Home Automation

yop

Lads & Girls

Is there anyone here into home automation.

Thinking about doing up a home automation system myself.
Looking at installing Cat5E (Ft Composite 2 Cat 5E 2 RG-6 Cable) as per this site http://www.lanshack.com/product1.asp?SID=10&Product_ID=128 which should give me SAT, phone and network and broadband down in one cable run. I yet have to figure out what points I need to install and what patch panel etc.

I was also thinking of Wireless but this really is not the answer for TV and video and that so I think that the cable above should do it.


But is there anyone with experience in this area?

thanks

Spocker

Man/Woman after my own heart!

Not quite the same job but just finished wiring my own currently being built house myself. I didn't go down the route of the all-in-one cable so I'll just tell you what I did - it may or may not help.

My house consists of 3 bedrooms upstairs, 1 extra room as an office, downstairs sitting room, kitchen & hallway - these are just the rooms I wired.

In every room I put 4 CAT5e points - for the simple reason that it's as easy to pull four cables as pull one. The exceptions to this were the office - a second set of points on another wall and the sitting room got a second set in the "other" TV spot.

For coax I ripped out what the builder had put in, bought a couple of rolls of decent stuff and every room got 2 points (same reason) as above. The sitting room got two sets of four points based on the following logic - 1 point for Sky downfeed, 1 spare for Sky in case I ever upgrade to Sky +, two back feeds.

Theres two sets of points in the sitting room so I can move the TV to the other side of the fireplace if I want to later.

All of the cables brought back to the attic with the following plan in mind - wire the CAT 5 to a standard 48 port patch panel and plug/connect as I see fit.

Now for the "pieste de resistance" (well in my eyes anyways) - all of the coax cable will be wired back to a coax patch panel - got it from
Canford Audio .

All of these bits and bobs fit nicely into this rack from Thomann

It's not the most fantastic system in the world ever but it it didn't cost me a fortune:

4 boxes cable, plugs, 48 port panel, crimper, wall plates and sockets, 2 rolls of coax all for €500. Rack for €50 and Canford panel is €100. Other misc items like f plugs and so on I just picked up as I went along. Never manged to get a 4 F plug single gang wall plate so will end up having to make my own.

Points to note:

The house was only at timber frame stage when I did all of this - the sparky had pulled his own cables already so most of the holes were already drilled

I went to great lengths to number boths ends of every cable, leave plenty of slack only to have some moron come and cut them all just before the plasterer went in. Arrrgh :mad:

Put down some trunking in the attic - this helped a

lot when it came to organising the cables

Make sure to have your sparky put some power points in the attic - you'll never know when you'll need them!

Of course this all is of no use if your house is already completed and it's just easier to pull one cable

yop

Excellent thanks a million.
Thanks for the sites and costs great to see.
Good point about the power points in attic, am building a dormer so feck all space I think for rack, so I was thinking of putting in the closed down stairs, would you agree or disagree.
Excuse my ignorance but a few questions.

4 points in each room, so you have 4 point "network points" with RJ45 sockets??
Is that not a lot on one wall??

Also 2 back feeds, for what would you need back feeds for??

How many power points do you recommend for the area beside the rack?

Again is 48 port patch panel not over kill???

So if I am shopping around I am looking for a standard patch panel for CAT5E cabling. And is there a specifc size rack or anything??

A dafter question but would you use the CAT cabling I mentioned in my first post if you got a chance???

Many thanks for your advice

Macy

Also looking at the electrics side of a house build over the next few weeks. Possible another daft question, with the cat 5e would you need Coax as well? Or is the coax purely for the back feeds?

Incidentally, this site has a fair bit of kit for this type of stuff - including diplexers for sat's, i.e. you'd only need the CT100/RG6 feed for sky plus....
Satcure

Spocker

No problem at all, glad to help. Another good site I thought of in the meantime: Lets Automate

Now, to answer some questions (forgive my earlier assumptions)

yop wrote:

feck all space I think for rack, so I was thinking of putting in the closed down stairs, would you agree or disagree.

Why not? Wherever works for you, maybe an airhole or two wouldn't go amiss if your putting any powered equipment in there (make sure to put in sockets!)

yop wrote:

4 points in each room, so you have 4 point "network points" with RJ45 sockets?? Is that not a lot on one wall??

Yes, 4 "network points" with RJ45 sockets is correct. They will fit in a 2 gang plate (same size as a double socket) so it's not really that big/a lot really - you never know when you're going to upgrade equiment and need new/more points

yop wrote:

Also 2 back feeds, for what would you need back feeds for??

Again forgive my assumption - on the back of my Sky digibox are two RF outputs - if I connect these to the "backfeeds", hook up the relevant points on the RF patch panel I can then watch the same Sky channel in two other rooms - I'm happy with that myself so I won't be getting into the Sky multiroom thing

yop wrote:

How many power points do you recommend for the area beside the rack?

A 2 gang/point socket should be enough, it's not as if there is going to be that much equipment there, generally small stuff like hubs, routers and the like.

yop wrote:

Again is 48 port patch panel not over kill???

7 rooms by 4 ports + extra 4 in sitting room = 32 ports - my options were 2 * 24 port panel or 48 so I plumped for the 48

yop wrote:

So if I am shopping around I am looking for a standard patch panel for CAT5E cabling. And is there a specifc size rack or anything??

Standard will do. Rack mount panels are all a standard 19 inches in size, the rack itself is 19 inches wide with the height measured in units - a 24 port panel is 1 unit, a 48 is 2 units and so on. The link in previous post to the rack is 6 units high (between a foot and a foot and a half I guess)

yop wrote:

A dafter question but would you use the CAT cabling I mentioned in my first post if you got a chance???

I dunno Personally I think it's quite expensive for what you get - this is only a house you're wiring after all, not the office of the future but it's your choice (although I do like the "available with optical" bit - not that would be nice).

Would one box (500 foot) be enough to cover your whole house?

The only downside I can think of is if the cable gets damaged in any way it could be a bitch to repair it.. :mad:

Remember, this is just what worked for me - add/remove points/cables as you wish - just put is as many as you can now cause it's an awful lot easier than doing it after the house is built

Spocker

Macy wrote:

with the cat 5e would you need Coax as well? Or is the coax purely for the back feeds?

I know you can run video over CAT5 but I believe that the equiment to do it is very expensive. Why not run the coax as well? It's just another cable and sure if you never use it then you never use it. Reasonable quality coax isn't that expensive.

The 4 coax I used was: 1 from dish to Sky with another to spare if I upgrade and two backfeeds to other TVs in house, probably the kitchen and office - if I ever need more I'll just split it

Macy

Dr. Spock wrote:

I know you can run video over CAT5 but I believe that the equiment to do it is very expensive. Why not run the coax as well? It's just another cable and sure if you never use it then you never use it. Reasonable quality coax isn't that expensive.

The 4 coax I used was: 1 from dish to Sky with another to spare if I upgrade and two backfeeds to other TVs in house, probably the kitchen and office - if I ever need more I'll just split it

Sorry was purely going on that link that yop posted which was the Composite with coax.... Think I'll come back to this thread when I'm not so hung over

yop

Good site lad, I spotted that one alright, it is a maze, X10 and that!
I wonder if there is a market out there for someone to exploit!

There is not a great choice in Ireland so it will be the UK or Europe for the gear I think.

I do think that cable is a bit expensive alright so I think the more affordable option will be coax + cat5E or Cat6.
I see it meantioned "high quality" coax, is there a big difference and what do you ask for??

Also if you run ethernet and coax down the same conduit will they not interfere with each other??

Ya I would need a 48 port panel as well.

To be honest I do not know how much cable (in feet) i might require. Will have to work it out!

Thanks for all your help, I must digest and see what I will do.

Spocker

yop wrote:

I see it meantioned "high quality" coax, is there a big difference and what do you ask for??

Have to admit a blank on this one (that cable was bought for me ) - have a look here , the guy who runs it is a very helpful chap (and prolific boardster) called Tony; he'll give you all the advice you need on that one

yop wrote:

Also if you run ethernet and coax down the same conduit will they not interfere with each other??

AFAIK they don't, given that the runs are reasonably short. Again, Tony will probably give you a better answer on this one

yop

Cheers a mhac, I have seen Tony mentioned in the Sat threads alright seems to know his stuff and is very helpful

Thanks

harto

Lads,
will be getting into all this myself next year too and have been doing a fair
bit of research this year on it. Everything I have read on the Cat5 subject seem
to say the same thing. Work out how much you think you need and where you need
it and then at least double these figures. The cost of the cable is relatively
cheap and if you are laying it yourself in a new house then there is no harm in
running a lot more then you think you need right now, even if you don't use it.
Much better that, then to realise in a few years that you really needed a bit
more in order to implement some new idea or change your setup in some way. Also
the wireless option won't replace the hard wired setup, it will only complement
it. There is likely to be considerably more demand on your network in the future
and the hard wired setup will deliver a better performance. As the use of
wireless devices grows also the potential for interference grows.

I am planning to do some and eventaully all of the following in various stages,
but with all the wiring done in advance. The main equipment can be added as
funds allow.
- Structured Cat5e star wiring scheme from 1 or 2 central nodes as the basis.
Multiple wiring connnections between each node. One node for the av stuff which
needs to be visible and easily accessible and the other housing the phone and
network stuff which will be concealed away somewhere but still easy to get at.
- Same as Dr.S, Cat5 wiring to a minimum of 4 points in each room for phone,
network, tv (at a later point), audio (mp3 distribution from central server).
Some rooms doubled up to 8 or more depending on flexability required.
- Two co-ax (ct100 satellite standard) cables to most rooms for tv. Tv will
eventually be switched to Cat5 distribution. If selling the house sometime later,
a potential buyer might prefer a standard coax setup.
- Some rooms to have a cat5 wire run from somewhere close to the light switch
for each room back to one of the nodes. This will eventually have an amplified
keypad connected back to a central multi audio distribution source and speaker
wires run from the keypad to in-wall or in-ceiling speakers. This is a much
cheaper and easier to setup alternative to getting a multi-zone multi-source
audio system in your house. Something like this fella might be an option
http://www.russound.com/doccenter/files/Homeowner/A-
Bus%20Amplified%20Keypad%20System/New%20Product%20Release/A-H484%20NPR.pdf
- Each bedroom to have a pc which acts as a computer, tv, music source and phone.

Here is one of the best discussion groups on HA around ...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ukha_d/

In the above forum, have a look back in the last two weeks or so for a thread on
how much Cat5 to put in a house and you will be amazed at the amount of it being
considered and for some of the stuff these lads are thinking about.


Some other good guides and information here
http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/
http://www.diyha.co.uk/
http://www.wildtracks.cihost.com/homewire/

And here for some ideas of what you could do
http://www.home-automation-solutions.co.uk/ht_docs/home-automation-products.shtml


Keep in touch with how ye are getting on, I would be interested and will share any more info I get too !

All the best...

Spocker

harto wrote:

Keep in touch with how ye are getting on, I would be interested and will share any more info I get too !

Will do, thanks for the info

yop

Excellent Harto, very informative and will keep me stuck to the laptop reading for the next few nites, divorce will be on the horizon

I spot multipoint sockets there last nite at home on a webpage. When you have 4 points on a single gang faceplate (not sure about my terminalogy!)
These would be very tidy as you can have a connection for RJ45, phone and TV on the one plate.

I found a link to that CAT 8 cabling as well - http://www.lairdking.co.uk/downloads.htm

slayer92

Hello,
Glad to see there are other people interested in home automation in Ireland. Ye have covered a lot of ground here already but let me add some extra information you may find useful.....

X10 is the current standard for home automation, although it will be replaced by Z wave (RF).
You can use a PC to control your X10 devices with a brilliant program call HOMESEER. It is a bit costly(€160) but well worth the money. Homeseer gives you full control to setup lighting scenes, control events and includes a full webserver so that your devices can be control/viewed over the 'net. One of Homeseer main advantage over similar products is the level of user support. I would strongly advised you to log onto their support forum for more information about home automation in general. The forum even has a support area for UK/European users.


Lastly here are some of the websites I found very helpful...

http://www.letsautomate.com

http://www.laser.com

http://www.simplyautomate.co.uk

http://www.kat5.tv
KAT5 is an affordable system that allows high quality S-Video and Stereo AV signals to be distributed around the home over low cost CAT5 cabling using plug and play modules


http://www.intellihome.be
IntelliHome is a European online distributor of the X-10 220-240V/50Hz product range. Ordering is easy through a secured webserver!


I have purchased some X10 modules from letsautomate and found them very good.

Hope this help,

Slayer92

Eurorunner

Some fellow boardsters helped me out with info on this recently:

here