Re: EIB versus CBUS

[Kevin Hawkins <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Now that's quite a good point !

C-Bus dimmers come in 4 channel and 8 but they are physically the
same size and (in the UK) almost the same cost. The 4 channel units
handle double the load.  You can't swap out anything except the whole
unit and I am not sure how that's handled in the UK , in and out of
warranty and the time involved. Maybe Phil can comment.

Current recommendation seems to be to individually fuse each channel
but although I have not yet had any channels that have gone 'in use' I
do have a couple of dead channels following installation. As it took me
so long to put it in (out of warranty) , and as the fault could have
been my own I live with it and have used spare channels.  So I've gone
the 'have reserve channels' route. I don't think C-Bus dimmers are any
more resilient than many other medium quality solutions but they do seem
much better than the typical mass market ones which as you say seem to
die every time a bulb blows.

Having swappable individual channels would be neat - does any
manufacturer offer this in a multi unit DIN type solution. ?  I can't
remember what Idratek have - when I was considering them they didn't
have a dimmer solution at all but I'm sure they must have now.

K


Mal Lansell wrote:
> One thing that's always bothered me about solutions like C-Bus is that
> the dimmers come in big expensive blocks of eight.  Since dimmers in
> general appear to die of fright when a bulb blows, I wonder how this
is
> dealt with.
>
> Can you swap out an individual dimmer?  Do you leave some free for
> "spares"? Do you just make sure you have space for another 8
pack if one
> goes out?  Or are C-Bus dimmers a much tougher breed than I'm used to?
>
> Mal
>
>
>
>