While I wanted to detail the creation of an onboard computer first, I'm not ready with the article.  Still, time keeps ticking by, and I felt I had to post something.

The seemingly-hard part of using a computer to control things in your RV is made TONS easier with a new sensor technology made by Dallas Semiconductor.  There are several places you can get the little boards the plugin, and then plug that into your onboard computer like christmas lights.  You won't have to solder anything or get glue on your shirt.



It works like this: the computer sees files in a directory.  But the files are actually the devices. Just read the file, and know the temperature. No tuning, no fiddling, it just TELLS you the numeric value of the temperature, wherever you put it.

The same is true of the relays in the other direction: write a "1" into a file, and the switch comes on. Write a "0" there and the switch goes off.  It's beautiful.

And it's here at the website.

This is probably the *hardest* part of the whole thing.  And yet...not that hard, really. No soldering, no glue, burning fingers or getting zapped by electricity.  Everything's low-voltage, simple plug-and-play.  If I can do it, you have a good shot!