YALANCT (Yet Another Loxone And Network Cabling Thread)

[Rob99]

I use 0.5mm for cat6A

[Dan F]

1 hour ago, Thorfun said:

actually, do I even need ferrules as it's solid core, right?

 

I never used any ferrules on cat6, or anything solid-core for that matter.

[Thorfun]

1 hour ago, Rob99 said:

I use 0.5mm for cat6A

 

56 minutes ago, Dan F said:

 

I never used any ferrules on cat6, or anything solid-core for that matter.

So it’s a personal preference thing then? No regulations involved?

[Rob99]

In my case, I use them on cat6 when they are going into screw terminals to provide a bit more for the screw to hold on to, but as @Dan F said, not necessary if they are going into push in terminals. 

[Thorfun]

qq. in the screenshot below from @joth's install I see it looks like he's using 1.5mm tri-rated cable for the DMX control wires.

 

 

is there any reason to use this thickness of cable or will Cat6A cable suffice? if it's just a control signal then surely it doesn't need to be so beefy?

[Thorfun]

afternoon all. I am nearing the end of my internal wiring for the cabinet but I need some help and error checking again please. (I'm sure you're not surprised).

 

wiring up the blinds to be controlled by the Whitewing DMX 24V controller which trigger SSR relays. this is the wiring diagram for the SSRs

 

all seems to make sense and here is my wiring of them.

 

 

 

the SSR on the left is switching L1 for each blind and the SSR on the right is switching L2 for each blind where L1 and L2 are the 'up' and 'down' lives of the blind motors. all blinds will be run off the same RCBO.

 

what I would like checking is:

 

1. the red wire from the WW DMX to the SSR. is what I've done correct? taken a +ve from a WW block to the common +ve of one SSR and then looped through to the other one.

2. the blue wire from the topside of the SSRs (labelled C~) loops from one SSR to the other and then heads off to the terminal blocks where it is commoned across all the TBs with a jumper. is that correct?

 

 

Finally, I am confused as to the live outputs at the top of the SSRs. the diagram shows them joining a 240V feed. how, in practice, would I achieve what is in the diagram? the lives from the SSRs end up in the terminal blocks (photo above) with L1 being on the second level of the TB and L2 being the bottom level of the TB. do I add an extra terminal block to bring in the perm live feed from an RCBO and then jumper that across the lives on both L1 and L2? do I bring the live in to the SSR with a double ferrule at the 1st screw terminal and then do something with it there, i.e. double ferrule it along each screw terminal?

[Dan F]

Sorry @Thorfun I didn't use any of the whitewing stuff, or any SSR's either actually.  So prefer not to make assumptions, and instead leave it to others that have used these.

[Thorfun]

1 hour ago, Dan F said:

Sorry @Thorfun I didn't use any of the whitewing stuff, or any SSR's either actually.  So prefer not to make assumptions, and instead leave it to others that have used these.

no problem at all! I'm cracking on with wiring up the switches and sensors anyway. the blinds are at the bottom of the list of essentials tbh so I'll get to them at some point. I'm actually about to pop out and wire up the extensions, get the cabinet on the wall and put some temporary power to it all so I can boot up the mini server and see if I can get anything working. exciting times.

 

I was supposed to be doing plumbing this weekend but the basins and units don't fit and so that's on hold until that gets sorted so I have time spare to focus on the Loxone system. 

[Thorfun]

cabinet is on the wall and it's not coming down again (hopefully)!

 

 

will look to get the mini server powered on tomorrow and start taking a look at Config to see if I can see any extensions, sensors and switches.

[Thorfun]

oh ffs! Why is Loxone Config Windows only? 😠

 

I'll do a Google to see if I can use it with Wine or some other emulation software on my Mac.

Edited March 16 by Thorfun

[Thorfun]

I only recently stopped paying for Parallels and am loathe to pay again. I'll see if I can get VirtualBox to work with it otherwise I'll try running a VM on my QNAP NAS and can connect to that from any laptop remotely. 

 

such a ball-ache.

[Rob99]

2 hours ago, Thorfun said:

will look to get the mini server powered on tomorrow

Just a heads up - you can only configure the miniserver network settings in the first hour after powering up. Beyond that you will need to power cycle it to make any changes.

[Thorfun]

19 minutes ago, Rob99 said:

Just a heads up - you can only configure the miniserver network settings in the first hour after powering up. Beyond that you will need to power cycle it to make any changes.

thanks and noted. was hoping to just DHCP it for now and can set a static IP later on.

[Thorfun]

Loxone Config up and running, mini server and extensions powered by the PSUB and a couple tree devices visible as well. I would say things are progressing nicely now! it's very exciting. 

 

next step is to connect up all the Cat6A and T&E cables to the relevant terminal blocks and then it's just programming it all. 😄 

[jack]

Awesome news.

 

Despite not having a programming background, I found the programming side very satisfying.

[Thorfun]

3 minutes ago, jack said:

Awesome news.

 

Despite not having a programming background, I found the programming side very satisfying.

I’ve already configured all my relay outputs and assigned them to rooms. 
 

next step will be to manually add the tree devices and create some basic lighting controllers so that when I plug the cables things will, hopefully, all work!

[joth]

On 14/03/2024 at 16:18, Thorfun said:

the blue wire from the topside of the SSRs (labelled C~) loops from one SSR to the other and then heads off to the terminal blocks where it is commoned across all the TBs with a jumper. is that correct?

No this is wrong. The SSR should have all brown (or all blue) wires on the 240v side, not a mix.

Assuming you use them to switch the L rather than N then it should go:

 

BROWN.= Rcbo L -> SSR common in -> SSR switched out -> TB -> load L

 

BLUE= Rcbo N -> TB N (interconnected) -> load N

Edited March 17 by joth

[Thorfun]

19 hours ago, joth said:

No this is wrong. The SSR should have all brown (or all blue) wires on the 240v side, not a mix.

Assuming you use them to switch the L rather than N then it should go:

 

BROWN.= Rcbo L -> SSR common in -> SSR switched out -> TB -> load L

 

BLUE= Rcbo N -> TB N (interconnected) -> load N

thanks @joth for setting me straight. it's not surprising I get confused with all this stuff when the diagram for the SSRs show a Neutral coming out of the C~ terminal! I don't understand why the diagram would show that. it's more confusing that it says 'Total Power <10A' on the C~ connector with a fuse and joining the 'N' labelled wire.

 

so confused.

[dpmiller]

it's not unusual to switch on the neutral like that, means each item's supply can be individually fused. Plus there's something in the back of my head that it's electrically "quieter" but I'm not sure where I'm recollecting that bit from, lol.

[joth]

12 hours ago, Thorfun said:

thanks @joth for setting me straight. it's not surprising I get confused with all this stuff when the diagram for the SSRs show a Neutral coming out of the C~ terminal! I don't understand why the diagram would show that. it's more confusing that it says 'Total Power <10A' on the C~ connector with a fuse and joining the 'N' labelled wire.

 

so confused.

The main error in their diagram is showing the switched wires from SSR to load as red (hot) colour, they should be neutral colour if it's illustrating switched neutral.

But as you've already done them in brown I'd keep with switched live, which effectively means just swap the N and L labels on their diagram. Use brown for everything on the live side on the load, blue for everything on the neutral side of it.

Switched live is more common in UK as it means a light bulb that is off does not live at it's (handily finger sized) bulb holder, etc.  Switching neutral is just as valid electrically, but I think what makes more difference for making them electrically quieter is that they are zero-crossing switching 

[Thorfun]

8 minutes ago, joth said:

The main error in their diagram is showing the switched wires from SSR to load as red (hot) colour, they should be neutral colour if it's illustrating switched neutral.

But as you've already done them in brown I'd keep with switched live, which effectively means just swap the N and L labels on their diagram. Use brown for everything on the live side on the load, blue for everything on the neutral side of it.

Switched live is more common in UK as it means a light bulb that is off does not live at it's (handily finger sized) bulb holder, etc.  Switching neutral is just as valid electrically, but I think what makes more difference for making them electrically quieter is that they are zero-crossing switching 

 

2 hours ago, dpmiller said:

it's not unusual to switch on the neutral like that, means each item's supply can be individually fused. Plus there's something in the back of my head that it's electrically "quieter" but I'm not sure where I'm recollecting that bit from, lol.

thanks guys and it kind of makes sense. will update the cabinet wiring accordingly. 🙂 

[Thorfun]

greetings. I'm having a play with Loxone Config and I was wondering how you all laid your blocks out within it. do you create a page per room and have all lighting/heating/blinds etc for the one room on that page? or do you have all, say, GF lighting on one page, FF lighting on another page, GF heating on it's own page etc?

 

there are, obviously, many ways to skin a cat but if you've found an efficient way of arranging your content then I'd be interested to know so I'm not reinventing the wheel or having to redo it later when I realise the way I've done it sucks!

[Rob99]

You should start by using the project planning part of config. Input all of your room, circuit and equipment details and you can automatically create a complete config file. It will create most of the blocks and logic for whatever you have said you need and put them on separate pages named for the rooms. It’s not perfect but will be easier than creating everything from scratch. You then just go through and make changes or add additional logic. 

[Thorfun]

1 hour ago, Rob99 said:

You should start by using the project planning part of config. Input all of your room, circuit and equipment details and you can automatically create a complete config file. It will create most of the blocks and logic for whatever you have said you need and put them on separate pages named for the rooms. It’s not perfect but will be easier than creating everything from scratch. You then just go through and make changes or add additional logic. 

lol. I didn't even know that was a thing! I've already manually created the rooms and chucked a lighting controller in each one and have started adding the tree devices as I plug each cat6 in to the cabinet.

 

Also already assigned each relay output to a lighting circuit as per my spreadsheet.

 

It seems that doing things the hard way is what I do! 🤣

Edited March 29 by Thorfun

[Thorfun]

today I connected up my Whitewing DMX RGB dimmer to the DMX extension but in Loxone config when I do a DMX device search it doesn't find anything. should I be seeing something in config?