YALANCT (Yet Another Loxone And Network Cabling Thread)

[Rob99]

No special tools required, just a screwdriver to insert into the release hole on the Wago blocks and to push the release button on the Weissmuller 8 level. Solid core cables should push into the wago without any hassle, stranded (e.g. tri-rated cabinet wiring) should be fitted with bootlace ferrules. As the 8 level blocks use smaller gauge wire I find it best to push the button first then insert the cable. 

[Thorfun]

with awesome help from @Rob99, @joth, @Dan F, @jack, @Kelvin and many many others I have finally come up with a design for my Loxone cabinet ready for it to be ripped apart by those same amazing folk! 🤣

 

 

 

it's quite small as I had to zoom out in the spreadsheet to fit it all in but hopefully you can zoom in and see what everything is.

 

very welcome to hear comments.

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Thorfun

[jack]

26 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

very welcome to hear comments.

 

My only question would be whether you plan to terminate all twisted pairs from all ethernet cables at the 24 V terminations section. If so, how many cables are you planning to route there, and what's route are they taking? It can get very busy, very quickly when you have a lot of cables (ask me about the rat's nest that is my Loxone cabinet!), especially when you're trying to retain separation between mains and low voltages.

 

If I were doing mine again, I'd put my ethernet terminations on the top or bottom rail so the ethernet cables don't need to travel far once they enter the cabinet. Since 90% of the time only 1, or at most 2, twisted pairs of each cable are actually used for anything, terminating as close to the cable entry point as possible will signficantly reduce the volume of cable running within the cabinet.

 

Sorry if your plan takes all of this into account, but thought it worth mentioning given how unpleasant my cabinet is to work on given the choices I made at installaion.

[Thorfun]

44 minutes ago, jack said:

 

My only question would be whether you plan to terminate all twisted pairs from all ethernet cables at the 24 V terminations section. If so, how many cables are you planning to route there, and what's route are they taking? It can get very busy, very quickly when you have a lot of cables (ask me about the rat's nest that is my Loxone cabinet!), especially when you're trying to retain separation between mains and low voltages.

 

If I were doing mine again, I'd put my ethernet terminations on the top or bottom rail so the ethernet cables don't need to travel far once they enter the cabinet. Since 90% of the time only 1, or at most 2, twisted pairs of each cable are actually used for anything, terminating as close to the cable entry point as possible will signficantly reduce the volume of cable running within the cabinet.

 

Sorry if your plan takes all of this into account, but thought it worth mentioning given how unpleasant my cabinet is to work on given the choices I made at installaion.

I am not terminating all twisted pairs from the Cat6A cables around the house, just the ones that I will be using. the plan is to bring the Cat6A cables. the plan is to bring them in at the top left of the cabinet and terminate them there in the 8-way blocks. in fact it will, I hope, be very similar to @joth's photo from where this screen shot has been taken

 

 

I'm pretty certain that I'll regret some of my decisions with layout and wiring etc as I've not done this before. but I will live and learn and if I need to redo it at some point in the future then so be it!

[Rob99]

21 hours ago, Thorfun said:

very welcome to hear comments.

Might make sense to swap the 2 whitewing units round, so that the 24v RGBW unit sits below the MS. Then run the WW mains dimmer and two relay extensions down the right hand side of DIN rails 3,4,5. It will shorten some of your wiring and keeps the mains voltage and low voltage wiring nicely seperated, in the right and left trunking. Sketch attached.

 

[joth]

29 minutes ago, Rob99 said:

Might make sense to swap the 2 whitewing units round, so that the 24v RGBW unit sits below the MS. Then run the WW mains dimmer and two relay extensions down the right hand side of DIN rails 3,4,5. It will shorten some of your wiring and keeps the mains voltage and low voltage wiring nicely seperated, in the right and left trunking. Sketch attached.

 

 

Agree with that.  I like to put the dimmers or relays on second rail to minimise distance from the to the terminal blocks. Mains on RHS, SELV on LHS as Rob says.

 

When I used the audio server + stereo extensions I put them on the very bottom row and actually terminated the speaker cable direct to it. Thinking is to keep mains hum as far from any analogue audio pathways as possible, and minimising connections pays off for audio quality. Decent terminal blocks should be fine though.

(Audio server would also be a good candidate to go in it's own isolated enclosure if space allows) 

 

Anyway there's no wrong answer as such just tradeoffs 

[Thorfun]

1 hour ago, Rob99 said:

Might make sense to swap the 2 whitewing units round, so that the 24v RGBW unit sits below the MS. Then run the WW mains dimmer and two relay extensions down the right hand side of DIN rails 3,4,5. It will shorten some of your wiring and keeps the mains voltage and low voltage wiring nicely seperated, in the right and left trunking. Sketch attached.

 

thanks @Rob99. I think that's great advice. I was trying to segregate 24V and 230V by DIN rail, hadn't considered separating them LHS/RHS. makes complete sense with the wiring.

 

I've taken your suggestion and also moved the 230V terminal blocks starting from the RHS so there's a bigger gap between the DI/Tree 8-way terminal blocks and 230V terminal blocks. seemed a sensible continuation to the LHS/RHS theme. 😉 

 

1 hour ago, joth said:

 

Agree with that.  I like to put the dimmers or relays on second rail to minimise distance from the to the terminal blocks. Mains on RHS, SELV on LHS as Rob says.

 

When I used the audio server + stereo extensions I put them on the very bottom row and actually terminated the speaker cable direct to it. Thinking is to keep mains hum as far from any analogue audio pathways as possible, and minimising connections pays off for audio quality. Decent terminal blocks should be fine though.

(Audio server would also be a good candidate to go in it's own isolated enclosure if space allows) 

 

Anyway there's no wrong answer as such just tradeoffs 

I like this idea a lot. tbh I see no reason for audio terminal blocks as that's not something that I'm ever likely to change. it's not like a stereo extension will suddenly need to change to another pair of speakers as they all do the same job! whereas for lighting it is very reasonable to potentially change a non-dimming light circuit to a dimming circuit.

 

I also like the idea of the 24V dimmer being closer to the terminal blocks. not sure if the shorter distance will have a massive impact on voltage drop but it can't hurt, right? anyway, here's the new layout?

 

 

the only issue is I have nearly a full DIN rail not being used. seems a little wasteful. 🤣

[Thorfun]

@Rob99 If I may ask another question about the Wago terminal blocks (or anyone else if you use them of course!). How many jumper/cross connectors can you put in a terminal block? wondering if you can span more than 10 terminal blocks by connecting 1 - 10 and then connecting 10 - X etc? 

 

The way lights/circuit/terminal block planning is coming on I'm getting about 5 or 6 terminal blocks per room but the total power of those lights will be no more than 200W per room as they're all LEDs and so that's 1A max! now I look at it it's crazy to have individual RCBOs for lighting per room and so I'm thinking about doubling/tripling up rooms on to a single RCBO but need to cross connect a large number of terminal blocks.

[Rob99]

Each terminal block has 2 slots at each level for cross connectors so if you need to connect more than 10 terminals then just overlap the cross connectors. I always overlap by at least 2 ponds to make sure of a good connection. 
 

just a thought on your RCBO’s, I’m not sure as I haven’t used one yet, but I think the WhiteWing dimmer only has a single neutral connection pass through to all dimmer circuits so will probably have to all be on the same RCBO to balance.

[Rob99]

Example of overlapping

[Thorfun]

1 hour ago, Rob99 said:

Each terminal block has 2 slots at each level for cross connectors so if you need to connect more than 10 terminals then just overlap the cross connectors. I always overlap by at least 2 ponds to make sure of a good connection. 

Thank you! Great to know. 
 

1 hour ago, Rob99 said:

just a thought on your RCBO’s, I’m not sure as I haven’t used one yet, but I think the WhiteWing dimmer only has a single neutral connection pass through to all dimmer circuits so will probably have to all be on the same RCBO to balance.

I hadn’t considered this. I’ll take a look in to it and see what I can find. Thanks for the pointer. 

[Thorfun]

11 hours ago, Rob99 said:

just a thought on your RCBO’s, I’m not sure as I haven’t used one yet, but I think the WhiteWing dimmer only has a single neutral connection pass through to all dimmer circuits so will probably have to all be on the same RCBO to balance.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'to balance' on the neutrals but here's the extract from the WW manual

 

 

it also says 

 

 

so it sounds like I do need to use a single RCBO for all the main dimming circuits. 

 

that really buggers up my idea to be able to easily isolate a room using RCBOs as there will be a mixture of dimming and non-dimming circuits in a room. so maybe a single RCBO in the CU is the way to go so I can isolate the entire cabinet easily if needed and then individual RCBOs within the cabinet.

 

time for a rethink I think.

[Thorfun]

Another quick question please. can I use the digital outputs on the mini server for mains lighting? looks like it from the spec sheet but was wondering if it was ok to do so.

[Rob99]

Yes, the Miniserver relays are rated at 10A

[jack]

2 hours ago, Thorfun said:

Another quick question please. can I use the digital outputs on the mini server for mains lighting? looks like it from the spec sheet but was wondering if it was ok to do so.

 

We've switched a few lights like this for 8 years, no problem.

[Thorfun]

3 hours ago, Rob99 said:

Yes, the Miniserver relays are rated at 10A

 

1 hour ago, jack said:

 

We've switched a few lights like this for 8 years, no problem.

thanks guys. as I work my way through the detailed connections from the relays to the terminal blocks I think I'm going to run out of relays. 😢

 

I really don't want to fork out for another relay so I might have to leave a few non-essentials out for now and see if I can add them at a later date. but I'm not finished with the design yet so it might still all work out ok! we will see. 🤞

[Thorfun]

rofl...I'm such a <expletive deleted> muppet! been planning my cabinet thinking I had 6 x DIN rails. 🤣

 

 

 

......I have a LXN5 so I only have 5. this is going to be really really really tight as I now have realised I need a further 19 relays/dimmer circuits. 😭

[joth]

Oh dear!

If you space outside the cabinet I'd get a cheap consumer unit enclosure to put the audio server etc in. That has no interconnection to the rest of the components. 

And try and squeeze the terminal blocks on just one row will make routing incoming cables much cleaner. 

[Thorfun]

36 minutes ago, joth said:

Oh dear!

If you space outside the cabinet I'd get a cheap consumer unit enclosure to put the audio server etc in. That has no interconnection to the rest of the components. 

And try and squeeze the terminal blocks on just one row will make routing incoming cables much cleaner. 

According to the maths I can't fit the 24V terminal blocks on the top row but maybe when I come to actually fit them I can squeeze them in?

 

I'd already thought about moving the audio server to a separate unit and here's the new cabinet layout to show that with an extra relay extension and extra 16 channel Whitewing dimmer

 

 

any recommendations for a 'cheap consumer unit enclosure' please?

Edited December 19, 2023 by Thorfun
premature posting

[Thorfun]

the lack of space is completely my fault as I don't think I'd counted for the basement lighting when I was originally planning the system as that is a todo later job. I'm not convinced that the extra 16 channel dimmer and relay will be enough for the basement. so I might have to end up getting a second panel for the basement lighting. 

 

who's f*****g idea was it to build such a big house. 🤣

[Thorfun]

ooh...so FA do a 2 din rail expansion cabinet https://www.futureautomation.co.uk/Product/Details/LXN-RE. I could plan to separate the basement lighting and house that all in the expansion cabinet. 

 

just need to make sure I leave enough space below the LXN5 to fit the LXN-RE!

Edited December 19, 2023 by Thorfun

[Thorfun]

ok. so now I'm actually thinking about maybe getting the LXN-RE 2 din rail expansion cabinet now. I can then put the audio server on the very bottom with the PSUB above it in the expansion, then that leaves a free din rail in the LXN-5 for basement expansion. that way all the lighting is kept in one place rather than split to an expansion cabinet. it also means not finding space or spending money on a further external cabinet for the audio server.

 

good idea? bad idea? sitting on the fence?

[Thorfun]

here's a hypothetical potential layout with the expansion. leaves room for a WW mains dimmer, relay extension and a 24V WW dimmer if they're required once I've designed the lighting for the basement.

 

[Dan F]

3 hours ago, Thorfun said:

here's a hypothetical potential layout with the expansion. leaves room for a WW mains dimmer, relay extension and a 24V WW dimmer if they're required once I've designed the lighting for the basement.

 

 

I used two panels, one in the loft (LXN-4) and one in the ground-floor pant room (LXN-5).   All termination fits nicely on top rail in both cases, and room for expansion..

 

Consider the deeper version if you are planning to put any large PSU lighting drivers in there.  Looks like there might be a LXN6-D also.

 

I'd try to get all termination (including 24v) on top rail if possible.

[Thorfun]

9 minutes ago, Dan F said:

 

 

I used two panels, one in the loft (LXN-4) and one in the ground-floor pant room (LXN-5).   All termination fits nicely on top rail in both cases, and room for expansion..

 

Consider the deeper version if you are planning to put any large PSU lighting drivers in there.  Looks like there might be a LXN6-D also.

 

I'd try to get all termination (including 24v) on top rail if possible.

I think I just have too many circuits, especially when I think about trying to light up the basement so all the termination on the top rail really isn't possible I think! my spreadsheet is currently showing 77 x 230V terminal blocks and 24 x 24V terminal blocks. then with the  11 x 8-way blocks that is a total width of 626.4mm. The din rails are only 550mm wide. and then I haven't even got to the basement circuits yet.

 

I'd also rather keep all the Loxone stuff in the one comms room and it's way too late in the day now to try and start running cables elsewhere. I will go and have a good measure up down there in the comms room and see what I can fit in but it's pretty tight in there with my CU, batteries, LXN cabinet and 800mm x 600mm data cabinet! luckily I have pretty high ceilings so should be able to fit the LXN5 with a.n.other cabinet below whether that's a LXN3 or the LXN-2RE I'm not sure yet.

 

I have the power supply and backup from Loxone for my power requirements which 'should' suffice so don't really need the deep cabinet.

 

in hindsight I'd have made the comms room bigger 🤦‍♂️