About neil

Responsible Manufacturing

Carbon Dioxide emissions are in the news again as we experience more violent weather in 2014 and a drought in the west.

We know our customers care about reducing energy consumption and the corresponding Carbon emission reduction.  So when time came to upgrade our production machinery and assembly lines we made sure we choose equipment that has the lowest energy footprint possible.  For example our high speed CNC punch is an AC servo motor driven turret which uses less than half the energy of a typical hydraulic machine and a 1/3 of the energy use of a machine of 15 years ago.

In addition, we made the conscious choice to supply the energy required to produce our whole house fans from renewable sources. Today, our on-site Solar PV array provides all the energy required to power our cutting and punching equipment as well as a significant portion of our assembly line.

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Did you know an AirScape whole house fan could be your best energy savings investment?  Read on: http://airscapefans.com/learn-about/energy-savings.php

Ethernet over Power

If you’ve been reading this blog, or have recently purchase an AirScape WHF, you’re no doubt aware that all of our whole house fans come complete with a webserver. You can access and control the WHF by any browser connected to your LAN.

 The missing link is that you have to connect the AirScape WHF to your LAN via an ethernet cable. Most of the time that’s the best and easiest solution. However, if you can’t get from your router to the attic, here is an inexpensive and reliable solution:

Ethernet over Power adapters use your house wiring to transmit ethernet.  You simply buy a pair, plug each one into a wall outlet, then plug ethernet cables into the device.

Typical Ethernet over Power
Typical Ethernet over Power Devices

Bookmark your WHF controller

UPDATE: The controls referenced below are currently only available as an upgrade on Sierra units. For more information please call us at 866.448.4187.

There are a couple of ways of quickly accessing your whole house fan controller through a web browser.

A bit of technical background:

Your AirScape WHF gets an IP address (something like 192.168.xxx.xxx) from your router through a process called DHCP.  This IP address stays the same for long periods, but  may change because of power failures, unit resets, etc. For convenience we don’t want to have to look for that IP address or URL whenever we want to change fan speeds or set the timer.

Method 1: Fix the IP address or set an IP address reservation

  • Follow the instructions to reserve or fix an IP address as described in https://blog.airscapefans.com/archives/ip-address-reservation
  • Put the IP address into your browser URL window
  • Save that page as a Bookmark

Method 2: Use the AirScape server to find your IP address

  • You need to be signed up for the AirScape Data Monitoring. (Call us to set this up)
  • Make a bookmark on your browser with the address as follows: http://airscapefans.com/control/local-link.php?mac=:last-6-characters-of-your-MAC . You can find the ‘last-6-characters-of-your-MAC” on the sticker of your WHF control panel. This one (pictured below) has a MAC address of 60:CB:FB:00:00:17.
  • The bookmark for this example would be: http://airscapefans.com/control/local-link.php?mac=000017
  • This will only work when you are connected to your LAN (local area network). So if your smart phone is not connected to your home LAN, it won’t work.

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Busy Summer Building

Building in America …

Our assembly lines are busy, and the parking lot is full.

Our whole house fans are built out of aluminum and galvanized steel panels. The flat parts have already been “punched” out of 4 x  8 sheets of aluminum or steel. As you’ll see below, there’s still a lot of processing like bending (on the Accurpress brake) and adding studs and fasteners with the PEM machine.

 

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Whole House Fan Monitoring

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What ? The  data monitoring package “DMP” is a new feature available for AirScape whole house fans. This package of extra sensors and software allows whole house fan owners to view room, outside, and attic temperatures. Users can view the temperatures through their browser enabled devices (smart phones, computers, tablets …). Historical data will be saved on AirScape servers and will only be available by secure login.

Why is this cool ? You will be able to check temperatures in your house, attic, and outside remotely. By looking at the graphs of temperatures, you’ll be able to decide on the best ways to save utility costs. Upcoming software will be able to total your annual energy savings.

When? Available in the next 2 weeks on select models.

Cost ?  The additional cost for the 3 temperature sensors (accurate to 1 deg F) and additional embedded software will be $49. Monitoring and web access: FREE

Privacy ? Your data  will only be available to you, secured by encrypted passwords. Aggregated data that does not reveal the user’s identity may be used for research purposes.

Want to see more about how it works? Check out the DMP DEMO PAGE

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Inside the new controller

We thought that you’d like to see all the cool stuff that makes up our new controller.

Of course, we had to have a microprocessor. A microprocessor controls all the sequencing and logic. It also does a lot of work serving up web pages and communicating with the switches, remote controls, and motor.

Optoisolators provide protection against stray (or man-made) voltages.

The Clock crystal gives us a “tick” every 1/32,000,000 th of a second. That’s the basis  for all timing functions.

A programming port – that’s where the programmer downloads his program for the 50th time after a series of mistakes  🙂

Relays are electrical switches (listen to them click) that control higher power loads (like the door actuators) that would burn out a microprocessor if connected directly.