YALANCT (Yet Another Loxone And Network Cabling Thread)

[Thorfun]

evening all. happy Sunday to you. I'm looking at buying all our electrical back boxes soon and I think I remember reading somewhere that the Loxone Touch Tree switches need a circular back box. is that correct? is it these https://shop.loxone.com/enuk/circular-dry-lining-box.html?

 

[Kelvin]

51 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

evening all. happy Sunday to you. I'm looking at buying all our electrical back boxes soon and I think I remember reading somewhere that the Loxone Touch Tree switches need a circular back box. is that correct? is it these https://shop.loxone.com/enuk/circular-dry-lining-box.html?

 

Yep. They are quite deep though so I had a few places where they didn’t fit without some ‘adjustment’ 😉 

[Thorfun]

2 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

Yep. They are quite deep though so I had a few places where they didn’t fit without some ‘adjustment’ 😉 

glad I didn't start cutting out squares in the plasterboard yet then!

[IanR]

21 hours ago, Thorfun said:

I'm looking at buying all our electrical back boxes soon and I think I remember reading somewhere that the Loxone Touch Tree switches need a circular back box. is that correct?

 

 

You can use typical UK boxes, the fixings holes are on the same centres, but the UK boxes are slightly larger and Loxone switch plates won't fully cover them. I used UK boxes, but got some stainless escutcheons laser cut to make sure the aperture was fully covered.

 

Edited November 6, 2023 by IanR

[Dan F]

22 hours ago, Thorfun said:

evening all. happy Sunday to you. I'm looking at buying all our electrical back boxes soon and I think I remember reading somewhere that the Loxone Touch Tree switches need a circular back box. is that correct? is it these https://shop.loxone.com/enuk/circular-dry-lining-box.html?

 

They don't need to be round, rather European back boxes are round so that is what Loxone use in most videos and supply.  We used round and found them easier (once you buy a 68mm hole saw).

 

[joth]

4 hours ago, IanR said:

 

You can use typical UK boxes, the fixings holes are on the same centres, but the UK boxes are slightly larger and Loxone switch plates won't fully cover them. I used UK boxes, but got some stainless escutcheons laser cut to make sure the aperture was fully covered.

 

 

You can also buy EU->UK switch adapter plates from Gira

https://ivoryegg.co.uk/shop/products/gira-2849-00-bs-adapter-support-ring?taxon_id=14

 

[Thorfun]

thanks guys. happy to use the round ones especially as I have cut holes/squares for them yet and the price direct from Loxone is decent. and I already have a 68mm hole saw! 😉 

 

I need to put an order in for the terminal blocks so I'll get a big order together to save on delivery costs.

[Johnnyire]

On 06/11/2023 at 20:04, Thorfun said:

thanks guys. happy to use the round ones especially as I have cut holes/squares for them yet and the price direct from Loxone is decent. and I already have a 68mm hole saw! 😉 

 

I need to put an order in for the terminal blocks so I'll get a big order together to save on delivery costs.

What boxes are you using for concrete? The loxone ones are only for plasterboard I believe? I will be building next year so curious, thanks.

[Thorfun]

3 hours ago, Johnnyire said:

What boxes are you using for concrete? The loxone ones are only for plasterboard I believe? I will be building next year so curious, thanks.

not got any concrete above ground! and for the basement i'll probably metal frame the walls so will all be plasterboarded anyway.

[Thorfun]

I'm back on the subject of terminal blocks again and struggling to get my head around what I will need. I've started a spreadsheet with all my cables and I have read and re-read this thread and just when I think I get a handle on it it all slips away again.

 

Cat6a cables

I have 32 green Cat6a cables! and if I go down @joth's route of terminating all of them in the cabinet then that will be a LOT of 8-way terminal blocks which are expensive. so I am now thinking of just terminating those I need in the cabinet and living with a mess of unused twisted pairs within the cabinet. although, correct me if I'm wrong, all those devices are tree and need 24V so can I wire each cables G/GW and O/OW pairs to interconnected blocks and then run the power and tree interface cables to the last row on the blocks. that way I can terminate 15 cables per interconnected terminal block, right? so for 15 cables I would need 4 interconnected terminal blocks. 2 per twisted pair.

 

Then for the DI connections for retractive switches and the like I use non-interconnected blocks and can therefore terminate 4 twisted pairs per terminal block.

 

am I on the right lines here? 

 

one more question on the Cat6a cable termination. with the number of cables I have is there any benefit to going with a 16-level terminal block or are they too big for the cabinet?

 

230V Power

I'm struggling here to know what I want/need. @Rob99 mentioned using the Wago terminal blocks 2-layer and 3-layer. the Weidmuller ones on the Loxone website that @Dan F suggested are 3 terminals on one-side but only 2 on the other. I presume these are used when there is no earth connection required on the internal side? which I guess is never, right? from what I can tell all of the extensions are just positive and negative. even so, is it not better to get the Wago 3-layer ones just in case an earth terminal is needed? especially as they seem to be cheaper. I'm struggling to understand the benefits of the Weidmuller ones over the Wago ones?

 

Also, why/when would the 2-layer terminal blocks be used? I understand for speakers no problem at all as there's only a +ve and -ve but for anything powered, even my low voltage leds will have 1.5mm twin and earth.

 

One final thing on the power terminal blocks, I presume I would need these cross connectors (or the Wago equivalent) to spread the power across the terminal blocks? 

 

my apologies for all the questions but I'm just trying to get my head around it so I can reduce the mistakes and associated costs with those mistakes! cash flow is extremely tight coming to the end of our build and I can't just throw money at this and need to be frugal and sensible.

[joth]

2 hours ago, Thorfun said:

am I on the right lines here? 

Yes. My "neater" scheme relied on one CAT6A per room rather than per device, so was about 15 cables not 32 for me. Also I needed all cores connected anyway as the brown and blue pairs were on retractive switches into DIs

 

Using interconnected and ignoring unused pairs is fine, especially if you leave a bit more space around the terminals to manage them all. Not each interconnected block actually had 32 spring terms! As they're paired and there's 8 pairs on top pitch and 8 more on the bottom pitch. Personally I'd use the 16 topside terms max for the outgoing cables, but that's still just 8 blocks needed for all your power and tree on these cables.

 

Note the last photo I shared was actually hybrid: interconnected blocks for orange and green, and separated blocks for brown and blue. Slightly tricky, but the sweet spot for density ime

 

2 hours ago, Thorfun said:

2-layer terminal blocks be used? I

2 layer are 2 layer plus earth. So each T+E needs a 2 layer, each 3+E cable needs a 3 layer block (as a good approximation). For 5 core I normally use 2x 2 layer.

 

 

2 hours ago, Thorfun said:

 

One final thing on the power terminal blocks, I presume I would need these cross connectors (or the Wago equivalent) to spread the power across the terminal blocks

Yes. Assuming you have switched live then use busbars to common across all the neutrals.

 

LED strips (if on T+E cable) tend to have common +24V and dimming on the negative leg (so called common cathode) so these you busbar the +24V positive side instead. 

Edited November 23, 2023 by joth

[Thorfun]

2 hours ago, joth said:

Personally I'd use the 16 topside terms max for the outgoing cables, but that's still just 8 blocks needed for all your power and tree on these cables.

I'm just concerned that they won't fit in my cabinet! according to this data sheet they're quite big. I might stick with the 8-way terminal blocks even though it'll end up more expensive.

 

2 hours ago, joth said:

2 layer are 2 layer plus earth. So each T+E needs a 2 layer, each 3+E cable needs a 3 layer block (as a good approximation). For 5 core I normally use 2x 2 layer.

but these Wago double-deck terminal blocks only show 2 x connectors? I can't see an earth on there at all.

[Thorfun]

so if I've done my maths correctly (which I probably haven't!) then I calculate I need 6 x interconnected 8-way terminal blocks and 5 x separated 8-way terminal blocks.

 

I came to that conclusion by calculating that one cable serves a touch tree switch and a presence sensor in each room. so that is 2 x twisted pairs so 4 connectors. I have 15 of those cables. 15 x 4 = 60 
I've 6 cables that will just run a single Tree device so that's 6 x 4 = 24

so that's a total of 84 interconnected connectors so 84 / 14 = 6

Then I have 10 x cables running retractive switches which need separated TBs so that's 4 connectors each so that's a further 10 x 4 = 40 / 8 = 5 separated.

 

that seems a lot more inexpensive! I know it'll be a massive ball-ache to add extras later and rewire should I decide to add other sensors etc but this 'should' see us to be able to move in to the house and have the important things working. I'll probably by an extra one of each anyway for good luck.

[Dan F]

I'd stick to 8-level (32-way) terminal blocks.  If you use all 16 connections for tree/24v/GND then things will get busy enough as it is.  And that's before considering cabinet depth which will also likely be an issue.

 

Don't get terminal blocks without earth (on the outgoing/installation side) for anything that is 230v.  I used a mix of Weidmeller L+N+E and 2L+N+E and blocks, while the cable was 5-core in a lot of cases I didn't have a need to terminate 5-cores for anything.   Terminal blocks without earth could be used for 24v applications though (e.g. lighting).

 

Remember you can very easily convert interconnected terminal blocks into non-interconnected ones, so when you order these just get 15 (or a box of 20 interconnected) rather than 20 of each type.

 

20 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

so that's a total of 84 interconnected connectors so 84 / 14 = 6

/16, no?

 

19 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

Then I have 10 x cables running retractive switches which need separated TBs so that's 4 connectors each

Why do retractive switches need 4 cores?

[Thorfun]

19 minutes ago, Dan F said:

Remember you can very easily convert interconnected terminal blocks into non-interconnected ones, so when you order these just get 15 (or a box of 20 interconnected) rather than 20 of each type.

I remember you saying that before but I like the way interconnected and standard ones are different colour. so I can tell from the colour which is which when I've forgotten years down the line!

 

20 minutes ago, Dan F said:

/16, no?

I was leaving the last 1 free for the internal wiring, e.g. the actual 24V cable and tree extension cable. so that would leave 30 out of the 32 in 2 x TBs available. so I guess it really should've been /15!

 

22 minutes ago, Dan F said:

Why do retractive switches need 4 cores?

coz I'm special and thought they'd need power. 🤦‍♂️ 

 

guess I only need 3 separated terminal blocks then.

[joth]

1 hour ago, Thorfun said:

4 hours ago, joth said:

Personally I'd use the 16 topside terms max for the outgoing cables, but that's still just 8 blocks needed for all your power and tree on these cables.

I'm just concerned that they won't fit in my cabinet! according to this data sheet they're quite big. I might stick with the 8-way terminal blocks even though it'll end up more expensive.

 

No, you misunderstand what I'm saying. The 8 level blocks have 32 connections - 8 pairs on each pitch (up / down facing)

The 16 level blocks you link have 64 connections each!

Keep with the 8 level blocks, but you can cram >16 cores into each if you must.

 

 

[Thorfun]

3 minutes ago, joth said:

 

No, you misunderstand what I'm saying. The 8 level blocks have 32 connections - 8 pairs on each pitch (up / down facing)

The 16 level blocks you link have 64 connections each!

Keep with the 8 level blocks, but you can cram >16 cores into each if you must.

 

 

oh! right! the I was completely confused. I thought the 8-way blocks were only 16 connectors. I didn't realise they were pairs! in that case I need even fewer than I thought. this day just keeps on getting better. 🤣

[Thorfun]

@jothI think was confused as in the photo of your cab you have a twisted pair across 2 x terminal blocks.

 

[joth]

So here's a close up of the one I posted earlier:

 

13 CAT6A cables, the green pairs are all smooshed up in the top side, you can see two cores going into each block level. but I spread the oranges out over top and bottom sides, just to make it easier to incrementally power things up and debug during commissioning.

As you see the power and tree feeds just nip in the very bottom L8 of the block.

 

The browns and blues are arrayed either side in non-interconnected blocks. (I used the blue ones as I didn't know the trick from Dan when I ordered). These have sparse connection on the bottom (cabinet facing) side as not all cores are used on all runs. (I typically use brown for the first device on a run, then Br/W if it has 2 retractive devices, and so on: then Blue, and  then Bl/W for a fully loaded run, hence why columns 4 and 14 are fully loaded but subsequent blocks less so).

 

HTH

 

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by joth

[Dan F]

11 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

I remember you saying that before but I like the way interconnected and standard ones are different colour. so I can tell from the colour which is which when I've forgotten years down the line!

 

Good idea!    The only issue with the different colour approach is avoiding buying so many of them.  (that said, I'll have a few of your spares potentially).

 

11 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

I was leaving the last 1 free for the internal wiring, e.g. the actual 24V cable and tree extension cable. so that would leave 30 out of the 32 in 2 x TBs available. so I guess it really should've been /15!

Depends if you use just the top side.  If you just use the top side then it's /16, if you are using the top and bottom then it's /30.

 

11 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

coz I'm special and thought they'd need power. 🤦‍♂️ 

 

guess I only need 3 separated terminal blocks then.

You only need 1 per retractive switch (so two terminal blocks).  The 24v for each retractive switch can come off the same interconnected blocks as your tree runs if you want. Else,  1 interconnected for 24v + 2 non-interconnected if you want to keep these separate.

[joth]

1 minute ago, Thorfun said:

@jothI think was confused as in the photo of your cab you have a twisted pair across 2 x terminal blocks.

 

 

 

LOL cross post. Blue and Browns are in non-interconnected blocks to need a dedicated connection per core. Orange and Green are all fully interconnected (in my colour scheme) hence fine to use the full pair of connections per block level.

[Thorfun]

4 minutes ago, joth said:

So here's a close up of the one I posted earlier:

 

13 CAT6A cables, the green pairs are all smooshed up in the top side, you can see two cores going into each block level. but I spread the oranges out over top and bottom sides, just to make it easier to incrementally power things up and debug during commissioning.

As you see the power and tree feeds just nip in the very bottom L1 of the block.

 

The browns and blues are arrayed either side in non-interconnected blocks. (I used the blue ones as I didn't know the trick from Dan when I ordered). These have sparse connection on the bottom (cabinet facing) side as not all cores are used on all runs. (I typically use brown for the first device on a run, the Br/W, then Blue then Bl/W for a fully loaded run, hence why columns 4 and 14 are fully loaded but subsequent blocks less so).

 

HTH

 

 

 

3 minutes ago, joth said:

 

LOL cross post. Blue and Browns are in non-interconnected blocks to need a dedicated connection per core. Orange and Green are all fully interconnected (in my colour scheme) hence fine to use the full pair of connections per block level.

yeah. thanks. your interconnected terminal blocks is what I was basing my calculations on. with the power and tree feeds at the bottom of L1 as you say. I like that idea very much.

[Thorfun]

5 minutes ago, Dan F said:

Good idea!    The only issue with the different colour approach is avoiding buying so many of them.  (that said, I'll have a few of your spares potentially).

I was going to buy them individually as you've previously suggested from sites other than direct from Loxone. I just don't need 20 of these if I'm not terminating every pair! 

 

6 minutes ago, Dan F said:

You only need 1 per retractive switch (so two terminal blocks).  The 24v for each retractive switch can come off the same interconnected blocks as your tree runs if you want. Else,  1 interconnected for 24v + 2 non-interconnected if you want to keep these separate.

thanks. the problem is I have so many things going around my head that I start to get a handle on something and then my attention is taken away on to another subject and by the time I come back to it I've forgotten everything! like I said, I have re-read this whole thread numerous times. maybe one day it will stick! 🤣

[Rob99]

Couple of thoughts from me, some of which may have been covered by others.

 

Use 4 of the 8 level blue terminal blocks for Tree (x2), +24v and GND. This gives you up to 30 connections per terminal block if you use both sides. Similar for DI connections from retractive switches, use an interconnected block for 24v out and one blue terminal block for every 8 DI incoming This should minimise the number of 8 way blocks you need.

 

As I mentioned before I use the Wago double and triple height blocks. Triple height works for bringing in individual RCBO feeds, distributing live through the relays and then out to the circuits. Live is commoned across the relay side of the blocks and neutral is commoned across the outgoing circuits. You don't need earthed terminal blocks as your CPC from T&E would be connected to the common earth bars in the cabinet. Double height is generally used for non-mains relay connections or for distributing 24v to remote LED drivers.

 

I sent you some info on panel design/wiring a few months back so hopefully that was useful or at least gave you some things to think about.

[Thorfun]

9 hours ago, Rob99 said:

Couple of thoughts from me, some of which may have been covered by others.

 

Use 4 of the 8 level blue terminal blocks for Tree (x2), +24v and GND. This gives you up to 30 connections per terminal block if you use both sides. Similar for DI connections from retractive switches, use an interconnected block for 24v out and one blue terminal block for every 8 DI incoming This should minimise the number of 8 way blocks you need.

 

As I mentioned before I use the Wago double and triple height blocks. Triple height works for bringing in individual RCBO feeds, distributing live through the relays and then out to the circuits. Live is commoned across the relay side of the blocks and neutral is commoned across the outgoing circuits. You don't need earthed terminal blocks as your CPC from T&E would be connected to the common earth bars in the cabinet. Double height is generally used for non-mains relay connections or for distributing 24v to remote LED drivers.

 

I sent you some info on panel design/wiring a few months back so hopefully that was useful or at least gave you some things to think about.

cheers Rob. the info you sent me was invaluable and I look at it a lot to try and get my head around it all. I think it's a case of once I get started the pieces will all fall in to place. but I'm glad that I have figured out that I don't need to buy 32 8-way blocks as that was going to be very expensive. 

 

I think I've got a handle on it now though so will pull the trigger soon and purchase what I need to start the cabinet build.

 

out of interest, why do you choose Wago over the Weidmuller that Loxone supply?