Pseudonymous maker “Kiu” has put his good dwelling methods below the management of a self-admittedly “over-engineered” modular RS-485 rack-mounted modular system — and has launched all the pieces below an open supply license for anybody to comply with together with their very own setups.

“My newest undertaking [is] a modular RS-485 multi-master RS-485 subrack dwelling automation and management system,” Kiu explains of the KHA undertaking. “So now I’ve a 19″ rack stuffed with modular subrack modules or assemblies, and these are linked to nodes I’ve scattered round my condo — nodes to light up my IKEA furnishings, nodes to drive relays for mains energy, I’ve infrared and RF [Radio-Frequency] modules to regulate non-connected units.”

The system, although spectacular, is self-admittedly over-engineered. “I needed to have the engineering problem,” Kiu says of the ensuing design. “There are possible manner higher options on the market, skilled or open supply. I did not discover the optimum resolution for any of the issues I stumbled upon, nevertheless it was an attention-grabbing journey to be taught stuff.”

The guts of the system is a 19″ rackmount chassis with a rear mainboard, into which the subrack modules — every its personal PCB with a connector on the rear — slot. There’s room for a lot of modules per important unit, every of which has a entrance panel with completely different {hardware} relying on its objective: easy buttons, potentiometers, locking switches, seven-segment LED readouts, analog audio jacks, and extra.

Every node within the system is powered by a Microchip AVR64DD32 microcontroller, with inter-node communication happening over RS-485 communication carried over CAT6 or CAT7 Ethernet cable — together with energy, which means that distant nodes want solely a single cable to function. A push of a button on the primary rack can allow shelf lighting, management heating and air flow methods, or — utilizing custom-built good sockets fitted with relays — management exterior non-smart mains-voltage units.

Kiu has revealed the entire undertaking on GitHub below the Inventive Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported license, and for many who wish to dig deep into its particulars has additionally launched a two-hour “lecture fashion” deep-dive into KHA — embedded above and obtainable on Kiu’s YouTube channel.