Hi,
This one is a rough one. I have a customer with a 35,000 square foot house. He had a system installed 8 yrs ago. It is a ada millineum system. He has 20 keypads wired with 12 conductor 22 guage wire. While on vacation his hvac blew up. It caused major water damage & knocked out many keypads. I toned out all the wires for all the keypads and all of them are ok. Also all of the speaker wires are ok. He is working with an insurance advisor. They had a tough time getting the walls up after the prewire & all the walls are painted antique, so rewire is way way out of the question. He has been quoted by 2 other co's who didn't do the correct research & way over bid the job & he doesn't trust them. But he and the customer trust me. A lot of ethical problems have surfaced. He wants me to get as much $ as possible & have the system work the way he wants. I need a keypad & distrbuted audio system that has a inexpensive touchscreen $550 & below. That will allow me to hook up a cd media server to show cd title artist etc. & radio stations. Many of these keypad wires are long runs. Any suggestions would be very helpful!
Thanx,
Matt

Inexpensive TP for $550 or below? I guess a CT1000 is out of the question. Might check xantech $750 and now metadata. or HAI.

Mike

A one way ir touchscreen for less than 500 is going to be rare,let alone a 2 way. RTI has their RK3 at about 1,000. Crestron is in the 1200 and up, amx, Elan and others are similar.

A panel for 550? Maybe if you sell it to him at dealer cost! Cheapest I know of that could do what you want would be a Elan 4" Via! and a media server with GUI output like their Via DJ

35,000 sq ft house and he's nickel and diming you?

I still dont understand the "ethical" comment either.

Ummm, how much is the Russound ???

Cost alone is a lot more than that

Sonance K2?

It can't be done. Period. All of the experienced installers reading your thread is shakig their heads and offering prayers. I would use the the xantech. But you better be sure those lines are good. or you just bought the whole thing.

remember no good deed goes unpunished.

The Crestron APAD might fit the bill, as it comes in at the cost target you are looking for. It is monochrome and not technically a touchscreen, but it does have a 4-button / scroll wheel interface that could be intuitive, especially if used with a compatible media server or iPod front end. Coming from Crestron, you know that its control capabilities are going to be outstanding. I wouldn't recommend using it with the non-twisted, overall shield cable that you likely have in the walls, though. I will mention, though, that I have seen Crestron keypads operate correctly on such wire, but won't vouch for the quantity and lengths that you may be dealing with.

Dare I say Control 4?? I’m not sure if you will have a data speed problem sending on that 12 conductor 22 gauge you have. That’s an important detail! Make sure (what ever product you get) to test the speed you can send info down the wires you have in the house. My guess that is going to be a MAJOR hurdle to deal with.

-Pete

The Niles ZR8630 Controller is about $3200.00 with the TS-1 Touchscreens are about $550.00 each. Will it work over the 12 conductor? I am not sure as they use RJ-45's.

I don't know about the touch screens but I've seen the Niles keypads work on this crummy ribbon cable in a totally bastardized wire sharing schemme work over 300 feet. The wire was left over from a Niles Component Commander multiroom DA system.

but no metadata on the TS-1...

The SpeakerCraft MODE keypad is slated to go for 400.00. It will show I-pod and metadata from the MODE DJ, a 160Gb music server with 4 discreet outputs, slated to go for 3600.00. Of course, I believe these will on work with the MZC controller/amps.