First Timer Concerns

[Mcguiness]

Afternoon All 

I am planning to install Loxone while renovating my standard 4-bed British end terrace house.

Having read lots of other posts on this forum I am leaning toward utilising a DMX extension and a couple of 230V DMX dimmers to control LED lighting around the house, then use the miniserver and an extension to control the remaining non-dimmable lights etc... For switching, PIRS and heating I am looking at using the tree extension to save on the amount of wiring required, however this is where I have a couple of concerns and would be interested in others thoughts on the matter.

1. Valve actuator tree does not appear to have any way of concealing the connections and they would be visible on radiators in most rooms.

2. Sticking to the tree wiring, I am concerned that I am then completely tied to Loxone should I want to move later and whether this may be an issue for potential buyers.

3. The boss (read wife) would prefer that in the kitchen and living room which have more complicated lighting schemes we have a panel that clearly states what each button would be, something like a KNX glass panel, however I'm not sure if I am then over complicating the system as although I am an electrician I don't have any real experience with these systems.

Thanks 

  

[Duncan]

i agree with you regarding concerns about using loxone's propritetry hardware, however loxone as a central control of standard kit such as dmx, 1-wire etc gives you the advantages of loxone but options to change to a different system later

there is a balance between the cost of wiring vs the cost of expensive and proprietry tree hardware -i prefer the wiring option using cheap 3rd party products such as 1-wire  temperature sensors, retractive switches, dmx dimmers and relays, and i would agree that knx glass panels are fantastic for 'public' areas such as hallways, kitchens, open plan area etc  - i  would recommend the mdt glass buttons (version 2 with the programmable icons, text etc)

they cost around £130 each. but provide a temperature sensor, 12 buttons, feedback leds and display, text information etc all in a single uk socket size and make the loxone system obvious to the casual user and potential buyer.

the only issue is where you cannot or dont want to rewire - eg a grade II listed house where air products might allow you a degree of control without any rewire/replaster/redecorate issues

in terms of radiator control, once these things are set up then you rarely change the settings, so  a question to ask is whether £25 programmable TRVs would do the job rather than using valve actuator trees

[Rob_in]

Your plan sounds rather similar to ours ;)

To echo what Duncan said, Loxone looks like a great central controller for KNX devices. Having played with ETS (the KNX configuration software) imagine if I wanted to do what I have achieved with Loxone using pure KNX devices it would be either very hard or impossible.

One gotcha is that Loxone recommend Cat7 cable as 'future proof' but KNX cable standard has slightly larger core cross section and I think also better insulation rating (so you can run next to mains cables apparently?). I have read success stories using KNX on Cat7, but also those describing problems.

In our build I have gone for 'proper' KNX cable for all the switches. It's 4 core so if you wanted to mix in Loxone tree later doubt that's a problem

Yes, there are many 'fancy' KNX switches on the market, but I have found just about every major electrical manufacturer has at least one KNX switch in their range. We've gone with Legrand Celiane for example. This is a French range, but Legrand make stuff for the UK market and I imagine Schneider and the rest do too.

When you factor in the cost of an input using either the miniserver or extension using tree or KNX is a no-brainer. If you want to use 'standard' switches you can get little KNX interfaces to sit behind them in the box. Eg. ZÜBLIN 11503. KNX gear appears much cheaper on the continent, http://www.idealo.de/ is a good place to search for prices.

That said, I've found KNX PIR sensors are silly expensive. I'm still pondering whether to use PIR or not.

If you have a lot of digital (relay) outputs the Loxone extensions are really rather expensive too. I've got a Modbus interface and KMtronic Modbus relays which work flawlessly. We needed the Modbus interface anyway (for heating control) so made sense. FWIW, the KMtronic relays also have NO/NC connections which is much better for shutter control. There's another thread on here about alternates to the relay module.

HTH,

Robin

[amb5l]

I chose Loxone for a new build. It's a pretty large project (30 dimmers, 50 touchpads...) and has made me think hard along the way about the state of technology in this area. I had real trouble finding decent products that fit the project but at reasonable prices. I also saw some odd and concerning behaviour from Loxone through the project; an early friendliness and helpfulness evolved into something slightly more frosty in recent times.

Long story short: I got involved, directly and indirectly, in bringing new products to the market, including a miniature motion sensor/PIR, a glass touchpad with illuminated icons and built-in prox + motion detect to illuminate symbols that are laid over the pads (motion detect is an output also), and a room sensor for temperature/humidity (with a micro fan to pull air into it while staying tight to the wall so you don't end up sensing the temperature of the wall cavity) plus light and motion. They'll be available shortly.

Tree wasn't a thing when I started (it arrived later and I used it for heating valves only) so I invented my own RS485 protocol. You run 24V on one pair, RS485 on another, in a daisy chain to all devices. It's good for sensors and actuators, several dozen per run is fine, and can handle low latency events like button presses. At the end it bridges to the LAN so you use UDP I/O in the config to talk to the devices. Keeps the h/w cost and complexity of LAN connected devices about as low as it can be. I will publish it as an open/free spec for anyone interested, with demo recipes that work on a couple of types of Arduino.

To answer your points:

1) I have Tree valves but they are on hidden UFH manifolds. Apparently there are wireless battery powered valve heads?

2) I would expect you to be able to double up on cores in a Cat7 cable and succeed with KNX, especially with few (or one) devices. You can use Cat7 for Tree as well. You can then repurpose the Cat7 to something else later if you change technology. Keep your cable runs arranged in a daisy chain and then you can use things like RS485 or CAN bus. Lots of spurs (which Tree tolerates) could cause problems.

3) I had a similar concern from a certain end user about knowing what touchpads/buttons did hence the symbols on mine.

Good luck.

[Duncan]

in summary the main elements for a cheap loxone install that can be replaced later are:

rj45 or knx cable to switch locations (im using cat5e for knx and havnt any problems at all)
rj45 screened daisy chained round the house for 1-wire temperature sensors (dont use loxones suggestion to resuse the light cat7 or star wiring, its unreliable)
dmx relays for blinds, manifold actuators, heating pumps etc etc
dmx dimmers for DC low voltage lighting eg led strips
dmx and knx dimmers for 240v dimmable lighting (i have 96 in my own house so wasnt going to use loxones dimmers)

if i were doing my own install again i would use a central miniserver and 3 elexol io72 network devices for my switch inputs, 1-wire inputs etc
i would then only buy a minserver and dmx extension from loxone, and an air extension to run wireless sockets for things like christmas lights

some things take up quite a bit of the budget to get the look at feel right - eg miniature PIRs are at least £50 each for decent small ones, and a few fancier switches such as the kxn glass buttons, but these work well in public rooms such as hallways, kitchens etc where as plain retractive switches are probably fine for bathrooms, bedrooms etc etc

[Mcguiness]

Thanks both, 

That's a really big help.

It confirms some of the thoughts I was having. I think I was just trying to use the easiest out of the box method, however on reflection I am now leaning toward KNX for the switching through-out as I have since found that if you do their online course they reduce the cost of the lite software package considerably and the small inputs Robin suggested seem good value. 

Mick 

[Rob_in]

You don't actually have to buy ETS software unless you are going to have more than 5 KNX devices in a single 'project' because the free license will allow up to 5 devices per project.

But don't forget, if you are using a Loxone Miniserver for control logic then all you have to do is configure each KNX device to transmit or receive on the appropriate group addresses. You can do this by creating multiple KNX projects with up to 5 devices in each.

Because the KNX devices don't need to know about each other, or communicate amongst themselves then it really doesn't matter they are all in separate projects.

You configure Loxone to transmit or receive on the now programmed group addresses and... voila!

Robin

[ThomasB]

What about using Tree to get the benefits of a BUS but on KNX cables so that you can switch back to KNX in the future should Loxone disappear?

[amb5l]

I personally would still go for PoE rated STP Cat6 solid core cable. You will be able to get KNX, RS485, 6/7 simple contacts or of course Ethernet/PoE running over that. Maximum flexibility.

[Rob_in]

As we've discussed before, some people report having problems with KNX devices over Cat5/6/7 cable. Even when doubling up the pairs to account for the fact KNX has slightly larger cross section of conductor.

Then other people report that in their project it works just fine.

The point is, it's not guaranteed is all.

[Rob_in]

Will you please stop spamming every thread that discusses switches.

Is there a Mod here?

On Thursday, 23 February 2017 20:49:09 UTC+1, Faradite Ltd wrote:

[smartbusinesstools.be]

Taken care off