allows control from anywhere (even a smartphone).

I'm using a DELTA PLC with THIS touch panel. I use it to control ...

1. My Swimming pool solar panel (temperature control)
2. Garden irrigation system (Soil moisture meter feedback and Water SOV control)
3. Alarm system
4. Indoor and outdoor light control

I used to use PIC's for all these functions but it became too much of a issue to re-program the PIC if I needed to make a software change, and the I/O limitation of the PIC also became a problem. If you did not allow for I/O in a certain manner on the designed PCB, you get stuck with what you have.

Lancie1 said:

I have not, but there have been several past threads from people who did.

Why would you do it?
1. Fun hobby
2. Educational
3. Better control

Why would you not do it?
1. You could create situations where you have no control!
2. You could get tired and fed up, but still you must maintain the system or your home is in trouble!
3. If you need to hire a local HVAC repairman, or security alarm contractor, or any other maintenance or repair person, he may take one look at your control system and say "not me, buddy".
4. When you go to sell your house, you probably will have to remove all your controls, or take a big hit on the price.

Click to expand...

I think that's an excellent summary of the pros and cons. In fact, my reasons for doing it line up with all three of yours, and even in the same order!

My project (just in the breadboard stage at this point) uses a PLC to operate GE RR9 remote-control relays. The RR9 is a single-pole mechanically-held latching relay with a split coil and pilot contact, whose lineage dates back to at least the early 1960s, when GE promoted its ancestor as a more-flexible alternative to conventional line-voltage switches in all types of buildings, including residences.

The home market never really took off, but the RR9 (and at least a couple of competitors) is the core of several modern lighting-control systems for non-residential buildings. And there is a small base of home systems, mostly from the '60s, that are still lovingly maintained - or tolerated, depending on the installation and the owner. In fact there's a Yahoo group devoted to the GE relay system, comprised almost exclusively of residential owners. Some work on the systems themselves, but some of those who don't have had frustrating experiences with "electricians" whose knowledge is apparently limited to "connect black to black and white to white", lending credence to your reason #3 for not building a home-automation system.

Anyway, my "laboratory" consists of a Click C0-01DR-D PLC (8 DC inputs, 6 relay outputs) and power supply, one 16 DC input and one 8 relay output modules, suppression diode terminal blocks to protect the relay contacts, a separate 24VDC supply for the GE relays and control switches, assorted toggle switches, pushbuttons and pilot lights, a GridConnect Modbus RTU/TCP Ethernet gateway for control and monitoring, a USB-serial converter for program loading, and a Windows XP PC running an Apache server with PHP (I'm using a PHP open-source Modbus TCP implementation and AJAX for internet-based system operation).

For years I thought about doing a Web connected PLC (or at least a PLC connected to a PC I could Remote Desktop into) for HVAC. My initial fears about someone else servicing always gave me an excuse to put the project off. Since then the Nest thermostat (www.nest.com) has come out and it pretty much fits my needs exactly.

Another project I am kicking around is to put a PLC on my sump pumps so that I can alternate pumps or choose one based on expected rainfall.

It all depends on your budget.
I would look into EZ series Touch PLC or an EZ-PLC with a separate EZ Touch Panel. Check them out @ EZautomation dot net. Good products for the money.

I have a PLC running my home HVAC system with an HMI on it. My home is more comfortable now than it ever was running off of thermostats. Wall mounted RTD units feed into the PLC and the PLC controls the HVAC units via relay output cards. Humidity sensor in the main duct to turn the humidifier on and off. Outdoor RTD to help know when to switch the unit from heating to cooling and back automagically.

Plus, I have the PLC monitoring my doors. I have a record along with an email of every time the door opens so I know when my teenagers sneak out of the house at night.