NUC Remote Power Swtich Mod
#1
Hi Guys.

Not sure if many will find this useful or not but thought I would put it up and see. Inspired in-part by jammyb's mod, I wanted to be able to turn my nuc on and off with my remote since it sits on the top shelf of a closet and not easy to get to.

I was considering the simerec until I realized that I had the perfect device already in my setup that I could tap into. I have one of these bad boys: <<URC MSC-400 BASE STATION>>. It is basically wired in as the brain of my a/v setup. One thing it has that I never thought I would use is built voltage relays. To put it simple it can open and close circuits when told to my the remote controls of the house - in this case I wired it to the power switch of the NUC's connector bank (pins 6 and 8).

The trick was be how to do it cleanly so I can easily unplug it when I have to take the NUC out for maintenance or just getting out of the way. So I went to Radio Shack (a cheap electronics store for those not in the US) and picked up a couple of 1/8 inch audio mono jacks:

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And drilled a hole for in after taking apart the NUC:

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I was able to dig though all of the computer parts I have amassed over the years (I am a total pack rat) and found a dual-plug, cut off an end, and soldered the wire to the jack. Then covered with lots of shrink wrap:

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This is with it installed (note the I had the plug in for testing on the right):

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What it looks like assembled:

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This is what goes to the MSC400. That 3 prong plug comes with the unit (only using two of the terminals) wired in with a mono audio cable I had lying around:

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Put it all together and configured the MSC using the URC software close the relay when told too. It will also do a press and hold if I need to do a hard reset. Everything works great! Now I need to decided if I want to keep using the standby or do a full shutdown/reboot when switching to the XBMC input.

Hope this helps someone.
Ernie
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NUC Remote Power Swtich Mod0