Thanks for the comments Peter. Some additional notes on my House system.
The central processing unit is housed in a standard NEMA enclosure.
There is also remote control for the domestic hot water as a backup to
the solar system. This uses a contactor rated at 60Amps. using standard
24 volt control.

For other control systems where power control is concerned, I use some
buffer driver between the controlling device to drive an opto coupler. I
have used this method for switching High voltages up to 2KV using the
buffers, opto couplers, and FET Switches at the 2KV level. Whether it is
differential, single ended, network, CAN or whatever. Isolate and
decouple. It may cost a few extra dollars up front, but I don't think 23
years of flawless operation (no repairs) is a bad track record. Most
homes 23 years ago had never seen a CPU, much less used it for heating
and cooling purposes.

Today there is so much more to work with, prices for doing these types
of things are pennies on the dollar compared to what I had to spend even
at 1980 prices. Even then it was possible to remote a hard disk drive up
to 75' from the processor in disk farms using differential isolated
control and data lines. If you use fibre today that can be increased to
several hundred feet at 2 to 4 GB/Sec. So my opinion FWIW is go for it.
Isolate things around heavy appliances. Decouple, decouple, decouple,
keep the power clean. I clean expensive supply can serve for the entire
system. Use phantom power to the ends of your network elements.

Most of the odd, weird and confusing problems that I have encountered in
systems and industry over the last 40 years have all been related to
some fault in the power system whether large or small. Could be a 5M
Watt turbine or a 200 Watt inverter. Either can be a pain if not done
properly.

So my 2 Cents worth again. Just wish I had had all these goodies 20 or
30 years ago. I sure like PICS for small apps. there is software for
most of the common network connections or I2C or what ever networking
elements you decide to use.

I really like the High speed fibre. 100% isolation, and lots of
bandwidth.

Later,

Vern

"Peter L. Peres" wrote:

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