I used to be asked in interviews when I was younger “what makes you tick”. I used to think it was a stupid question, I guess I still think it is a stupid question, it’s just now I have a better understanding of the answer would be.

To me it’s the things that make you feel alive and wanting more, for me this is generally anything that get me out. Mountains and Snow,  Mountaineering and Climbing, My Landrover and the grin I always get when I’m behind the wheel, driving along my favourite stretch of the A82 through Glen Coe. Escapism.

When I’m not out in the mountains I work as an IT consultant and when I’m at home I’ll be doing DIY or making my home more automated and intelligent.

All thoughts my own.

12 thoughts on “About Me”

  1. Just wanted to let you know that i just read your hyper-v slowness with 3par article and i am experiencing the same thing but with vmware not hyper-v. it may be a HP 3par issue.

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    1. Interesting, please let me know how you get on and if having two active paths and the remainder as standby, from memory the default in VMware is also round robin. The company I work for sell a lot of 3PARs and I’ve only seen this issue with iSCSI, FC does not seem to have the issue.
      Andrew

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  2. Found your excellent “Slow Hyper-V Performance 2012 R2 & iSCSI” post. We got the same issue with some Dell Servers and Dell Compellent SC4020. Is there any update from Microsoft ?

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    1. Hi, thanks for reading and I hope it was of some use. The only feed back was not using round robin with 10Gig connections and limit to two active paths and all other paths should be standby. I’ve see variations of this issue with other customers and I’ve also had a number of people contact me. I’ll contact MS again and see if they are going to release a KB article on this.
      Andrew

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  3. Hi, thanks for sharing the Z-WAve PIR project. Also doing the same but have doubts about the wiring. Would you mind if I send you an email with a diagram of how my PIR is wired. Think I know what to do but would like to confirm first.
    Thanks

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      1. Thanks Andrew

        My PIR currently wired(without Fibaro UBS) as follow

        Green – Com

        Red – 12V

        Black – 0V

        Yellow – Tamp

        Diode between Com and Tamp

        I see on your diagram that you jump from 0V to Alarm Relay and Tamper.

        Not sure if I draw the diagram correct?

        Advice from Fibaro Forum was as below but as far as I can see the Tamper(yellow) is necessary.

        Thanks for your time

        Fibaro Forum

        To power the ubs you can use + and – from pir (that’s 12 volt)

        Then the ubs blue wire to com and if you want to use tamper (i don’t know why?) also the same blue wire to one side of the tamper connection

        then in1 to no and in2 to the other connecton of tamper

        Stephan

        South Africa

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      2. Hi Stephan
        Happy to help where I can. So before I add the Fibaro UBS, my PIR is wired like this:

        Red – +12v
        Black – 0v (ground)
        Yellow – Alarm Sensor
        Green – Alarm Sensor
        Blue – Tamper
        White – Tamper
        I don’t have any diodes like you do and my main alarm panel has separate Alarm and Tamper circuits, for the tamper this I simply a single series circuit connecting all devices so any break in this circuit will trigger an alarm.

        With the sensor I’m putting it between the sensors (PIR and Tamper) on the PIR and the existing alarm panel. So if connect the PIR to Input 1 I take Output 1 to the Alarm panel on the original Green and Yellow wires. I wanted to do this with the tamper circuit too but my alarm did not like the electronics being in the way of a single loop between all of it’s sensors and faulted, so I have to just join these (White and Blue) in the PIR and not use output 2. This does mean that opening the PIR will not trigger a tamper on the main alarm system but it will trigger on the Fibaro system which I felt was more useful.

        You are correct with the diagram; 0v(common), Ground(Fibaro Blue) and one side of Tamper and Alarm are all joined. This is in line with the Fibaro diagram 2 (http://manuals.fibaro.com/content/manuals/en/FGBS-321/FGBS-321-EN-A-v1.01.pdf) where all these need to be tied together.

        Does you Alarm have 2 circuits, one for the PIR and one for the Tamper? I have both and are separate. Motion on the PIR is picked up and triggers the Alarm, Tamper is triggered only if the PIR is opened as this breaks the circuit on a simple switch that goes open as the PIR is opened up. I’m wondering if yours only has an alarm circuit, hence the diode, so motion and/or the PIR tamper switch trigger the same “Alarm”. Does you alarm cable have 6 or 4 cores?

        Andrew

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      3. Hi Andrew

        Thanks very much for your feedback.

        There are only 4 wires connected at my PIR

        12V, 0V, Tamper(yellow), and Comm(green)

        I’ve rechecked and it seems like it is a resistor not a diode and it is connected between N/C and Tamper(I indicated wrong in previous email). See updated image attached.

        I’ve traced the wires and in the alarm panel the wires connect as follow

        Green – Comm

        Yellow – Z2 (Zone 2)

        It does not look like the alarm have a separate connection for zones and tamper.

        Maybe the resistor connection between N/C and Tamper “connects” these 2. In the case that Tamper is cut it will be the same effect as if N/C is opened?

        My guess is that there is not separate tamper and therefor the 2 wires Green(Com) and and Yellow(tampe) should be used the same as you have used Yellow and Green before you have connected the Fibaro UBS.

        I also think that if I remove the resistor and remove the yellow wire from Tamper and connect it to NC that it will still work.

        Thanks

        Stephan

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      4. Yes it would seem the resistor is working in a way as to give the main alarm panel a tamper function via the “alarm” cables. As I had to just join my tamper wires as they come into the PIR when I introduced the UBS I’m also sort of running the PIR on 4 wires. I’d say you have two options:
        1 Remove the resistor from the PIR and wire in the UBS as per my diagram. This will give you a tamper and motion alarms in the Z-Wave system and just a motion alarm in the main alarm.
        2 It may be that your current alarm best fits that of the one shown in Diagram 3 Parametric Alarm ( http://manuals.fibaro.com/content/manuals/en/FGBS-321/FGBS-321-EN-A-v1.01.pdf) so it may be worth moving the resistor from the PIR to the outputs of the UBS as shown, you’ll need 2 resistors by the look of it.

        Regards

        Andrew

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      5. Thank you for your assistance Andrew, I’ll let you know once I have installed the Binary Sensor.

        Keep well

        Stephan

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