Project Hymie

admin — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:36:22 GMT

Project Hymie grew out of a need to remotely control an APC AFX20 Data Centre Air Conditioner. The site where this unit is housed suffered from unreliable power supply and brownouts were quite frequent. Often after a brownout the air conditioner would go into fault and a manual reset was required. If this occurred outside of business hours it meant a long drive to the office to press 3 buttons to reset the unit. If the unit wasn't reset with in 90 minutes the equipment in the server room would begin to automatically shutdown as a protection from overheating.

Unfortunately there are no options from APC to remotely control this unit.

Hymie consists of a web server on a circuit board, a relay board, 3 solenoids, a webcam and some quick grip clamps.

Hymie can be controlled via a VPN connection to an internal website. The site displays the server room temperature, air conditioner status and it shows what is currently displayed on the AFX20 LCD screen.

The solenoids control the alarm, enter and on/off buttons allowing alarms to be viewed and cleared and the unit to be restarted.

Testing the Parts

Hymie fully assembled and working

Hymie installed and operational from the web interface

Darren Arnott

Project Hymie