Thank You Clipsal / C-Bus for a great product.

I want to thank all whom assisted me abroad in my first Clipsal install for our 3 story townhouse. Since I am here in the USA and the project was in Houston Texas I had to adhere to the NEC code and city inspections.
Originally I was just going to use a Square D Powerlink NF2000G3 controller to control one electric breaker panel and use a Lutron Homeworks for the automation then contract out the install as I am not a ?Certified Lutron Installer? but once I seen the cost of Lutron along with the idea of me not being able to edit I looked deeper into Clipsal. Since I am a self learner and know about electrical / electronics I decided for a challenge and to fully automate our new home for energy savings and remote management along as a showpiece / marketing for Clipsal future users.
Earlier this year I purchased a handful of components to test (thread on form listed here) and downloaded the Tool-Kit to program. Within a day I had a functioning C-Bus and was astounded on how simple. Now the fun began as I had to convince a long list of officials as the home was not documented for being automated. After a few demos & explaining I was approved.
Along the way I upped my NF2000G3 controller to a NF3000G3C that is Clipsal ready.

The first thing I did is layout each and every home run for the lighting cabling in AutoCAD and coordinate with the electricians while the house is in the wood framing stage. To balance the C-Bus I decided to use a 60M panel in the 1st floor garage and one on the 3rd floor guest closet to mount output modules with power supplies. This would give me up to 10 Din modules to start. From there I piped every wall switch in ENT tubing to a central location and documented. Now the hard part was programming the NF3000G3C to the C-bus as it is initially confusing as there is a long list of criteria that has to be followed to communicate with the C-Bus but once the concept is learned the interface is nice as it can use scheduling along with turning on/off outputs on modules and circuit breakers in the electric panel.

On this project presently there are close to 100 seprate wired home runs for lighting and other switched circuits along with 48 Clipsal units. Most of my components are running around 29 Volts and all stable via the tool-kit.
I plan on adding more components along with learning more C-Bus programming now since moved in.
Here is a list of components mounted & working so far:

42 circuit NF Square D Electric panel with a NF3000G3C controller
18 circuit NQOD Square D Electric panel (with Arc-Fault breakers to comply with the NEC 2005 code)
Custom made enclosure to mount 16 circuit with Square D 10 amp breakers to protect the Clipsal modules and 3 DIN modules.
One C-Bus Network Analyzer (hardly used but good to have)
One RS232 PCI
One 350Ma power supply
One Ethernet adapter
One DLT Keypad
Two 4 Channel Dimmers
Three 12 channel relay modules
Four 8 channel dimmers
Four Neo Keypads
Nine PIR?s
Ten bus-couplers
Thirteen Saturn Keypads

And a partridge in a pear tree

Alan Dobbs
Industeq, Inc.

 

Hi Alan

Thanks for taking the time to feedback on the success of your project. It's always quite motivating to hear stories from satisfied customers!

 

Photos please!

Duncan.