26 Jun
2001
26 Jun
'01
10:51 a.m.
On June 26, Richard Erlacher wrote:
communication via the power mains, isn't it? My
notion to date has been that
the X-10 stuff is a mite costly, considering that one could hook up a triac, an
MOC30-something isolated triac driver, and a PIC, e.g. one of the 14-pin or
even 8-pin parts, and put the thing in the box with the switch.
Costly? A 300W dimmer module costs like nine bucks. When I add up the
price of the components required to duplicate that, I have trouble
figuring out where they're making a profit.
They're all PIC-based, by the way...the modern dimmer modules contain
12c508 chips.
It would be an interesting job, actually, though the
MCU would be largely
wasted. It's smaller than an equivalent set of CMOS logic, though.
Well, the 12c508 is a *tiny* processor with a *tiny* control
store...
-Dave McGuire