Questions for new HAI Lumina Pro System

[Choots]

Personally I would use a Leviton Repeater rather than a coupler. You will save yourself trouble in the long-run.  It needs its own set of breakers.
 
When placing the room controllers, its not so much about if you can do it, but more making it the easiest to live with. Two room controllers can mirror each other, and links from one can be on another.  If you have room, you could put two room controllers adjacent to each other for two adjacent rooms, then use another at the other side of the room.
 
The room controllers set the "scenes" for each room, so start thinking about these. If possible, keep the four scenes similar for each room. I always have a "normal" setting for A, a bright setting for B, a dim setting for C, and "Party" for D. We almost never touch the actual switches anymore, just the room controllers and scenes.
 
Also each "room" doesn't need to be a actual room but it should be areas. You can combine multiple areas, but remember, you only have 4 scenes plus on and off. 
 
From experience make it simple and logical and consistent. There are many tricks you can do, but you are better-off with logical and consistent.

 
ano - thanks for your thoughts.  I did realize that "room"s could be areas and in my layout above I put a few things together into a total of 3 rooms for now.  I'll consider what you're suggesting and see if I need to modify that plan.
 
While I haven't initialized the panel yet because I don't yet have the power supply or battery, I did install a few more switches and the scene controller.  To my delight, when I tested it last night it worked as expected - turning on and off all the connected switches and dimming my LED lights properly - and turning them fully off!  I'm excited that my investment and planning looks like it will work.  And this is without the phase coupler or a repeater at this point.  Of course, I'll have to see how using UPB in the rest of the house will go, but it's a start.  A repeater looks awfully expensive, and added to that I'm not sure how I'll free up 2 empty spaces in the panel.  I guess I could look at shifting some things to another subpanel I have right next to the main panel in the garage - shown in my pics; my father and I put it in this spring as part of changes needed to be made for the basement - but I don't think I can run too many wires through the conduit between them, so I'd have to check or get the advice of an expert.
 
Regarding the scene controllers, I will see how I can utilize them in the planned locations.  I understand what you're saying about only 4 scenes, but with ON and OFF already taken care of, I think 4 scenes with about do what I'm thinking.  If I can make the scene controllers operate the same on both sides of the room that will be the main use case.  Then I can think about just operating the Bar switches separately - not what I had hoped, but let's see.   Your advice on keeping it logical and consistent sounds right to me  - thanks.
 
 
 

Here settled on using SA multiple toggle and dual load switches for many room / scene controllers and to shrink down the footprint of switches.  (original base of UPB switches were HAI, PCS and SA)
 
It is a bit different than the HLC configuration.
 
I am using the OmniPro 2 panel with automation software such that transport is:
 
HAI ==> UPB switches
Software ==> direct connected UPB serial PIM
Software ==> HAI plugin ==> UPB switches

 
Thanks Pete - I think I'm going to keep things simple here for a bit.  My wife is not working now so not sure when I'm retiring, but I hope to have more time for working on this kind of thing when the basement is finished.
 
 
 

That transformer and battery should be fine.  I'll have to check my Lumina (non-Pro), but I think it has a wire harness for two of those batteries, so if you want longer backup time you can purchase two.  (Although backing up the Lumina when power is off may not have much benefit if you aren't doing battery backup of other devices in your house.)
 
Phase coupler: I didn't install one in our 200A panel.  I figured I would run with the main UPB controller first and see how reliability was. It's been solid without it.  That may depend on which UPB PIM you get though, I've heard some have stronger signal than others.
 
Keypad: My keypad sits in the wiring closet connected to the panel.  Sometimes it is handy for programming when you have a question about what the network programming software is doing or are confused about a setting.  I only briefly entertained wiring another one elsewhere in the house.  We've pretty much never needed it.  We have a separate security system, that one has panels in the house.

 
Cool - thanks cobra.  Would the second battery just be wired in parallel to the same connection then?  You're right, since I haven't got much security stuff planned, I'm not sure what use case will drive the battery back up yet.  But I may be persuaded if things expand.  And I posted above that I got communication between the devices in the basement after testing the scene controller.  Now those could be on the same circuit, I haven't checked.  But I'm hoping this bodes well for my setup. Perhaps I can put the phase coupler in the downstairs panel, and that will be a start.  A repeater looks awfully expensive, and added to that I'm not sure how I'll free up 2 empty spaces in the panel.  I guess I could look at shifting some things to another subpanel I have right next to the main panel in the garage - shown in my pics; my father and I put it in this spring as part of changes needed to be made for the basement - but I don't think I can run too many wires through the conduit between them, so I'd have to check or get the advice of an expert.
 
I think I'll do the same with my keypad.  It would likely take a 5 foot drill bit to cut up through to get tot he back door which is above my home run area for the panel and other equipment, and I've done a crap load of retro in the house already, so on one hand I could do it, but also, I'm not ready to do more.  I want to focus on getting the renovation phase of the basement completely done so I can focus on playing with AV equipment, networking and automation stuff!
 
 
 
In going through my inventory of switches and UPB devices I've purchased, I realized in addition to the 2 HLC (Leviton) Scene controllers I bought,  I also bought 2 Simply Automated 8-button scene controllers, but I can't recall what I was thinking of using them for...  I notice they may also have other functions than just acting as a scene controller, so I'll have to do some study.  How are others using those?  
 
A related question is, since I didn't plan to put a scene controller in one of my other zones, can I trigger other switches when I turn on the main switch using some programming in UpStart or on the Lumina panel using PC Access?  I have one zone where it would be nice to have one other switch come on at the same time when the main switch is turned on, but it could still be operated independently on it's own.  Is that an example of the kinds of things that require a little programming?
 
Or would this be a place the SA scene controller would be used?  Would that act as a switch in the main location required to operate the load, but then also acting as a scene controller for other switches?

 

[pete_c]

Yes; the migration over to UPB has been in baby steps for some 10 years plus here.
 
Initially purchased a second UPB PIM just to program switches with my laptop instead of having to disconnect the HAI PIM.
 
There has never been any WAF justification to spend $50 plus on a UPB switch here when you can purchase a regular analog switch for $10.

 

[Choots]

Hi all, I thought I'd give an update.  I've mostly finished trimming out our basement with lighting - I have a couple fixtures to add which I will ask for some thoughts on later.  But I've put in all the switches and dimmers and even got my multi-way switches operating properly.  Funny story, I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to configure multi-ways the way our electrician wired it.  I was sure I couldn't use the wiring diagram on the switches because of how he had done it.  There didn't seem to be enough wires to properly hook up the auxiliary switches.  This was after having put in normal 3& 4-way switches just to get it working.  However, I realized that the wiring on the diagram was exactly what I needed if I would just put the 1000W Dimmer in another location - the wiring was of course correct - his labeling had just fooled me into thinking that it had to go in that other location. Once I moved the switches around, it worked fine the first time!  And they dim nicely too.
 
Anyway, I've got the two scene controllers that I asked about above working fine as well, even without the phase coupler.  They both operate everything now, but I still haven't configured them with Upstart or setup the Lumina Panel.  I've been too focused on getting the renovation stuff done.  I had finished up the cabinet install for our bar in the home theater, and a bunch of other cabinets as well, then arranged for the granite countertop installation and plumbing, and after completing some work on the stairs, we were ready for carpet which has just been installed last week.  So it's looking great:
 
       
 
 
But now I've got to finish up these lights, so I have a couple questions.  We have a couple built in cabinets with archways above separated by Drywall columns.  See the third picture above.
 
The electrician wired two outlets up high in a nearby closet, controlled by switches on the wall.  Right next to each is some romex poking through a hole in the drywall and running out to the shelves and one set of these arched niches that are to be lit, intending these to be low voltage fixtures fed by the romex using a power supply in the closet.  I was planning on using an HAI/HLC Dimmer switch to dim these, as they will likely be too bright in the room, and I want a subtler effect.  However, I have questions.
 
How do people wire these - or more accurately what fixtures are used?  I see some puck fixtures that I could use, but they seem quite expensive.  If I use the same puck lights (120V) that I used under my bar cabinets, I'd have to fix the wires poking through the walls and either add a new box to terminate them there as well as add a box in the wall near the fixture to connect to it.  This seems like a hassle but it's the only way I can see to get dimming using the HAI switch.
 
Are there other dimming power supplies and relatively low brightness 2700-3000K low voltage LED pucks  that would take the dimmed power from the HAI dimmer and control the LED low voltage lights properly?  If so I think I can mount the power supply to a clean-looking board up high near the closet outlets and still make a reasonably clean-looking installation (that probably few would ever see).  This would minimize my effort here.