<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 2:31 PM, Nathan C. Smith <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:nathan.smith@ipmvs.com">nathan.smith@ipmvs.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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If you wanted to open your garage door or turn something on or off from a remote location what would you use to do it?</blockquote><div><br>In the past I have used a relay driven by a pin from a printer port. It's not pretty, but if you have an old machine with a printer port, it's one of the easiest devices to interface to. You'll get +5V or 0V relative to case ground depending on the bit status. Beware, though: it's not much current, but it can drive a small relay fine. And your relay will need a current limit resistor, so you'll have to look at your current requirements and bust out some Ohm's law. Then you write a script to flip that bit, and ssh in to call it.<br>
<br>I would probably wire it to a standard wireless remote control for the
garage door, as I wouldn't want to run an entire computer in my garage
(+wifi) just for this.<br><br>I had this type of ghetto-rig back in high school on an ancient OpenBSD 486, and it worked for several years. It is very low on money-cost but higher on time-cost -- a compromise which makes sense for a teenager, but possibly not for a working adult. Now that I have money instead of time, I would probably look for a bluetooth/wifi/usb-operated power strip or something like that.<br>
<br>- Nathan<br></div></div>