Home Improvement - 2013-10-31

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11:19 AM

In the spirit of Halloween, "where your head at?!"

2 hours later…

1:47 PM

Is this unclear?

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When A is closed a should be on.

I specifically used the words "multiplex", and "modulation".

If the cable company sends channel 2 and 4 down the wire, and the user tunes to channel 2, should the user expect to see a mash of channels 2 and 4, or just channel 2?

Hopefully it's more clear now

2:12 PM

@Tester101 To understand my confusion, imagine a smart light switch, without a neutral or ground, and where leaking any current across the switch to the hot would be bad. How would such a switch work?

3:03 PM

@BMitch The switch in this case has access to a "neutral". Notice the complete circuit that runs around the outside of the drawing.

3:16 PM

My problem is, I need to share a single switched hot conductor.

I'm curious. Why can't you just run more conductors?

Wire's not that big.

It's 10k ft. of wire under the ocean.

It will cost $64 bajillion to do so.

This is the most elaborate prank I've ever seen.

I find it slightly odd, that because people don't understand the why, they have trouble understanding the how.

Why does it need to be wired? Couldn't you just hook up a cellphone and send it a text?

3:26 PM

simplicity.

Essentially the problem is, If I flip a switch at home, I want a corresponding light to turn on at work.

As cheaply as possible.

Your edit is still unclear, especially the diagrams, but I just might understand your requirements...How similar is this example to your problem? You have three adjacent switches (e.g., a 3-gang light switch), and you want each one to independently turn on/off 1 of 3 adjacent lamps on the other side of your yard. You've already run X number of wires underground to the lamps, and it would be a big hassle to add the additional wires needed to have each switch controlling separate parallel circuits for each lamp. Is this right? If so, what is your value of X above? 3? — Justin 48 mins ago

Are you transmitting power? Or just a signal?

It's just switches, so it's not really a "signal".

I'm not able to answer the HOW that you asked. But I might be able to shed light on the overall problem where you to share it. You might be blinded by the multiplexing solution, and can't see any others. (It's a common problem)

3:34 PM

In other words, as we so often ask people on DIY: stop asking how to implement your crazy solution, and tell us the real problem you're having.

3

@Bmitch +Eleventy

Multiplexing may not be the solution, I'm fine with that. But the problem remains. I have one wire, three switches, and three loads, and I have to control the three loads independently with the three switches.

It's also possible for the magic boxes to be powered by the circuit, like this...

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I'm just going to put on my tin foil hat, and go play in the corner by myself.

@Tester101 Aren't there frequency filters out there and frequency sensitive diodes? The diodes could act as a switch, grounding when not active with the switch turning on/off the filter. This is pure pseudo science though, fit for a movie but I know more about military secrets than this and I don't know any military secrets.

3:52 PM

Toronto Police found the crack smoking mayor video!

2 hours later…

5:42 PM

@BMitch This is what we call on P.SE the X/Y problem: They're asking for X but they want Y and don't know it

1 hour later…

7:03 PM

Welcome to Project Update Thursday

7:13 PM

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@Tester101 and this is why context is important. in one post you say 150 ft of cable. in another you say 10k feet of underwater cable. there is an incredible amount of engineering effort to get signals to travel through underwater cable. something simple that would work for 24v AC signals over 150ft of cable WILL NOT WORK for underwater cable at the lengths you describe.

Tile project of my front entrance, including my 'secret' © 2013 tile marking 'jig'

@HerrBag I like that. Set it once, and forget it.

Thanks @ChrisCudmore I did have to buy a second matching combo square

Would cutting off the corners of one tile and then using it as a template for the rest of the tiles not work?

7:21 PM

@longneck I remember a trans-atlantic call to Europe in the 60s where the end-to-end delays were 3 seconds

@longneck It would. I wanted to avoid 2nd generation copy effects and having to register a master tile each time

@HerrBag I was watching a This Old House a while back where they simply laid out all four tiles with spacers, put the inlay tile on top, and marked the cuts. Only had to eyeball the position of the inlaid tile since the corners should line up with the center of the grout lines.

@BMitch Those guys are the bomb.. I love Tommy's shortcuts.

That tile job is looking really good.

@BMitch @HerrBag if i had to choose between the This Old House method and @HerrBag's, i would choose HB's. Put down the tile to pick it up and cut? no thanks. Let's mark a stack of tiles, then cut all the tiles, then put them all down. Hooray for batch production!

2

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7:34 PM

Looks like a blog post to me.

Here's the final.. wife has a rug covering most of it...

Whose toe is that at the bottom?

@NiallC. That should go on yesterday's Real Estate Photo site.

@NiallC. LOL mine ;-)

So are we DIRECTLY voting for the candidates or for electoral college representatives? ;-)

Who's offering the best graft?

8:08 PM

YEY PUT!!!!

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almost done.

8:19 PM

@HerrBag I am. But it's a surprise.

@lsiunsuex Now stuff it with drugs and cash.

@longneck If you've got 50 to cut, then I'm all about batch production. I think they were only marking the tile for a handful of accents in the center of the floor, so visualizing it was also important.

@ChrisCudmore Typical politician.. trust me, vote me in and I'll take care of you.

Keep in mind that the mod elected is mod for life, they don't have to answer your questions about why the didn't do X in a few years. Not that that's really stopped any other politician.

I'm sure the SO team would step in were there real issues.

@ChrisCudmore Yes they will, but if you don't get your drugs and cash I'm guessing they won't consider that a real issue. :)

8:24 PM

That's @lsiunsuex with the secret stash, not me.

Passing the blame already... that's my kind of mod. :)

@Tester101 What about each switch energize 3 different oscillation frequencies, mux them through an Op amp. 3 PLLs at the detector end can decode each switch. @gregmac suggestion of rs485 should be able to drive the distances needed. 4-20 mA current loop is another class that would drive that distance

Or, you could have some children. It'll give you about 15 years of "Go across the yard and flip switches 3, 6, and 7"

8:43 PM

is @NiallC. basically the winner of the mod election or is there still some step pending where one of us may actually have a chance ?

@lsiunsuex Huh?

Election is still running (until Tuesday)

you have the highest votes on the questions

right, but no one has voted in days

Doesn't make a difference, it's votes on the election page that count

@lsiunsuex those votes don't count for anything

in DIY 2013 Election, yesterday, by Niall C.

@TheEvilGreebo I'm not counting any chickens yet. I kinda wonder if people are voting on those posts instead of in the election proper.

8:45 PM

ahh

@lsiunsuex 5 votes on that question vs ... I'll let you count how many got the badge for this election: diy.stackexchange.com/help/badges/91/constituent

i saw that the other day

I think its odd that SE allows voting on the questionnaire because of the effect whose name I can't remember where people vote more on the first thing they see because it's the first thing they see

@NiallC. You and me both, but voting is built into meta, so it would be a process to remove it. On the election form, the candidates are intentionally randomized.

@BMitch I noticed that, after revisiting the page

8:50 PM

I miss Aarthi: data.stackexchange.com/home%20improvement/query/6627/…

2

I upvoted every candidate who responded. Just for playing.

@Tester101 The 1-Wire® series of devices has been used in automotive and might be adapted for your needs, maximintegrated.com/app-notes/index.mvp/id/148

They list 200m as a workable distance in appendix A of the article I linked

... another programming question ...

Thanks for joining us for this week's PUT

working on version 2 of one of my bigger sites; the database has grown pretty out of control - 93 tables, ish

9:02 PM

Project Update Thursday - 2013/10/31

2 hours ago, 1 hour 58 minutes total – 56 messages, 6 users, 4 stars

Bookmarked 7 secs ago by BMitch

i'm going to move it to a dedicated database server but i don't want to take all of it with me; i need like 1/4 of the tables for version 2

is there any way to link specific tables for replication to another database that anyone knows of ? (mysql)

otherwise, i was just gonna write some scripts that i would run just before going live with v2 to copy all the user data over, forums, etc... from the old db to the new one.

Backup and restore on the new machine? Then drop tables.

yeah, basically what i would do without the scripts

export to sql, re-import

on another note, the solution yesterday worked out perfectly - 198.61.167.142/about-Museum_Partnerships - everything on this page is controlled by just 2 tables and 3 CMS pages (excluding the contact page and designer profiles, which needed special handling)

thanks guys

@ChrisCudmore Ahem! diy.stackexchange.com/review/first-posts/10043

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