Re: DIN Enclosure for CBus modules

["Paul Robinson" <ukcueman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>> You may not want the PCI in there. That's because legally, the box
should
>> only contain
>> cables whose sheathing is rated to 240V. With a PCI, you'll end up
with a
>> serial cable in
>> there. You could make it out of cbus pink cat5 - that would do the
job
>> (can even use the
>> RJ45 RS232 socket). But then you might get confused about what was
cbus
>> cable and what was
>> serial cable...
> Thats a good point. Prob a good idea then for my to put the pc
interface
> in Node 0 instead.
>
> So, how do you go from your cat5 to the pink ? I was assuming I would
> terminate all into a patch panel as normal, then have another patch
panel
> that they all patch into (!) - but this 2nd patch panel has the
connectors
> all wired in parallel (ala telephone, infrared). Then one of those
ports
> carries the pink to the DIN cabinet ?
Instead of taking my cat5 that carries cbus into my rack with all the other
cat5, I've
taken it to a plastic box next to the dimmers (although it could have been
anywhere). All
those cat5 are joined together in parallel (remember: only +ve and -ve legs
to care about
here rather than separately terminating all 8 cores).

This is *not* structured wiring. I decided that the light switches were
dedicated to cbus
and so would never want to patch them to something else.

Where I have all the cbus cat5 connected in parallel, I also take a cbus
feed from that
into the back of a 4-way RJ45 socket, wiring up the back of the RJ45
sockets into the cbus
as well. I then plug in the PCI using the short pink patch cable they
provide with it. To
connect to the dimmers, I used pink cat5 and put plugs on both ends. (NOTE:
I use 568A for
cbus stuff, [and 568B for everything else] otherwise the colours they
specify for the +ve
& -ve cores will be wrong)

This just plugs into one of the dimmers, and then you loop the cbus from
dimmer to dimmer.
This plastic box with the cbus cat5 junction is also where I've taken my
cbus feed out to
comfort (using pink cat5).

I didn't want cat5 carrying cbus in with cat5 carrying other stuff for
several reasons:
(1) because of keeping it SELV - ie away from an earthed rack. I have light
switches in
the bathroom.
(2) because my racks already busy enough, and if I can move something out,
it helps
(3) because I'm happy to dedicate the light switch cat5 to cbus - so I
didn't mind not
using structured wiring for this cat5, though I have for everything else.
(4) because it's cbus. It's only got a +ve and -ve - it doesn't need a
patch panel
(5) The box that houses my PCI doubles up as housing the cbus cat5 junction

>
> And what enclosure do you use ?

I used 3 x metal enclosures, 500x600 in size, but nothing inside. Bolted
ply to the rear
and screwed in DIN rail where I wanted it. Borrowed a sparky friend's
2" metal hole cutter
to cut 2" holes in the sides of the enclosures (top and middle) so
cables can go between
enclosures. The boxes have a 2"-3" gap between them, with the
holes bridged by 2" diameter
metal cylinders designed for the job.

As I said (offlist) the middle box has all the lights from cables going to
it. Nothing in
here but 2 x incoming 16A MCBs and lots of DNI rail connectors. This is so
I can do a
local patch if and when I want to change how lights are allocated to
channels.

Outside boxes have 4 dimmers plus MCBs in them.

I don't remember where I got enclosures from - my sparky friend pointed me
in the
direction of a supplier in Banbury I think. I have 5 altogether. The main 3
in node zero,
one in the garage and one next to my consumer units. Total of 8 x 8 channel
dimmers, 1 x 4
channel dimmer, 1 x 12 channel relay and 1 x 4 channel change over relay.

Paul