Comments for LED Door Lock Status Indicator Hack at http://www.automatedhome.co.uk , comment 1 to 12 out of 12 comments http://www.automatedhome.co.uk Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:26:49 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/LED-Door-Lock-Status-Indicator-Hack.html#comment-709 Nice project, exactly what I want to do for our church. Same problem, many exits and its hard to tell without going to each one if they are locked. Will be a bit of work for me as our doors and frames are all commercial steel building type doors. Will see how it goes. What I am really interested in is the software interface, would be really handy to know status. And even a time stamp possibly to know what door unlocked when. Thanks for sharing this! - Wayne Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:44:21 +0100 http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/LED-Door-Lock-Status-Indicator-Hack.html#comment-685 It's a pity you stripped the cat5, limits futre expansion. A similar system could be done with zigbee, an RF mesh network. All that would be required would be the presention layer, a box with LEDs or adapted to X10 interfaces. I know X10 is wayyyy past its "use by" date. - Paul Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:10:40 +0100 http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/LED-Door-Lock-Status-Indicator-Hack.html#comment-659 Nice work Martin. I'm planning on doing something similar using 1-wire technology to monitor all doors, windows and locks. Saves running individual cables to every location and its very cheap. Cheers - G Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:49:56 +0100 http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/LED-Door-Lock-Status-Indicator-Hack.html#comment-647 Wonder if it can be done with uPVC doors. Just had a look at mine and it would require a bit of surgery to the plastic frame, so would probably invalidate the warranty. Any way excellent project. - Stephen Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:08:53 +0100 http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/LED-Door-Lock-Status-Indicator-Hack.html#comment-646 The one issue I see with the way you have done this is that you have compromised the already weakest part of the door lock - the framing that the lock extends into to lock the door. I expect it would be very easy to put a shoulder into the door to break in. - Todd Johnstone Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:46:02 +0100 http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/LED-Door-Lock-Status-Indicator-Hack.html#comment-643 The wires are in place to feed status back to the engine room, I'm just trying to find a device that will convert the signal into a USB input that the PC can read. At the moment, this looks like a butchered game pad, and the plan is to write a VB application that will display the results on a web page. This can be viewed on a spare Ameo pocket PC (which has a great touch screen) which will be mounted on the wall in the hall. - Martin Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:18:45 +0100 http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/LED-Door-Lock-Status-Indicator-Hack.html#comment-642 I've done something similar, feeding the wires back to an Ocelot that then connects to HomeSeer on my server. I hadn't thought to put LEDS at the door too. When I use a touchscreen panel to say we are going out, or going to bed, then HS will check that the doors are locked, if any aren't, then it uses text to speech through our SONOS system to tell us which door(s) aren't locked. Connecting up all the windows is work in progress! - MichaelD Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:22:44 +0100 http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/LED-Door-Lock-Status-Indicator-Hack.html#comment-641 Like it. Shame the circuit doesn't also feed back door open/closed status to the 'engine room' too. - Rob Collingridge Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:13:45 +0100 http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/LED-Door-Lock-Status-Indicator-Hack.html#comment-640 Dave - yes, I had the advantage of a new build which made the CAT5 easy. Didn't put anywhere near enough of it in, though :-( Bi-colour LEDs would be neater, so if I ever did it again, that's what I would use. The low value resistor gives loads of light from the LEDs (easy to see in daylight, and lights up the room at night!) but will shorten the life of the LEDs, so if/when they blow I will beef the resistor up a bit as Frank suggests - Martin Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:25:21 +0100 http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/LED-Door-Lock-Status-Indicator-Hack.html#comment-639 Hi Martin Nice work.....If i was going to do something similar i would use a single Bi coloured led.. I think 150 ohm might be a bit low for a standard led connected to 12v dc normally 470 ohm... Frank - Frank Mc Alinden Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:21:16 +0100 http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/LED-Door-Lock-Status-Indicator-Hack.html#comment-638 Martin - could this be done with a single, multi-colour LED? - Otto-Mate Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:12:58 +0100 http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/Reviews/LED-Door-Lock-Status-Indicator-Hack.html#comment-637 This is really cool. When you say easy to do however, running cat5 to every door and device sounds a bit of a pain. For a new build it is brilliant. To interface to the PC, I would have thought the Arduino thing would help http://www.arduino.cc/ - Dave Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:44:15 +0100