Another dream home guy...

[philfry41]

That helps the gap in my understanding quite a bit. Thanks

It doesn't make my choice any clearer B)

As I see it there is no way to "wire for hardwired" without picking an approach that is (more-or-less) unique to a hardwired vendor solution. Is that the way you see it?


Also, to echo a question in an earlier post in another thread (posed by upstatemike I think):

EDT website is a cobweb...no activity there in over a year. Are they still around? Seems a good combination of traditional wiring for lights with control added on but if they are not here for the long term...well...

 

[Steve]

Well, I guess the way I see it is you need to at least decide between totally central control or traditional plus control.

But even then I guess there are distinctions. Like in the traditional method, EDT does local control at the switch, but daisy chains the low voltage, whereas others may homerun the low voltage.

At least in the central camp like Litejet you know to just homerun cat5 to light switches. I would imagine someone like Centralite would be around for the long haul like Lightolier or Lutron or Leviton, but who knows?

UpstateMike does have a good point about using the tradional wiring, but if there were no good vendors in that space I would still go with a Centralite type product because I want to spend time adding new stuff to HA and not troubleshooting PLC or wirless problems.

 

[upstatemike]

Or run conduit to all your light switches and pull either high or low volatage wire later after you pick a system. This will also let you change your mind later. (Of course this approach might cost a bit more...)

 

[philfry41]

Excellent feedback.

So what happens if I wire traditionally (for the 110) AND homerun cat5? Surely I could "daisychain" on the punchdown block? Just because the load runs through the switchbox doesn't mean I need to connect it to the "switch" in the box. Don't know if that's a budgetary fit...but seems like a decent idea on its own.

Stupid question here...will CAT5 always suffice for control of a hard-wired solution?

Another...how about outlets? Do I need low-voltage to those as well or can I control those at the central panel?

Upstatemike, good thoughts about conduit. I could optionally NOT do any lighting control initially and focus on the wiring and other features. Or I could do PLC for cost reasons but make sure I have conduit to any switches that I don't have access (via attic or basement) for a future hard-wired install.


You guys are incredible! The signal to noise ration in this forum is as high as I have seen anywhere on pretty much any topic.

 

[upstatemike]

Just remember you can't actually mix high and low voltage within the switchbox. If run PLC for now you can run cat-5 to the outside of the box in such a way that you can access it later. I believe systems that use both high and low voltage at the switch have the low voltage attach at the edge of the face or something?

If you want to convert later to pure low voltage switches you will need to disconnect the high voltage wire in the box so make sure there aren't any other devices on the circuit that would prevent you from shutting off the AC to that line. Also think about how you will wire the controlled fixtures so they can work in both a PLC and a low voltage system.

The conduit idea is great if every switch and fixture is home run back to the main panel. It gets more complicated when you use other configurations and then have to think about how you will keep high and low voltage separate in various potential scenarios.

 

[philfry41]

Do you guys use special wiring to control wall outlets? Or just using PLC controls and outlets that are made for that?

 

[upstatemike]

I know plugin modules are ugly but they are handy if you need to swap something around or plug in 2 things you want to control searately. I will also use a relay wall switch to control a plug sometimes. I don't really like outlet modules cause they are expensive and hard to change when they fail.