YALANCT (Yet Another Loxone And Network Cabling Thread)

[Thorfun]

9 hours ago, NBW said:

Hi all

I am about to pull a trigger for a LXN5-D from Future Automation

Certainly not the cheapest but seems like its the best on the market.  Annoyingly Future Automation only del with the trade.  Any recommendations on where i can purchase a cab from?

 

Thanks

Nick

Just make sure you only need the 5! I wish I’d gone for the 6 now as things take more space than you think. Plus I’m rubbish at planning stuff. 🤦‍♂️

[NBW]

My Affinity Designer 2 trial has expired so now need to work out how i can get another shot at it to ensure i a have enough space.  I am now considering if i have enough space.  Current equipment list is:
House

4 x Relay Extension

2 x Dimmer Extension

5 x RGBW 24V Dimmer Tree SPOTS

3 x RGBW 24V Dimmer Tree LED Strips

1 x Tree Extension

1 x MiniServer

1 x 1-Wire Extension

1 x AO Extension

1 x Audio Server

1 x Loxone Power and Backup

 

 

The shed will house

1 x Relay Extension

1 x PSU 1 x nano DI

[Thorfun]

5 minutes ago, NBW said:

My Affinity Designer 2 trial has expired so now need to work out how i can get another shot at it to ensure i a have enough space.  I am now considering if i have enough space.  Current equipment list is:
House

4 x Relay Extension

2 x Dimmer Extension

5 x RGBW 24V Dimmer Tree SPOTS

3 x RGBW 24V Dimmer Tree LED Strips

1 x Tree Extension

1 x MiniServer

1 x 1-Wire Extension

1 x AO Extension

1 x Audio Server

1 x Loxone Power and Backup

 

 

The shed will house

1 x Relay Extension

1 x PSU 1 x nano DI

i drew mine out on a spreadsheet (in this thread somewhere i think!)

 

also, that's a lot of Loxone dimmers and relays which are expensive. have you had a look at Whitewing? you'd need a DMX extension though.

 

plus the Loxone tree LED strips are expensive compared to others in my opinion. i used a Whitewing device and normal led strips.

 

but i do understand keeping it all under one roof so feel free to ignore me!

[jack]

3 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

have you had a look at Whitewing? you'd need a DMX extension though.

 

+1 for Whitewing over Loxone mains dimmers.

 

Also, the DMX extension is useful for other things. DMX relays are cheap. You can buy multi-channel, DMX-controlled, DIN-rail-mountable relay units for a fraction of the cost of the Loxone equivalent.

 

Alternatively (or in addition), you can put indivudal relays or multi-relay boards closer to where they're needed and control them via DMX.

 

In a larger installation you need to consider signal cable length and topology, but other than that, imo DMX is a robust solution to a lot of problems.

[Thorfun]

1 hour ago, jack said:

 

+1 for Whitewing over Loxone mains dimmers.

 

Also, the DMX extension is useful for other things. DMX relays are cheap. You can buy multi-channel, DMX-controlled, DIN-rail-mountable relay units for a fraction of the cost of the Loxone equivalent.

 

Alternatively (or in addition), you can put indivudal relays or multi-relay boards closer to where they're needed and control them via DMX.

 

In a larger installation you need to consider signal cable length and topology, but other than that, imo DMX is a robust solution to a lot of problems.

he also does DMX relays now as well. if i need more relays i think i'm definitely going to use Whitewing over buying new Loxone relays.

[jack]

4 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

he also does DMX relays now as well. if i need more relays i think i'm definitely going to use Whitewing over buying new Loxone relays.

 

I spotted that when I recently went to check whether he did smaller dimmers (eg, 2 to 4 channel) to handle some significant changes we're making to our kitchen lighting.

 

The Whitewing mains dimmer I've been running for the last few years dims even better than the more expensive Thormann KNX dimmer I used for the other half of the house. 

[NBW]

Interesting, i have not seen Whitewing before.  

What are peoples reviews on Whitewing DMX dimmers over the very expensive Loxone Extensions? 
I have time to switch over.

 

I have read some issues with the Loxone Dimmer and dimming LED's.  Has anyone had this issue.  Assuming no one has had issues with Whitewing DMX controls?

 

Thanks

Nick

Edited October 17 by NBW

[Thorfun]

4 minutes ago, NBW said:

Interesting, i have not seen Whitewing before.  

What are peoples reviews on Whitewing DMX dimmers over the very expensive Loxone Extensions? 
I have time to switch over

 

Thanks

Nick

i have a Whitewing mains dimmer (https://www.whitewing.co.uk/acdim.html) and 24v RGBW dimmer (https://www.whitewing.co.uk/rgbdim48.html) and think they're both great. and sooooo much cheaper even when factoring in the DMX extension. and if you swapped out some or all of your Loxone relays for Whitewing ones (https://www.whitewing.co.uk/dmxrelay.html) you'd save a small fortune!

 

i see now he does a small 4 channel LED driver for £18+VAT each! https://www.whitewing.co.uk/tinydmx.html . should be able to replace those expensive Loxone ones (https://shop.loxone.com/enuk/product/100325-rgbw-24v-compact-dimmer-tree) at £78+VAT each!

 

i have more lighting to do in the basement and i think i've found my new LED drivers. 

 

[Thorfun]

i do have to say though that the Loxone stuff looks really nice in the cabinet lined up. but it was a high price to pay to satisfy my OCD. 🤣

[NBW]

Thanks for the reply.  Interestingly

So i save over £1500 moving to WhiteWing Relays and Dimmer control form Loxone

Name

Cost

1st Floor Inputs

Ground Floor Inputs

Shed

Total Inputs

Device Inputs

Total

Total Cost

Relay Extension	396.636	28	10	8	46	14		4	1189.908
Dimmer Extension	542.364	5	0		5	4		2	1084.728

RGBW 24V Dimmer Tree SPOTS

93.768

12

7

19

4

5

468.84

 

	Cost	With VAT		Total Inputs	Total Devices	Cost
16 Channel DMX relay controller RLY16-D	175	210		35	3	630
16- channel DMX AC LED dimmers DIM8-ACL	375	450		8	1	450
					Total	1080

 

 

I would then need to buy the DMX extension @£350

 

I havent looked at DMX before.  Reading up its a very well established protocol.  Other than cost, i can see cab space being. big saver as well. Are there benefits to using Loxone over WhiteWing?  

 

Thanks for the help everyone.   

 

[Thorfun]

1 minute ago, NBW said:

Thanks for the reply.  Interestingly

So i save over £1500 moving to WhiteWing Relays and Dimmer control form Loxone

 

Name

Cost

1st Floor Inputs

Ground Floor Inputs

Shed

Total Inputs

Device Inputs

Total

Total Cost

 

Relay Extension	396.636	28	10	8	46	14		4	1189.908
Dimmer Extension	542.364	5	0		5	4		2	1084.728

 

RGBW 24V Dimmer Tree SPOTS

93.768

12

7

19

4

5

468.84

 

 

	Cost	With VAT		Total Inputs	Total Devices	Cost
16 Channel DMX relay controller RLY16-D	175	210		35	3	630
16- channel DMX AC LED dimmers DIM8-ACL	375	450		8	1	450
					Total	1080

 

 

I would then need to buy the DMX extension @£350

 

I havent looked at DMX before.  Reading up its a very well established protocol.  Other than cost, i can see cab space being. big saver as well. Are there benefits to using Loxone over WhiteWing?  

 

Thanks for the help everyone.   

 

just be careful disregarding the Loxone RGBW spots as i found it very hard to find non-loxone RGBW spots much cheaper and so i actually used the Loxone ones for them in one room. so don't discount ALL loxone stuff. 😉 

 

2 minutes ago, NBW said:

Are there benefits to using Loxone over WhiteWing?

not sure on the answer to this one although i guess the obvious answer is using the tree bus. in the one room where i have the RGBW spots from Loxone controlling them was a simple 1.5mm T&E radial for power and a single Cat6a cable. using Whitewing for that would've meant using up more "space" in the cab or using drivers closer to the spots? 

 

maybe another benefit is the simplicity of the tree bus and the hardware just works. i'm not saying that DMX controlled controllers are a pain but there's a few extra hoops to go through setting up the channel numbers etc.

 

Mike from Whitewing is very responsive to questions and i've got nothing but good things to say about the customer support and you can see earlier in this thread where i was trying to figure out how the RGBW led dimmer would work and a few back and forths with Mike and i got all the information i wanted.

i've not had to speak to Loxone so i can't comment on their customer support.

 

i fully understand the anxiety of diverging from the Loxone equipment as there's the voice in the back of your head saying "What if". but i've been very happy with Whitewing equipment and just wish he'd done relays when i was purchasing as i'd have definitely used them.

[Rob99]

46 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

i see now he does a small 4 channel LED driver for £18+VAT each! https://www.whitewing.co.uk/tinydmx.html 

@Thorfun good spot this 👍

Just had a look at the specs. As with Mike's other products it's well thought out and designed.

Similar max power throughput (8A) as Loxone but higher single channel at 3A (instead of Loxone's 2A) but the biggest difference is the PWM rate. Loxone is 123Hz which is quite low and some people can sometimes detect a hint of flicker, also very noticeable if you've ever taken a video on your phone with the lights on. White wing is 750Hz which is massively different and no chance of any unwanted effects.

[NBW]

Thanks all for the replies.  

I was planning on using multiple  RGBW 24V Dimmer Tree in the Loxone cab and using each of the 4 channels to powers 4 smaller rooms with spots.  Principle with this idea was for ~£80, i get to control 4 small rooms
Most rooms and en-suites have RGBW compact devices in the loft to control LED light strip lighting in the ceiling or walls.

 

Mixing RGBW tree devices and Dimmer extensions meant i could dim all the light circuits bar a couple, with the dimmer extensions controlling the larger spaces.

 

Moving to whitewing means i dont have the restrictions on load for dimmers that the RGBW was going to give me.  I also claw back cab space which is important.

 

The Rely extension will be doing:
- Towel Rail On/Of
- Loft Lights
- Garden Lights
- Drive Lights

- Heating
- Pendant Lights

- Velux Control - KLF-200

- Pumps

Quick overview of the build components:

MiniServer 2
Audio Server - 8 Masters and 3 Clients

Tree Extension

AO Extension - Valiant Boiler control Interface 0-10V VR34

Air Extension
ModBus Air - report on Air Source Heat Pump

Weather Station Tree

Alarm Siren Tree

Nano DI Tree's - Damper control for extractor fan management in en-suites

DI Extension

Backup Power Supply

Having installed sash windows, i have cat cables ran to every pain to report on open/closed status.  I now need to print some clips for the sensors to mount to and to fit them into the panes
 

Looking at a Loxberry to have some additional features to pull data from https://atlas-scientific.com/

 

I also had priced up 16 x Valve Actuator Tree device for the manifolds but i think i am going to try and balance the temp and flow across the house.

 

Happy for any feedback or suggestions

[joth]

@NBW for the high end spec you appear to be building to, I'm surprised you're not aiming for high airtightness and hence MVHR? As well as removing the need for per-bathroom extractors it would help with the room by room heating balancing you mentioned as a goal. (Not so much due to the MVHR moving heat around, more by applying a whole-building strategy to thermal envelope and airtightness design)

 

[mattgibbs]

Can anyone let me know if the Loxone power supply and backup fits in the standard depth future automations enclosure or does it require the deeper enclosure?

[joth]

Loxone PS&B fits in a standard depth panel. The deep version panel is really only needed for "industrial" type PSUs like Meanwell XDR-480E.

[mattgibbs]

Im Currently planning my Loxone build and would appreciate if anyone can help answer a few questions mostly related to my struggle to get 24v to work for anything part from low demand items like switches and sensors due to long runs and huge cable sizing.

 

1. I will be using the mini server compact's tree turbo to connect with Master and client speakers and in one room there are 6 speakers + 1 sub and at 20w a speaker and a 40m overall run from the cabinet requires 13mm2 24v cable which seems insane. Should each speaker perhaps have its own 24v driver in the ceiling using Loxones new audio cable capable of 230v? I can't think of any other  reason loxone have made a 230v audio cable for 24v speakers...

 

2. When maxing out the 200w of the rgbw dimmer tree at distances of 15/20m from the cabinet to led strips, cable sizing of 10mm2 is required. is it better to just hide a rgbw compact dimmer local to the lighting with a local power supply that way 24v cable is only required for a short distance? 

 

if local power supply is the best option for the above two questions then im going to have a lot of power supplies all around the house which brings me on to a third question....

 

3. I see your suppose to common the grounds of the power supplies which is easy in the cabinet, but do power supplies that are local to lets say a speaker or a RGBW dimmer tree compact in a ceiling also need to be common with the ones in the cabinet?

 

Forgive me if I have missed something obvious! 

[MikeSharp01]

Those cable sizes seem very large are you calculating it, if so how, or using some sort of lookup table?

[Alan Ambrose]

Yes, as a sense check, 200W of LEDs is equivalent to to 40 x 5W LED bulbs - that’s an enormous amount of light.

 

And, even then 200W @ 24V is 8A of current. 1mm^2 cable should handle that very easily.

[Thorfun]

3 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

Yes, as a sense check, 200W of LEDs is equivalent to to 40 x 5W LED bulbs - that’s an enormous amount of light.

 

And, even then 200W @ 24V is 8A of current. 1mm^2 cable should handle that very easily.

It’s probably more the voltage drop at 24V over 20m that’s requiring the larger cable

[Thorfun]

13 hours ago, mattgibbs said:

When maxing out the 200w of the rgbw dimmer tree at distances of 15/20m from the cabinet to led strips, cable sizing of 10mm2 is required. is it better to just hide a rgbw compact dimmer local to the lighting with a local power supply that way 24v cable is only required for a short distance? 

So that’s 200W for 4 channels, so 50W per channel = 2A at 24V

According to https://www.12voltplanet.co.uk/voltage-drop-calculator.html?srsltid=AfmBOooS_T6EeoNwm4mKssOsB77oXk5xoEFFhkeRZ4YgNKtO_lWPu_1X a 15m one way distance 1.5mm cable is sufficient. 

[Kelvin]

Loxone do 24V DC audio cable for these master/slave speakers. Consists of 2 x 1.5mm cores 24V and 0.8mm twisted paper for data. The system supports up to 150m cable length which I assume is for data as the other specs say 30m wire length between clients and 600m total length. 

Edited 14 hours ago by Kelvin

[mattgibbs]

3 hours ago, Thorfun said:

So that’s 200W for 4 channels, so 50W per channel = 2A at 24V

According to https://www.12voltplanet.co.uk/voltage-drop-calculator.html?srsltid=AfmBOooS_T6EeoNwm4mKssOsB77oXk5xoEFFhkeRZ4YgNKtO_lWPu_1X a 15m one way distance 1.5mm cable is sufficient. 

I think my mistake was calculating the full 8A of the dimmer over that distance hence the silly cable sizing. But your right, on a per channel basis at 2A even my longest run at 25m requires a 2.5mm cable which isn't too bad I suppose. That's question 2 answered.

[mattgibbs]

3 hours ago, Kelvin said:

Loxone do 24V DC audio cable for these master/slave speakers. Consists of 2 x 1.5mm cores 24V and 0.8mm twisted paper for data. The system supports up to 150m cable length which I assume is for data as the other specs say 30m wire length between clients and 600m total length. 

That's the cable im looking at, it is capable of powering 1 speaker at 30m distance but as soon as you add 2 or 3 or in my case 7 speakers in one room the cable is no longer big enough unless powering each speaker individually. also I still don't know why this audio cable on their website is showing the 2 x 1.5mm cables as 230v rated when the speakers are 24v

[Thorfun]

14 minutes ago, mattgibbs said:

longest run at 25m

is that the one-way distance or round trip? according to the calculator i used they calculate on a one-way distance