[TriLUG] OT: need ideas for a project that just landed in my lap

[Greg Brown]

Sadly the problem seems to lie somewhere in the wire path under the existing
roadway.  And they say digging up the road in any way, shape, or form is not
possible.

Bummer.

Greg


On 2/15/06, William Sutton <william at trilug.org> wrote:
>
> First thought....is it possible to open the box with the buttons, and
> re-wire them?  seems like that's the simple, obvious solution here :)
>
> another idea would be to hack the switch so that power drives the motor up
> and lack of power lets the gate back down...then rewire the button wires
> into a standard power cable (male end), weatherize it, run it into the
> guard shack, and hook that up to an x10 lamp module...set up a small box
> (say a soekris or something) with the x10 rf device, and then set up a web
> page on that that interfaces with the x10 rf via bottlerocket and a web
> page :)
>
> --
> William Sutton
>
>
> On Wed, 15 Feb 2006, Greg Brown wrote:
>
> > Here's the situation: the campground that hosts one of my wireless
> empires
> > has a security gate (the kind with an arm that moves up and down).  The
> gate
> > is controlled by a garage door remote control and two hard wired
> buttons.
> > Both buttons are broken and the owner can't tear up the road to put down
> new
> > wires for the hard wired buttons.
> >
> > They want a web-based "button" they can press to raise the gate.  I have
> NO
> > EARTHLY IDEA where to start with this.  The good news is I have wireless
> in
> > place and a Linux server doing light duty.  The only thing I can think
> that
> > would work would be to put a Linux box of some kid (hopefully
> lightweight,
> > an OpenWRT(ish) kind of thing) out in the gate house attached to
> whatever
> > the broken wire was attached to.  Then when someone presses the "I'm
> here
> > dammit, raise the gate" button they could web over to that device and
> press
> > a button on a web page that would set power to a serial connection that
> > would complete the circuit on the gate controller that would then raise
> the
> > gate.
> >
> > I have an unused Asus access point that runs OpenWRT AND has two USB
> ports.
> > I don't know anything about programming for USB.  Can I use this box and
> > power up a wire that would open the gate?   What about a wireless
> attached
> > soekris 4501?   It at least has a 9 pin serial connector.  Any thoughts?
> >
> > Greg
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