Merry Christmas To All....Now a Question

Just wanted to take this opportunity to say Merry Christmas to all, and I hope everyone has a safe new year.


Now my question..... Enclosure mounting in roof cavities...... has anyone had any experience with this before. Only a small home project, (my house) but due to space restrictions, apart from being mounted outside, the roof cavity is the only other option.

My main concern in the heat generated in the roof, even when vented, degrading the performance of dimmers and relays.

Merry Christmas.

CRackers

 

Im only ver new the C-Bus set-up myself but i would strongly recommend against it the heat in a roof can reach up to 50-60oC and as you try to keep the heat down in cables themselve for optimum performance mounting the enclosure in the roof would only be adding un-nessary heat to the system. Having said that if you had ducted A/C i couldnt see why you couldnt run a small 4" duct into the enclosure for cooling (dont forget an outlet duct). All of this depends on where you live i suppose to Antartica or The Desert>

Hope this helps a little.

 

My C-bus relay's and dimmers are all mounted in the roof without any problem over the past 7 years. This is in Canberra which gets bloody hot in summer (up to 40+) and very cold in winter (as low as -5 to -10). Most of my kit is the older style, ie the 5104D which has been screwed into boards mounted flat across the roof trusses. With the few DIN rail products that I have added it has been a simple matter of screwing a bit of DIN rail to the board and it works fine, ie that are not inside an enclosure inside the roof. The only concern is my insulation is the loose wool style so I had to ensure that it was not placed on top.

 

there you go obviously someone has done it and it works fine, a few other things to remember would be if you got a leak in the roof theres a fair possibility the water may gain its way to the C-Bus equipment therefore destroy alot of money and effort.
Also not sure whether Ashley has had any problems gaining access to the system however everytime you ant to make a minor adjustment to your set up you have to get in the roof, such as adding other controllers or changing wires in terminals etc.

Cheers

 

If I had a leak in the roof I would have more to worry about than the c-bus getting wet. Also if you do something that requires any physical wire changes you would probably need to get in the roof anyway because that is where the power cables end up.

You should also have a think about the history of C-bus and how it was developed, the newer DIN mounted switch board equipment is relativly new, ie 5-6 years, indeed some of the switch gear (mainly for industrial situations) is designed to sit in the light fixtures themselves or just inside the cavity. You just need to use some common sense as to where you place them. Mine are located just off the walk boards in the roof, so you can sit on them and work on the gear if need be. The orginal dimmers and releays that I have were not designed for switch board mounting, in fact I am not sure where they were meant for, my guess is inside the cavity mounted to trusses, just like low voltage trannies.

If I had to do it all again with the current equipment in a new house then I would find someone inside to mount a switchboard and mount everything inside there. I wouldn't put it outside or anywhere near the main switch board though.

PS. My system has been in 7 years, the only change's I have had to make is installing a new relay (din style) and changing a circuit from a dimmer to a said relay after I changed the socket from a globe to a fluro.

 

Hi all, many thanks for all your info, and suggestions. Unfortunately the roof is the only option, being a post war home in QLD, it is small (17 front to back)

So be prepared over the next 12 months to be annoyed with questions.

Happy new year to you all.


Crackers

 

Hi Crackers,
If you are at all concerned about heat in the roof cavity, you might be able to create a small insulated room, depending on your rafters/trusses.

When I did my renovations, that was my plan; to bang up some plasterboard between the trusses and throw some insulation around it. That was until I mentioned it to the builders, and they gave me a near little room off my study upstairs.

Its fully insulated, but still gets fairly warm on those 40C days, and is probably not that effective in keep in the CBUS cool, as the flush panels still back uninsulated into the roof cavity.

​

 

Froop,

Nice setup, (well setup in the making) all you need to add is a telly, fridge and you have the perfect place to go when the missus is giving you the sh1ts.

 

G'day Crackers & All
I installed C-Bus (black box era: 3 x Relays 5104RVF & 3 x Dimmers 5104D750 from memory) in my roof space in 1996 in my project home in south western Sydney. One relay failed at about 4years old and the local rep was good enought to replace it. One dimmer failed about 2 years ago and I replaced it with a L5504D2A mounted in a 4CC12SB. All other are still going 12 years down the track. I don't think the heat in the ceiling space specifically killed the 2 that failed. I actually opened up the dimmer and a resistor on the PCB had let the smoke out, the board was browned pointing to overheating generated from a faulty component.
Just my experience..
Cheers Matthew