Outlets and 'all the normal things' wired by CAT5 back to a special CU????

[Rockingit]

Hi all,

I've just had a really bizarre phone conversation with a potential customer, who wants a quote doing for a rewire (or partial in phases) in a house. The bizarre bit is the fact that he's wanting to use some system where all the switches etc are wired in Cat5, then wired back to some special CU which houses a computer controller which turns things on and off. He did mention a brand name (or I think it must have been) but the line was bad and I didn't catch it.

I'm going to look at it on Monday, has anyone come across this stuff before?? I haven't got a scooby!

I get the principle, and I know there are people like Click who do it in RF versions to a LOCAL rf receiver unit at the pendant, for example, but I've never heard of wiring back in CAT5 to a central 'power' unit, and it sounds like a potential DIY/gadget geek disaster area! I can only imagine that things like a lighting circuit will have a hard L/N/E running in a normal loop then some control box next to it that controls the S/L then CAT5'd back to the board.

 

[johnboy6083]

ive worked on one of these sytems which use a smilar system. it was called Graphic eye, by7 lutron. we a 2.5 to a local controller for every zone. every controller is then linked with a special control cable, and a control cable is taken to each switch from the local controller. There was onemaster switch that copuldbe programmed with moods and lighting schemes ect. To be honest i was very green at the time, and it was all a little over my head.

 

[Rockingit]

I don't THINK it was Lutron he was on about, he seemed very definite that it used a 'whole house' special consumer unit.

 

[mogga]

I did a Lutron system in a development a few years ago and at the time it was "cutting edge" stuff there may be more advanced stuff by now or the customrer has got wrong end of the stick

System we wired had Grafic eyes in every room and a cat 5 back to comms cabinet remote control then took whole house You could turn off lights anywhere from where everyn you were and the living room blinds were integrated to drop when the projector was put on or could be done individualy
We only did the wiring there was a seperate company who did the "home automation"
Another big house we worked on had more cat5 than it did TWe He could sit in his office n turn lights on n off Adjust temp of swimming pool ect ect ect only thing it didnt do was satisfy his wife she needed a new aston martin for that And from all accounts the wee window cleaner but that might just be a roumer

 

[UNG]

Have a look at Automated Home - Home might give you some idea of what may be required

 

[Rockingit]

Had a look last night, and it's defo a strange one! Teletask. And as well as doing lighting control via banked dimmers (like a Lutron), it also switches power circuits via banks of contactors. So he wants each room in the house wired as a radial back to two 'heavily modified' Hager boards which will have to contain a contactor (with upstream RCBO) per circuit, then a large number of RCBO's per every light fed from a dimmer.....then all the CAT5 termination and control side of life....gonna be a crowded couple of boards!!

 

[eskimo39]

Hi mate it sounds like a control 4 or Rako system. I fit one early last year in a rather large house in Leeds, however I could be wrong as we didn't use Cat5 for the lighting. It could be that he has seen this idea somewhere on an install (where there are large amounts of data as well) and confused the two.

With the Control 4 system all the dimmer modules are Din Rail mountable so I usually buy a few empty consumer housings and connect into them.

On this install I just wired 1.0mm T&E from every lighting circuit back to the consumer/dimmer position (lots of wire as you are effectivly taking every switch wire back to a central switching location albeit remote controlled) and looped off this main switch wire as normal to all lights on that circuit.

What happens then is the client can buy custom wireless switches or install control 4 software on a ipad/iphone etc and control it. When you select a room and or scene it sends a signal to the main reciever by the dimmer module panel and turns on the required circuit.

Control 4 is superb in the fact you can have as many different lighting presents for example, the customer can press one button ready to watch a film, the Control 4 senses this and dims the lights in the main lounge, turns on a couple of lamps and then illuminates some LED's you have fitted to lead the way into the kitchen for popcorn. You can even purchase modules so he could control central heating/electric curtain motors etc

Another great thing was I put all his outside lights on this system and he never had to set a timer, the system would wirelessly connect to the internet and download the sunrise and sunset times everyday via a global clock.

I will have a look for some pictures to show you.

Here are some links that may help: Control4 > Residential > Products > Lighting > DIN Rail - 240V
Rakocontrols.com - Rako is leading the way in providing state of the art digital dimming technology.

 

[eskimo39]

Here you go:

 

[Darkwood]

If you have a decent supplier(wholesaler) then ask about a system and because these systems are in there infancy they usually have a trained rep' to come out to site and advice what you need and how to go about it.

 

[Guest123]

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