[plug] Call me crazy...

[Mike Holland]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Adam Hewitt wrote:

> be possible to somehow connect a kettle to a serial port on a PC so that you
> could boil the kettle from your desktop and get some type of reading to tell

( Unfortunately, the serial port cannot source enough current. )
 You will need a relay, which can be switched by a status line, via a
transistor. Of course, you can buy a PCI/ISA card with relay control, and
inputs. Or google on rs-232 and relay for DIY.

If its an automatic kettle, you just need to know if its drawing power, 
right? So, fist idea: a ~0.5ohm resistor in the neutral wire, with 
opto-isolator input in parallel. Serial ports have a couple of wires each 
for input and output status. How much are you willing to learn?

> I would buy a small crappy PC just for this purpose...not that I have any

In that case, get a Duron/Athlon, with temp tensor in motherboard.
Replace heatsink with non-electric kettle, and monitor the temp using 
lm-sensors.

HTH.

-- 

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