The Quarky Engineer

Ok. Let’s see what this is all about…

Speaking of speakers – I have made some adjustments to my speaker zone plan, and I think I am going to go with the Lync system from Home Theater Direct.

I have a total of 48 ‘house’ speakers, plus 14 in the AV area. The house speakers are the ones I would use on the Lync system. It is a 12 zone system (there isn’t a real limit on the number of speakers as you can always buy more amp). It has a wall controller that can work as an intercom, and of course you can control everything from a device app (phone, tablet, etc).

Based on the speaker locations I have picked 12 zones indicated by color in the diagrams. The outside speakers are part of an inside zone, but will have dedicated volume controllers so they can be normally muted.

The intercom part is something Kristin wants to work well, especially with 3 of us and 3 floors to be on. The HTD also supports a door intercom system which I can use at the door and the gate, and if someone comes to the door or pulls up to the gate it can mute all of some of the channels and allow someone from any location to answer the gate/door call. I can also use a homeseer event to trigger camera displays and auto gate opening.

HTD supports homeseer integration, which means I can use my own presence detection for music following (following you as you go room to room, etc).

Perhaps the biggest reason for using the system is it does not require any kind of dealer interaction or dependency, nor any internet connectivity to work.

Cabinetry work continues, and the windows are almost ready for paint. I finished the floor and the edge trim in the server room over the weekend. I’m happy that I made all of the doors in the house 8 feet tall, so 45U racks can go anywhere!

Next up I need to figure out a splice cabinet for all of the fiber, and get cracking on splicing.

The stair posts are done, and they have some heft to them. Railings next.

Progress on the house continues… Cabinetry is a slow process. 😉 Stone templating was done early this week, so fabrication will start on Monday.

Lower floor is mostly done, awaiting floor installation and some trim painting. The gas heater for the lower floor is installed and working.

Service was installed at the gate. Interesting that they used a dedicated 25KVa transformer for a single service that will probably draw 5 amps.

Front door will be red, as picked by Audrey.

Cabinet installation is underway, the main fireplace limestone is almost complete, some tile is underway in a few bathrooms, and I am about ready to install a floor in the network/server room.

I’m curious to see how well this works.

A few drone pictures, and a few 360 degree inside pictures now that the hardwood floors are installed.

I also did an updated walkthrough video:

And a short video about the wiring: