Re: Power & signal & control

[Chris Hunter <cjhunter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nigel -

Interesting ... and yes, it's a great shame the costs as they work-
out don't favour flexibility.

Given your node-0 approach on signaling / control, I guess you will
also have no ring-mains for the power circuits - only star / tree
arrangements (what I called radial) ...

I imagine power line flexibility will be in terms of extendability
rather than re-running ... the trends being for more devices of lower
power ... and maybe the same goes for signal lines ... but not for
data-lines, for which the trends seems to be strongly for ever
increasing capacities, and increasing separation from power-lines ...
until fibre-optic becomes the norm, that is.

'must say, I'm tempted to go for running two tubes (one for power &
signal, one for data) to a limited number of carefully chosen
specific points in various positions around the house ... with the
tubes large enough to allow doubling and even trebling of cables in
the future ... and the tubes being run in the floors (that being
where all our other pipes are being run - ventilation, waste-water,
and plumbing) ... all of which seems to be rather the same as your
approach, with us having to use tubes rather than your voids, just
because of our structural arrangements (concrete for walls & floors)
...

We've got our shell almost done now - weather-proof & secure - but I
think I'm rather regretting we didn't think all this through more
fully at the design stage ... ie; right down to the last detail ...
in the traditional way, we left the details to be sorted out during
the actual build ... an approach that has left us with a more
complicated job than might have been, in the fitting-out ...

I was attracted to the idea of sockets in the floor, but it's what we
have at work, and there the arrangement has proved awkward,
inconvenient, and vulnerable to damage ...

Not an easy one to solve ... !!   Houses must have been simple in the
days before we needed all this infrastructure !

Chris



On 21 Dec 2005, at 09:23, Nigel Giddings wrote:

> Chris,
>
> I think you have fundamentally the right idea, flexibility...
>
> I also think you need some sort 'cable route' around the rooms...
>
> But it will be more expensive to install, probably at least 3 times
> the
> price...
>
> The idea of running a 'bus' for mains power is a bit of a non-
> starter at
> this time, I also think your BCO would have a fit... I do agree
> that the
> radial (a type of bus?) does not suit home automation unless you
> want to
> go X10 and if you are starting from scratch I wouldn't start with X10.
>
> I have combined the cable route round the building, by routing
> under the
> ground floor in the basement ceiling space and above the 1st floor
> using
> the loft, rather than having a duct in the actual rooms... Getting to
> room mounted ducts after you have decorated would be difficult?
>
> I have then piped from these 'trunk routes' to each of the points in
> each room. 2 x 20mm metal conduits to deep double back boxes. Metal
> conduit to improve RFI rejection and two pipes one for High Voltage
> (HV)
> and the other for Low Voltage (LV).
>
> The disadvantage is that you still need to nominate socket and switch
> positions for the first fix stage... I have been relatively generous
> with this ensuring each corner has an 'outlet' and that an
> appliance can
> be located anywhere without trailing cables across a door or even
> under
> a window. I also have sockets set in the floor using floor boxes so
> that
> the desk in the study can act as an island and the telephone, laptop
> power supply etc comes from under the desk.... All these are routed
> back
> to the 'trunk routes' with between 2 and 5 metres of conduit...
>
> If you still want to build the 'flexible' home let me know and I'll
> pass
> on a few more of my ideas.
>
> A picture says a thousand words, and I have a lot of pictures...
> See http://photos.corbenic.co.uk
>
> HTH
>
> Nigel
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Hunter [mailto:cjhunter@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 20 December 2005 19:07
> To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> Subject: [ukha_d] Power & signal & control
>
>
> I had thought we might run a box-conduit around all rooms of our
> self-build, set surface-flush into the walls, to carry power &
> signal &
> control cables.
>
> Then we could tap into them where-ever required, and easily replace /
> update the cables as necessary, in the future.
>
> But is there a better way, I wonder ?   Signal & power cables have
> to be
>
> kept apart.   Tapping into the cables would be a fiddle - cutting
&
> stripping & making screw-terminal joints, etc, etc.   And conduit
> is not
>
> cheap.
>
> But future-proofing demands flexibility !
>
> Is there a better way, I wonder ?
>
> For example, separate bare mains wires, with crocodile clips, and / or
> insulation-piercing connections ?
>
> Or ... ?
>
> And what size cables should I use ?
>
> I'm not a fan of ring-mains, star-runs seem better ...
>
>
> Chris
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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