by Tom Pydeski (16 Submissions)
Category: Complete Applications
Difficulty: Intermediate
Date Added: Wed 3rd February 2021
Rating: 
(3 Votes)
X10 Firecracker (CM17A) PalmPad Controller
submitted by Tom Pydeski
X10 put out some nifty home control products that communicate
over the power lines and respond to commands to turn on; turn off; dim; etc.
The CM17A is an rf controlled device that receives rf commands from a remote or
the "firecracker" rf pc interface and relays them to the device modules.
The HouseCode can be any 1 of 16 (A through P) and each house code can handle
any of 16 devices (1 to 16).
Keware (https://www.homeseer.com/downloads/index.htm)
had put out an open source usercontrol for the firecracker, but I changed it to make
it a class module, in order to eliminate packaging an ocx with the project.
I took X10's firecracker interface picture of the palmpad and added my own graphic
buttons to simulate the button presses and hovering. I also added the ability to
label the buttons with the device name. Additionally I found some neat code to
rotate an image and implemented that in allowing the selection of a housecode via
the palmpad 's rotary switch. I also added LED's for each device to indicate
their on/off status and used a vertical progress bar to set the dim level.
I implemented a device status for each device. Finally, I was able to figure out
the all on and all off commands (which the firecracker does not support) and
implemented them as well.
Of course all of this is useless if you don't have the x10 hardware that it
interfaces with and controls (https://www.x10.com/automation/ck18a_s_ps32.html)
(They were practically giving away the firecracker starter kit a few years back.)
Assumes
You MUST have the x10 hardware.
VBcoders
