what power supply are you using to power your PLC and relays? I’m assuming they are all running off 24V?
Both the Unipi PLC and Loxone Miniserver recommend power supply of 1.5A to power the unit but I suspect that will run out of oomph very quickly once I add Extensions and additional relays. I was thinking 5A or maybe even 10A or is that overkill?
Also if I choose 24V lights instead of 230V these would need a power supply too, is it recommended to keep these two power supplies separate?
Sorry for all the questions but picking your brain hearing about your experience has been very helpful.
@lessmann Good questions. I use 5 amp 24VDC (din mount) power supplies which are capable of battery backup but I haven’t used that feature. Instead I run them on my UPS protected supply. If you are going for DC lights as well I would recommend you should consider investing in a correctly sized 24VDC Battery Storage System…that would work on quite a number of levels in my mind. Then run a suitably sized 24V mains right through your entire house with sub-boards at strategic spots. IE: same spots as your PLC Extension and relay boards will be.
But that depends on your overall budget of course.
Putting that all on Solar would also make sense?
In your renovation design you probably need to figure in lets say a 600h x 600w x 300d electrical cabinet here and there PLUS consider the possibility of a battery installation if that idea appeals to you.
For example I have a converted 60 pole switchboard plus 2x Standard Size Australian meter boxes plus 2 x smaller meter boxes PLUS, PLUS, it just goes on. One day I will document that on my post. LOL
You mean these weird ones that are the wrong way round (vertical rails)?
Unfortunately different countries have very different traditions in electrical wiring. In Germany I would go for a reasonably sized cabinet with horizontal din rails:
@mbs38 That would be the one…not as modern as that one and yes the bus bars were vertical originally. I think it had about a 150 or 200 amp CB in it when I dragged it out of a skip bin. It had been modified already to run a pilot water treatment plant and was a bit of a mess… it is still quite a mess here at the moment.
That board is in perpetual prototype state although it has been in a stable state for long enough now that I could tidy it up I reckon.
PS: It’s an old Merlin Gerin…Top Right Add On Box Contains 24VDC Supply see below
@wellsy@mbs38
Yes I’ve seen the MeanWell power supplies but wasn’t certain if I should go for the slightly bigger ones. 2.5A or 5A should do it then.
I’ve got solar panels in my current house but no battery, in the UK the generation is very poor in winter and the house I’m building isn’t positioned particularly well for solar but I have a good installer that I’ll get back onsite once the main structure is up. I am a big fan though and thanks to HA it’s possible to partly automate the washing machine and dishwasher to make good use of the power while it’s being generated.
The new house will have a big Utility room so space should not be a problem, I’ve got approximately 1.2w x 2.5h x 0.6d which needs to house the Solaredge, the 230V distribution board, UFH manifold on the floor and then of course all of this “Smart” stuff. I was thinking of possibly custom building the cabinet around all the kit once I have most of it in.
Very tidy cabinet Max!
I’m already dreading how I’m gonna plan the layout so it looks all nice and tidy when I’m still figuring out what hardware is going in. There isn’t really any way of knowing until it’s all finished!
I see you’ve got Loxone units sticking out there…How do you find it?
A couple weeks ago I was ready to buy a miniserver and start playing with it when I slowly started going off it because something like the Unipi seems to give me so much more choice when it comes to switches and lights etc. Both for variety and cost.
The Loxone system seem pretty “closed”, expecially if you want to take advantage of their biggest draw, the Tree topology. But I may be wrong on this because they have all these units which apparently opens up to modbus etc. Also they have good forum support and online documentation to help first timers like myself. Also the products are tried and tested and, in theory, should work straight out the box.
With an open source route like Unipi I feel I’m gonna be very much on my own as it hasn’t been so widely adopted and there will be a lot of trial and error. Which excites me and fills me with fear all at the same time…
For the same “closed” reason, I am not much fun of Lexone solutions but they have well-designed, easy-to-use, solutions, eg the dimmer modules and wall switches. When I was looking at the differences between Lexone and Unipi, and altenative dimmer solutions, I came across this post, which you might consider mixing both together, to get the best of both world: https://www.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/comments/69kbqs/prototyping_my_home_automation_system_loxone_and/
Thats a quite tidy distribution/control cabinet.
Could you post some close ups with wiring and module details please.
These pictures are very helpful when planning new installations.
I’ve ordered a small Unipi 1.1from a German shop (grooves.land) so I will install Evoke and get familiar with the software and try to attach some inputs and outputs to see if the bigger Unipi’s will work for me. Maybe even see if I can integrate it into HA if I get that far.
@Raks
On further thought regarding Loxone vs Unipi. A big consideration is the future life of any house and potential sale down the line, it will be a lot easier for the new owner to adopt a system like Loxone than a heavily personalised open source route and also easier to get a technician or electrician to fix or make any changes. Just another thing to consider when making a choice.
Every system beyond standard dumb wiring will always cause a higher cost of maintenance / repairs.
I would even consider building the whole installation in a way that allows a downgrade to dumb wiring. I’ve done this by running all wires for switches, lights and sockets radially and directly to the cabinet. In the event of a sale I can throw everything smart out and put in some surge relays and terminal blocks and every electrician will be able to fix and maintain the installation.
Short update on the Unipi.
So I got the small unipi 1.1 and loaded evok on it and set up node red. All straight fwd and simple enough.
The documentation includes an example flow which I could never get to work properly and I was not able to trigger a simple input output reaction. This possibly had to do with my lack of node red experience but I’m quite capable to set up basic flows on HA so I suspect it had to do with the unipi.
Anyway that headache is now over. I was tidying up the din rail and accidentally conneted the wrong (24v) power supply so I’ve fried the device.
Maybe I did it on purpose because it had caused me so much frustration
I may get another one but probably not, I’m kind of relieved it’s a problem I don’t need to figure out anymore.
Will get a Loxone miniserver with a DMX ext and have a play around with that
Another update…
Stubbornly I ordered another Unipi 1.1 and had another go. After many hours of tearing my hair out trying to get the PLC to react to NodeRed inputs i finally got it to work and now it’s a piece of cake. It turned out to be something really silly, mislabeling of the I/O on the tutorial nodes. It’s fantastic and limited only to my limited NodeRed experience but as un-intuative as NodeRed is at first, I can see that with a lot of time and self application anything could be possible with it. Controlling the Unipi through HASS is always a breeze with mqtt so no community add-ons required.
The Unipi only costs 100 bucks, so I would recommend anyone to get one and have a go. I’m not that keen on NodeRed but even though it’s early days, I can see no reason why one of
The bigger Unipi PLC’s would not be perfectly suited for smart home control.
I also have a Loxone miniserver arriving in the post tomorrow. I suspect it will be a lot easier to set up and will let you know how I find it. Fingers crossed!
@wellsy@mbs38
I’m not sure if i’ve wired the finder relay up properly as it’s getting very hot. Like I cant touch it hot.
There’s no wiring diagram to be found online but it seems simple enough.
Coil A1 connected to 24v +
Coil A2 connected to 24v -
Is the the A1+2 and what I’ve shown below correct?
A1 and A2 are the coil connections.
My only question would be: is the relay definitely 24VDC coil?
If you have a 24VAC type running on 24VDC will get extremely hot.
Your schematic above shows you have them wired with 24VDC.
I was just offering a possibility that they may have 24VAC coils as a reason they may be getting very hot? I can’t think of any other reason they would be running too hot to be touched?
Yes these are rated to switch 240VAC.
