
- detector.jpg (126.41 KiB) Viewed 20512 times
Another idea born out of fustration. Our washing machine and tumble dryer are on the first floor and when loaded with a new batch it takes an hour or so to finish. However we never knew for sure when it was finished. As a result of several walks upstairs just to find out that they wheren't finished yet this idea was born.
This needs to be improved.
I had a nice circuit from this site (
http://www.domotica.famschenk.eu/Led_uitlezing.html) and i gave it a try. Although it worked at first it had some minor issues. Using two DS10 transmitters didn't work very reliable for me. Also each unit consumed two AA batteries and another 9V block for the circuit didn't do good for me either.
So what did i change?
I took a MS13 motion detector and i removed the cover and i trimmed the sides so it would fit into the enclosure. I also removed the LDR and the PIR sensor from it. Since the LM324 chips can be powered at 3V i hooked this one also to the battery of the MS13 motion detector. The lm324 chips is a low power design so this won't drain the batterij so much. The outputs from the circuits that first where going to the DS10's are now connected to the data pin of the PIR sensor and the hot side of where the LDR was located.
I've added the MS13 in HomeSeer and instead of detecting motion and light/dark i let it trigger events that will announce that via speech that the dryer or the washing maschine is ready. (remark: The events have a conditon that the device must be in that state for 1 minute before triggering. This will remove false readings)
Till now there where no false detections. Time will tell.
Please note that this MS10 is one from the US and it was working at 310 Mhz and is refactored to work at 433 Mhz as seen on the image