Newbie Wiring Help

[Gast]

Evening Gents,

Some advise if you may...

I am pretty new to Loxone and also HA..

I have settled on Loxone for my HA needs that will go into my new home (new to me).

This will be a retrofit project into a Victorian Semi Detached property over 3 Floors.

As Stage 1, I am looking to get all the wiring in place, that i will eventually need, this means chasing walls etc.

My question is does each point requires an individual Cat 7 cable wiring back to Node 0?

E.g in my Lounge i will have:

- Light Switch
- PIR
- 2 Lighting Circuits (One main pendant in the middle, and 2 wall lights)
- 2 Window Sensors
- Door Sensor
- 3 Sockets (want them controlled by loxone)
- 2 Radiators (intend to control heating via Loxone(
- 2 Data Access Points (for internet access)

Does this mean, i will need 13 individual Cat 7 wires going back to node 0, or can any of these be daisy chain?

Sorry for the long question

Regards

Adam

[duncan]

wiring is 2 types - low voltage signalling back to the miniserver (usually catx)
mains power to lights and sockets - usually twin and earth, and each separate circuit needs to be wired back to your control point
however, your radiators could be 240v actuators, 24v actuators over catx or wireless using batteries (loxone air)

each catx has 8 conductors, and you usually use 1 for 24v eg for a switch, so you could share the 2 window switches and door switch on a single catx using different cores, if you are using simple closure contacts.

also, you havnt mentioned a temperature sensor - so depending on the technology you might use 1-wire sharing the catx for the light switch, or if you are using loxones air radiator valves then they have temperature sensors build in already.

so start by deciding how much chasing out you want to do - wired is almost always cheaper and better than wireless.
also 240v control is generally cheaper than low voltage eg radiator actuators

heating control is always better if you have a temperature sensor for each zone, and for a larger install then 1-wire is by far the cheapest.

loxone suggest using the same cat7 cable to each switch point for lighting control and 1-wire back to your central control, but this configuration is not the best for 1-wire and can limit the number of sensors that will work reliably. a separate strand of catx looping sequencially to each temperature location with nothing else attaced other than 1-wire sensors will be more reliable and allow more sensors to be attached, then you can use cat5 unshielded instead of cat7 for the light switches which is cheaper, thinner and more flexible so makes the end connections much easier.

it might be worth looking at whether you distribute your loxone system over 2 or 3 floors and link them using catx, this will keep your wiring shorter, but requires space on each floor to locate the loxone modules, and may slightly increase your number of extensions, but keep your wiring simpler, shorter and cheaper

[Gast]

Thanks Duncan, Certainly much to think about and decipher.

Regards

Adam

[Gast]

Hey Adam,

Like Duncan already wrote, You need to figure out what will be signal cable and what will be power cable.

UTP Cat 6 or even Cat7 is very popular for signal cable but in my opinion it's not the best choice for signal cable in a house.
I will always recommend to use a multistrand cable ( preflex svv)


The strands on a utp cable have a cable cross section of 0.55mm² ( 8 strands), this is fine for most houses but for the same price you can have a preflex with 0.75mm² cross section(10 strands). (prices in Belgium 2014)
The extra cross section will come in handy when you need 12 or 24Vdc over a longer distance then 15 meter.
Also you will have less problems with 1-wire temp. sensors over longer distances.

A second tip is using 5g2.5 for your light points instead of 3g2.5. This because it will always give you the freedom later on to split a group of lights.


What I don't agree on with Duncan is the spread out set-up on each floor. I've gone for a star set-up. Yes you'll have some extra meters of cable but if in lets say 10 years loxone is not available anymore you can do a simple swap because your set-up is in one place.

greets,
Mosseltje