Who would have ever thought that the holidays would be such a great time to get a bunch of work done! My sister and her husband made it home early Wednesday afternoon, and guess what Andrew and I got all sorts of things done. Seems that my brother-in-law isn’t too good at relaxing his vacations away, so what did I do, but PUT HIM TO WORK!
Great thing, because we were definitely in a huge rush when we pulled the automation wiring in the cold/dark, and with a little extra heat and his very detail oriented way we had huge success at cleaning up the mess of wires.
Check out the head-on view of all the cabinets.
Main Controller (Left) /Miscellaneous (Right) Enclosures
Telephone/TV/Ethernet
The top picture shows two of the three Leviton 42 inch Structured Media Cabinets. The left enclosure is where my HAI Omnipro II, an expansion board (for 16 more inputs and outputs), and the 12VDC power distribution module will reside. All sensor inputs will come into the left side of this cabinet and then terminate at their respective location. Controller outputs will exit the right side of the cabinet using small gauge wire and enter the cabinet to the right where they will fire relay boards that will send higher current outputs to the many automatic window and door operators. The Somfy automatic shade RS-485 interface will also reside here where it’ll pick up the communications signal from a serial expansion port on my HAI, inject 12VDC onto the line and then send control signals to the 6 automatic shades in the house.
The second picture shows the third Leviton 42 inch Structured Media Cabinet. This enclosure is where all the telephone, TV, and ethernet wiring will be terminated. It looks like a very scary, yet impressive mass of wires with everything dangling in the air, but once this is all cut to length and neatly terminated in the enclosure it will be a thing of beauty. To do all this I’ll need a few Leviton Twist in Mount Patch Panels, a TV distribution amplifier/hub, and an 8 line telephone distribution module with line seizure for my main controller.
Taking a step back you can see one of the seven media outlets that are spread throughout the house.
Each media outlet will have 1 HDMI, 1 RJ6QS Copper, and 4 CAT5E cables that will terminate on the left side of a Leviton 690-W recessed two gang outlet. A low voltage divider allows this box to share both low-voltage media signals and 120 VAC outlets for the TV. It is recessed and should disappear very nicely hidden behind a TV.
All the Wiring Leaving the Automation Room
Somfy Electronic Shade Wiring
In two locations of the house we installed a blank low-voltage mudring to contain the wiring and electronics for my automated shade system. The Somfy ILT motors use a standard ethernet line to carry their SDN network. At locations close to the window shades I installed a Somfi 4-motor t-tap which takes this RS-485 signal off the bus and then sends it to each motor over a four wire line that connects to the motor with a RJ9 plug. Once the sheet rock is hung this mud ring will have a 2-gang blank plate installed over it and then painted to match.
I must show a few pictures of my crew hard at work. The 6 foot mobile staging that Jerry recently brought to the job worked remarkable at pulling wire. The wire puller could easily pull their way around the building one truss at a time without having to fight their way up and down a ladder. Missing from action is my good buddy Ben Martin. He was a huge help Thursday morning and pulled wires like a maniac!
My Sister and Andrew Pulling the Last Few Ethernet Wires
Yup! Julie Even Stepped In!
A Few Hours Later… Thanksgiving
I Couldn’t Resist… Crazy Daisy
She’s figured out how to jump up onto my bed, and then bridge over to my lap and attack me with her kisses/slobbers. Obviously she’s figured out I can’t push her away and takes advantage of the opportunity. You should see how bad she divebomb’s me when I’m sleeping!
I Think She’s Spoiled
