Can sensors be added to the computer?

**alexgray104** · 07-01-2007, 07:00 PM

Hi,

I'm thinking of intergrating a pc into my new caravan (or rv to you). Meaning I can control all my music, dvds, internet, gps etc from one place whilst on holiday. Then I got thinking some more. And I thought, maybe I can intergrate some features into it that work with the caravan. For example, having a rod in the fresh tank, connected to the PC to tell me how much water I had left, or some sort of switch/acutator that turned on something when I pressed a button on the PC. I am a complete newbie to all this In-Car stuff at the moment, and still reading up on a lot of it. However, I just would like your opinion on whether its possible to intergrate water-level sensors into the system, and how this would be done. Other items I was thinking of was Battery Voltage meter and waste tank level.

I would appreciate your comments/thoughts.

Kind Regards.

**alexgray104** · 07-01-2007, 07:33 PM

Just to expand on my previous ideas..

After some more research, I have found out about the X10 Home Automation Products and the Computer Interface Module you can buy to go with them. A lot of appliances in the caravan are 240v as well as 12v, so I think this would be a handy piece of the system to control the 240 items such as water heater, battery charger, awning power outlets etc. It seems once the system is installed and intergrated with the computer, you control it thru a program called "harmony". However, I don't really want to keep having to flick thru different programs to do certain things, I'd rather it was all in one front end, so would it be possible to use a frontend such as roadrunner to control certain functions of the home automation system?

Kind Regards

**Arrow** · 07-01-2007, 08:40 PM

Take a look at this:
*NEW* USB Input/Output Board -- Fusion Brain

**alexgray104** · 07-02-2007, 12:15 PM

Cheers for the response Arrow, but the Fusion doesn't seem to support water level sensing at the moment, however I have PM'd the bloke about it because it seems it could be intergrated, and I am awaiting a response.

Thanks Again

**jpuype** · 07-05-2007, 04:08 AM

Originally Posted by alexgray104

Cheers for the response Arrow, but the Fusion doesn't seem to support water level sensing at the moment, however I have PM'd the bloke about it because it seems it could be intergrated, and I am awaiting a response.

Thanks Again

I'm planning to splice the data from my fuel sensor and send that to one of the analog input of the Fusion Brain, so I figure that something similar could be done for a sensor that is keeping track of your water supply?

Just an idea....

Jurgen

**bluebird** · 07-05-2007, 05:58 AM

http://www.edn.com/article/CA63743.html

If you can solder then this page might go some way to solving your problem. It seems there is a vast amount of information on serial port sensors on that google gadget.

**alexgray104** · 07-05-2007, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by jpuype

I'm planning to splice the data from my fuel sensor and send that to one of the analog input of the Fusion Brain, so I figure that something similar could be done for a sensor that is keeping track of your water supply?

Just an idea....

Jurgen

Hi, I have had a response from the bloke developing Fusion, and he says it could be done, and asked for serial numbers etc, however, I think I will try your idea as a cheapo analogue gauge only costs about 35 quid, and I could hide this somewhere and just have the data showing on the comp.

Kind Regards.