Where to buy Loxone kit (DIY)

[Hilldes]

Looking to buy some more Loxone kit for my build (I bought the first batch of kit for a proof of concept about 12 months back from Loxone when they still sold to non-partners). There have been a couple of pointers on here:

 

@Rob99 allegedly can't receive IMs?

 

Spider electrical - struggle to load the web page and when I do the email address given gets bounced.

 

Any alternatives?

[jack]

Have a look at Loxone Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/g/loxone-english/ (if you're doing any of this yourself, if makes sense to be in this group anyway, imo). There are at least a couple of UK-based suppliers who've offered to supply to UK private customers.

Edited to add: I can't see why this would be the case:

 

20 minutes ago, Hilldes said:

@Rob99 allegedly can't receive IMs?

 

 What error message are you getting @Hilldes?

[Hilldes]

12 minutes ago, jack said:

Have a look at Loxone Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/g/loxone-english/ (if you're doing any of this yourself, if makes sense to be in this group anyway, imo). There are at least a couple of UK-based suppliers who've offered to supply to UK private customers.

Edited to add: I can't see why this would be the case:

 

 

 What error message are you getting @Hilldes?

 

Thanks @jack

 

I get this message when sending the PM:

 

 

[MikeSharp01]

You don't use the @ in creating PM address just type rob99, or whatever name, and all will be well I think.

[Hilldes]

3 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

You don't use the @ in creating PM address just type rob99, or whatever name, and all will be well I think.

Thanks @MikeSharp01 message now sent successfully.

[jack]

13 minutes ago, Hilldes said:

Thanks @jack

 

Incidentally, I'm not far from you and installed my own Loxone system with the help of an electrician about 5 years ago if you ever want a chat about what you're doing. Currently in the process of adding sensors to my garage so I can control it (and determine its open/closed/blocked status) via the app.

[Rob99]

58 minutes ago, Hilldes said:

Thanks @MikeSharp01 message now sent successfully.

Message recieved and responded to......?

[Hilldes]

2 hours ago, jack said:

 

Incidentally, I'm not far from you and installed my own Loxone system with the help of an electrician about 5 years ago if you ever want a chat about what you're doing. Currently in the process of adding sensors to my garage so I can control it (and determine its open/closed/blocked status) via the app.

Cheers @jack I'm working on a schematic which shows what I want from the automation and how I'll connect it all together. Will post in a few days and it would be great to get yours and other's views. Some really good posts in the last few months - e.g. use of DMX, which I'm digesting at present.

 

I plan to work with the electrician who installed our site and caravan supplies - he qualified in the last few years and keen to experience HA.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Hilldes

[Thorfun]

10 minutes ago, Hilldes said:

I'm working on a schematic which shows what I want from the automation and how I'll connect it all together

 

I'm getting near this stage so I will be following your posts with interest.

[Trw144]

18 minutes ago, Hilldes said:

Cheers @jack I'm working on a schematic which shows what I want from the automation and how I'll connect it all together. Will post in a few days and it would be great to get yours and other's views. Some really good posts in the last few months - e.g. use of DMX, which I'm digesting at present.

 

I plan to work with the electrician who installed our site and caravan supplies - he qualified in the last few years and keen to experience HA.

 

We used Loxone on our place and can recommend Dali for lighting - saved having lots of loxone extensions (which can soon add up to a lot of £££). Can you become a partner by attending the course or have they completely clamped down on the diy type market? Discounts weren't ever that much anyway (15% IIRC).

[jack]

57 minutes ago, Trw144 said:

Can you become a partner by attending the course or have they completely clamped down on the diy type market? Discounts weren't ever that much anyway (15% IIRC).

 

No, I believe they've become increasingly hostile to the DIY market over the last few years. They shut the forum down 3 or 4 years ago, started refusing to answer technical questions unless you were a professional installer, and more recently stopped even selling direct to consumers.

 

I've encountered several people (including myself) who did the installers course at least partly based on the promise of the discount, only to be refused it at the end because they weren't professional installers.

 

1 hour ago, Trw144 said:

We used Loxone on our place and can recommend Dali for lighting - saved having lots of loxone extensions (which can soon add up to a lot of £££).

 

There's some recent discussion about Dali on the forum posted above. Loxone's gear is generally pretty good, but often it's much more expensive than other options like Dali or DMX.

[joth]

12 minutes ago, jack said:

 

1 hour ago, Trw144 said:

We used Loxone on our place and can recommend Dali for lighting - saved having lots of loxone extensions (which can soon add up to a lot of £££).

 

There's some recent discussion about Dali on the forum posted above. Loxone's gear is generally pretty good, but often it's much more expensive than other options like Dali or DMX.

 

One snag is the Loxone Dali extension (like their DMX extension) has an unusual / artificially low limit on how many fixtures it can control, and the Dali one in particular is very expensive if you end up needed 2 or three it's running into 4 figures just on those extensions.

@Dan F (of both this parish and of loxone-english) has more details on Dali challenges. It's particularly tough if you want tuneable white as that doubles the number of channels needed. (A silly feature of Dali perhaps, as I'd personally only want to drive 1 channel per floor for the current white temperature)

 

I've used DMX in my Loxone install, with http://www.whitewing.co.uk/acdim.html dimmers, and I do occasionally get Dali envy. (e.g. when fading in and different fixtures light up at different times. Much more use of DMX constant current drivers, less mains dimming, would likely have helped avoid this too.)

 

 

[joth]

5 hours ago, Hilldes said:

 

Spider electrical - struggle to load the web page and when I do the email address given gets bounced.

 

 

 

https://www.loxonehome.co.uk/ is their current URL, and spiderelectrical@yahoo.co.uk worked last time I tried emailing -- but he was having Brexit import snags so I didn't go ahead with an order. Rob99 came through on the parts I needed most recently ?

 

[jack]

Just now, joth said:

I've used DMX in my Loxone install, with http://www.whitewing.co.uk/acdim.html dimmers, and I do occasionally get Dali envy. (e.g. when fading in and different fixtures light up at different times. Much more use of DMX constant current drivers, less mains dimming, would likely have helped avoid this too.)

 

Yes, I'm on DMX too. I initially used those nasty Chinese 3-channel dimmers everyone was using with Loxone a while ago, but they're unreliable to say the least. I've replaced half of those with an 8-way KNX dimmer, and am presently eyeing up replacing the rest. Not sure whether to go with one of those new Whitewing dimmers and possibly replace everything (and sell on the KNX dimmer), or possibly just accept a mixture of two different dimming types. 

[joth]

15 minutes ago, jack said:

 

Yes, I'm on DMX too. I initially used those nasty Chinese 3-channel dimmers everyone was using with Loxone a while ago, but they're unreliable to say the least. I've replaced half of those with an 8-way KNX dimmer, and am presently eyeing up replacing the rest. Not sure whether to go with one of those new Whitewing dimmers and possibly replace everything (and sell on the KNX dimmer), or possibly just accept a mixture of two different dimming types. 

Overall I'm very happy with Whitewing 

only thing to bear in mind is the power per channel is quite a bit lower. Only hit issues with this with the line of architectural downlights along the kitchen island. They don't blow a fuse, but powering them up causes all other lights on that dimmer to flicker momentarily.

 The nominal wattage of them is only 52W so well within spec, I suspect it's the generic drivers supplied with them have a high surge current. Definitely one we should have skipped mains dimming and just used remote constant current drivers on.

 

 

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by joth

[jack]

6 minutes ago, joth said:

Overall I'm very happy with Whitewing 

only thing to bear in mind is the power per channel is quite a bit lower. Only hit issues with this with the line of architectural downlights along the kitchen island. They don't blow a fuse, but powering them up causes all other lights on that dimmer to flicker momentarily.

 The nominal wattage of them is only 52W so well within spec, I suspect it's the generic drivers supplied with them have a high surge current. Definitely one we should have skipped mains dimming and just used remote constant current drivers on.

 

Really useful to know, thanks.

 

Most of the channels I have are 4 x 8W downlights or a handful of 2W downlights, so shouldn't be an issue. Kitchen is the only one that might be an issue at 7 x 9W, but I could have them ramp up at startup if any issues, I suppose.

I do wish I'd gone for CC DMX drivers. They would have cost a bit more, but the quality of the dimming is a different league entirely. I bought an EldoLED CC driver a while ago to play with and was amazed at how low they dim without the slightest flicker. 

[Rob99]

35 minutes ago, joth said:

Rob99 came through on the parts I needed

Thanks @joth

 

Happy to help ?

[MikeSharp01]

1 hour ago, jack said:

recently stopped even selling direct to consumers

Small minded approach really - they will get blown out of the water by stuff you can get in Lidl as the whole thing becomes bolt on and Alexa takes control. Why would you bother with a dimmer block when you can shout at the bulb and tell it how bright you want it, what colour temperature you want, how long you want it on .....

[joth]

1 hour ago, jack said:

I do wish I'd gone for CC DMX drivers. They would have cost a bit more, but the quality of the dimming is a different league entirely. I bought an EldoLED CC driver a while ago to play with and was amazed at how low they dim without the slightest flicker. 

Yeah the few I've ended up using by happenstance are so much better than other fixtures. We even had some fairly fancy/expensive track system lights using 0-10V drivers that should be perfect fade, but nothing compared to what I can get out of them using fairly cheap D4C-L constant current drivers.

The kitchen island lights are 4 units each 13W, 15V forward voltage. They currently have individual mains dimmable drivers wired in parallel on 1.5mm2 T&E. With some faff I could pull out the drivers from the ceiling and rewire them in series and use a remote driver (reappropriate the T&E for low voltage circuit). The combined 60V forward voltage would be tricky to drive, but I could do 3 of them (45V) on the T&E  L+N pair and the remaining fixture on the L+E pair. This would fit very nicely on my existing 48V power supply.

I'll add it to the list of projects to get to in 5 year's time, when absolutely everything else in the house is working and I run out of things to do!!

 

 

 

[Hilldes]

3 hours ago, jack said:

 

No, I believe they've become increasingly hostile to the DIY market over the last few years. They shut the forum down 3 or 4 years ago, started refusing to answer technical questions unless you were a professional installer, and more recently stopped even selling direct to consumers.

 

I've encountered several people (including myself) who did the installers course at least partly based on the promise of the discount, only to be refused it at the end because they weren't professional installers.

 

 

There's some recent discussion about Dali on the forum posted above. Loxone's gear is generally pretty good, but often it's much more expensive than other options like Dali or DMX.

 

I had the training booked and paid for but could not attend as the first lockdown hit last year. When I asked when the training would be rescheduled I was told I could no longer attend if I did not have a qualifying business already (e.g. electrician) and the fee was refunded.

[Dan F]

4 hours ago, Trw144 said:

recommend Dali for lighting - saved having lots of loxone extensions (which can soon add up to a lot of £££).

 

The Loxone DALI extensions cost a lot though at £450 each!!  Did you use these or do somethng else? 

 

I've just bought a Raspberry PI DALI hat, which can control up to 256 DALI addresses for £80.   I'm trying to get it working, and expose HTTP calls for use in Loxone now.

[Dan F]

2 hours ago, jack said:

I do wish I'd gone for CC DMX drivers. They would have cost a bit more, but the quality of the dimming is a different league entirely. I bought an EldoLED CC driver a while ago to play with and was amazed at how low they dim without the slightest flicker. 

 

I never really looked at this approach (not sure why). I have gone down the indivdually addressable DALI route where each fittings has it's own driver doing the dimming.

 

For LED's I was going to use Loxone RGBW extensions for these, but given we are doing tunable white and Loxone support for this is bad, now looking at driving LED's with EldoLED constant voltage DALI DT8 drivers.   

 

Good to hear you've had good experience with EldoLED. Makes me even more sure about finding an LED-tape supplier that provides EldoLED drivers and not another brand or unbranded.

 

 

 

[Dan F]

3 hours ago, joth said:

 

One snag is the Loxone Dali extension (like their DMX extension) has an unusual / artificially low limit on how many fixtures it can control, and the Dali one in particular is very expensive if you end up needed 2 or three it's running into 4 figures just on those extensions.

 

It's actually a DALI limit of 64 per bus.  But Loxone could have built an extension with support for 2 or 4 buses.  At £450/64 fittings it's not cheap, but the Loxone dimmers aren't cheap either and DALI gives you more flexability.   The DALI fittings are generally £10 more each, so that's £17/fitting for DALI vs. £88 per zone for Dimmer.   So depending on your fittings/zone ratio, DALI isn't necesarily more expensive that Dimmers.

 

That said,  if the Pi HAT works that's just £0.30/address, so approx £10.30/fitting.   https://www.amazon.co.uk/ATX-LED-Raspberry-DALI-control/dp/B081TNRGMN

 

Quote

@Dan F (of both this parish and of loxone-english) has more details on Dali challenges. It's particularly tough if you want tuneable white as that doubles the number of channels needed.

 

Only if you use DT6, but that's a pain to control as you then need to control warm/cool white seperalty.  DT8 (which Loxone has now suported for 6-9mths) is just one address and takes indpendant intensity/kelvin inputs and then drives two LED channels to produce this.   

 

We've decided against using tunable white for downlights and are sticking to 3000K.   We are using tunable white LED tape everywhere though, apart from a couple of specific location where we are putting RGBW (kids rooms).

 

Quote

(A silly feature of Dali perhaps, as I'd personally only want to drive 1 channel per floor for the current white temperature)

 

How would this work?  Each LED tape/fitting has two channels, in the same way that RGBW tape has 4 channels.

 

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by Dan F

[Trw144]

34 minutes ago, Dan F said:

 

The Loxone DALI extensions cost a lot though at £450 each!!  Did you use these or do somethng else? 

 

I've just bought a Raspberry PI DALI hat, which can control up to 256 DALI addresses for £80.   I'm trying to get it working, and expose HTTP calls for use in Loxone now.

Yes I used those - don't remember them being £450 each but they may have been. Keeping to the Loxone products, it seemed neater and cheaper than having multiple dimmer extensions. 

[Dunny1234]

5 hours ago, Hilldes said:

Cheers @jack I'm working on a schematic which shows what I want from the automation and how I'll connect it all together. Will post in a few days and it would be great to get yours and other's views. Some really good posts in the last few months - e.g. use of DMX, which I'm digesting at present.

 

I plan to work with the electrician who installed our site and caravan supplies - he qualified in the last few years and keen to experience HA.

Hi, I’m also thinking of going down the loxone route, and I’m thinking of getting a wiring plan too, and get my electrician to follow it. How much did it cost you, if you don’t mind? Thanks