FireworX - Freeware for the Firecracker X-10 Device (CM17A)
Last Updated: February 3, 2004
Platform: Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP
This site is dedicated to providing free software and programming information for the Firecracker (CM17A) X-10 home automation device.
| Latest updates: Recently, I noticed that Microsoft is providing Visual Studio 2005 Express for free. I am going to be checking out Visual C# in particular. I hope to develop some sample code with it and to evaluate it for the a rewrite of FireworX-10. I comment more on this in my Life with... section. Published: Sat, 28 Jan 2006 18:10:20 GMT New section added along with an improvement in site layout Long ago (2002) I designed this site using an accepted approach of the day for Web design. It relied on tables and images; lots of images. It has served well but today's Web design techniques using Cascading Style Sheets are much better. I have rewritten part of this site with this new approach as a test. The part I choose is that devoted to Home Automation which you are reading. Hopefully it works better and you experience better performance as all the images don't have to be loaded. The event that got me going down this path was a new section that I wanted to add. Previously adding a new section required a lot of work with a graphics program (Macromedia Fireworks) before importing into the HTML editor (Dreamweaver) for more reworking in order to make the necessary changes. The new section is one I have been wanting to write for a while and is titled "Life with Home Automation." I have written a similar series of items on my Mustang in the area here called Life with the White Fox. I hope you like this new section and experience no issues with the new layout. Published: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 23:51:22 GMT RSS feed now available I have maintained an RSS feed on the Ford Mustang area of this web site for some time now. I found a tool that allows me to maintain both a list of site updates and the RSS file at the same time. I am now implementing that same feature here. As RSS feed is now available. It will contain the latest updates to this site. That same list will appear right here. You have probably noticed that recently most of my energy has gone into the aforementioned Mustang piece of the site. I am now considering spreading myself more evenly to the other areas of the site. An update to FireworX-10 is long overdue. It has some bugs and many people have made very good feature requests. The problem is that I wrote it in Visual Basic 5 and I have very little interest in that technology today. Every time I pick it back up I only last a few days before I lose interest. I have some ideas to make it more interesting. Also, it seems like I am always undertaking home automation projects and it's now time to share some. Hopefully, that means more updates to this site. Stay tuned. Published: Sat, 07 Jan 2006 01:28:25 GMT |
FireworX-10
Last Updated: February 3, 2004
Intended audience: Novice
Featured in the February/March 2004 issue of Home
Automation Magazine
This is a software application for Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP which
I wrote to create and schedule events for the Firecracker X-10 device
(CM17A) which was sold very cheaply (~$6) at www.x10.com. I originally intended this program
to be for my use but I am offering it here to others who may find
it useful. It is currently offered as freeware. It was written in
Visual Basic 5 so, given its small feature set, it consumes a lot
of space. It has only been tested on a limited number of computers
with different hardware/software configurations.
FireworX Web (Beta
available)
Last Updated: March 5, 2001
Intended audience: Advanced
Featured in the February/March 2004 issue of Home
Automation Magazine
FireworX Web is a Web front end for the FireworX-10 application.
In its initial release, it focuses on viewing of FireworX information
from a Web browser and the ability to issue manual, one time commands
to control X10 modules. It requires you to have an existing Web
server that supports Java Server technology.
Sample VB Code
Last Updated: April 28, 2000
Intended audience: Intermediate
Some sample VB code to get you started with programming your
own solution for the CM17A.
FUzE ActiveX Control (with source)
Last Updated: May 2, 2000
Intended audience: Intermediate
FUzE ActiveX control is a component that can be used in your
programs to control the CM17A X-10 device. Source code is
available!
Related Information
In case you are interested in programming you
own solution or finding out more about Home Automation this section
is for you.
1. There is a "Firecracker (CM17A) Communication Specification"
that defines the protocol on how you communicate with the CM17A
through the COM port. That document is posted at ftp://ftp.x10.com/pub/manuals/cm17a_protocol.txt.
Basically you use RTS and DTR signals.
2. There is a very knowledgeable community of home automation folks
on comp.home.automation. I find the easiest way to use it
is on Google.
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