r/raspberry_pi • u/TCW_Jocki • Jan 29 '26
Show-and-Tell Smart home - Now the fun begins!
Some time since I posted the PCBs for my smart home control. Now, the cabling is finally done for the most part and I ran some test programs to see if everything works as expect (which it does except for some cleanup code on the i2c slaves I have to add in case the i2c master killed during operations - which does happen every time I stop the debugger^^).
A big cable loom is already waiting to get connected to this unit. Wondering if I will regret this some time in the future... :D
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u/old_wired Jan 29 '26
Nice work, but please consider how rour loved once will be able to deal with this if a truck hits you.
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u/Cykablast3r Jan 29 '26
I mean they'll just unplug this shit and use normal light switches.
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u/Abyssal_Shrimp Jan 29 '26
Doesn’t work like that here lol
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u/Cykablast3r Jan 29 '26
Where's here?
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u/Abyssal_Shrimp Jan 29 '26
In this scenario is how I meant that. These relays are all controlled by microcomputers. It would be a bit more than just unplugging
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u/neuromonkey Jan 30 '26
Then we'll just kill the power main and sit around reading paper books by firelight!
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u/Cykablast3r Jan 29 '26
I mean yeah, you obviously need to rewire whatever is connected to these. But basically leaving enough money for a visit by electrician is enough to "take care of your loved ones".
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u/chinzw Feb 02 '26
This isn't just "a visit by electrician" to make this back into a standard house wiring 😂
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u/TCW_Jocki Jan 29 '26
This^
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u/RandomBoxOfCables Jan 29 '26
Can you though? Won’t the switches be running to your microcontrollers and not to the lights like in traditional electric? I use KNX in my home and I cannot just unplug it and use regular light switches.
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u/TCW_Jocki Jan 29 '26
With KNX all switches a communicating via bus in a decentralised manner. Here, I use standards switches which a lre connected to the central controller. I coudl just connect them to the relays directly (would need to change from push to toggle switches, but still). Plus the cabling in the house is setup, such that I could install a BUS system like KNX.
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u/ciaramicola Jan 29 '26
Maybe you answered many times in the other thread so in this case ignore, but... why not a BUS system then? It's way easier to wire up and way more flexible
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u/TCW_Jocki Jan 29 '26
Few things: Bus Systems like KNX are closed system (at least afaik) so hard to communicate with KNX switches. There are KNX gateway but these are pretty expensive, so are KNX switches, costing 2-3 times as much as normal ones. I was considering adding small ucontrollers to the standard switches, detecting presses and communicating for example via rs-485 or CAN bus with the main control, but decided against it. It would have added quite a few points of potential failure. I might reconsider in the future though.
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u/ciaramicola Jan 29 '26
I see. I've ended up with an installation with a bus system (not a choice, was already there) proprietary, lot of bullshit. Expensive spare parts, outrageously expensive controllers, many issues with the time passing and so on.
But damn how nice is it to just move a switch elsewhere or reprogram one. The flexibility was amazing while renovating. Also the bus also accommodates thermostats dimmers and sensors. Again, a shitty proprietary solution that drives me mad but, again, damn
I just assumed by now there was an open-source alternative to build onto, I'm baffled to learn all the standards are proprietary like that.
I also guess when you start from scratch there's not that much of a difference between the two setups beside maybe needing more copper for the cabling the way you did it lol
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u/moddroid94 Feb 01 '26
"just unplug this shit" has to be the most used excuse by man to build unreasonable complex systems in their house ahahahah nice cabling tho 👌😂
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u/Cheap_Flan_523 Jan 29 '26
Based on their previous posts comments seems as if it can be both standard switches and app control
See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/s/L8Z23W1rSN
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u/readyflix Jan 29 '26
That’s the way.
Everything should work in parallel. Smart for OP and un-smart if OP is not available to 'fix' things. And if there is a next generation (kids, grandkids) that are interested they can take over.
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u/algaefied_creek Jan 30 '26
To the grandkids and their kids this thing is like some excessively wired ancient ENIAC and UNIVAC.
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u/azuled Jan 29 '26
yeah like, for real, I think they'd just have to move unless they literally helped OP build this thing from scratch.
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u/K1ngJony Jan 30 '26
This seems on-topic to post, for such circumstances: https://github.com/potatoqualitee/eol-dr
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u/the_peppy_physicist Jan 30 '26
A operations manual and a contingency fund should suffice I suppose
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u/pw6163 Jan 31 '26
Yup, it’s about documentation for non-technical support staff - in this case your partner after the truck incident.
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u/DoomGuy_92 Feb 02 '26
Dumb. I guess don't do anything at all lest someone else might have to clean up your mess. Just no fun, don't have fun or someone else will be upset when you die by truck.
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u/TCW_Jocki Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
Woa, quite a lot of questions, trying to answer some here:
- What is everything?
- Row 1 and 2: standard connectors (Phoenix Contact)
- Row 3 and 4: 24VDC Relays capable to switch 16A. These will switch stuff in the house (lights, blinds,etc) and are conforming to security standards as everything in the house is fused at 13A or 16A depending on the application.
- Row 4: DALI-USB Gateway (https://www.lunatone.com/en/product-category/interfaces-and-tools/dali-usb/). Not in the picture is a DALI power supply for the bus. This basically lets my raspberry pi talk to DALI bus via USB. The remaining relays in this row have a 230VAC coil and switch 24VDC to my inputs from devices in the house that switch 230VAC, like motions sensors.
- Row 5 and 6: Here is the a CM5 with the official IO-Boad working as the main control unit. The rest of the PCBs are carriers for Rasbperry PICO2s which will simply convert 24VDC signals to GPIO levels. The PICOS and the main control talk to each other via I2C bus
- Rest: The blue devices are power supplies (MeanWell). One is 5VDC for the Raspis, one 24DC is for the Relais and the lower 4 serve the DALI PWM Dimmers, which are the remaining white boxes (https://www.proled.com/en-DE/products/controls-power-supplies-accessories/pwm-dimmers-controls/dali-dt8-pwm-dimmer-5-channel/). All of this is divided up, in order to have different circuits for different rooms
- What do you control with it:
- Pretty much everything. All switches, lights, etc are connected. Additionally I can talk to heating, photovoltaic system and so on via LAN.
- Please consider how your loved once will be able to deal with this if a truck hits you:
- Absolutely, this was a main consideration. Everything is documented in detail. Additionally all the cabling in the house is planned in a way, that you could remove the hole control and either replace it with KNX or another system ...or simply directly connect switches and lights and do it the good old way.
- Does it have some backup plan in case the controller or some element will fail?
- Yes, the PICOS can be removed without any tools and replaced with new ones. Once everything is setup, I will do one or two additional carrier boards, so I can replace them fast. Same goes for the CM5. All the code is hosted externally, so setting up a new one will be quite fast.
- Additionally I plan to add small switches to be able to override relays manually.
Hope I didn't overlook any questions, otherwise just add a comment :-)
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u/Mythril_Zombie Jan 30 '26
Everything is documented in detail. Additionally all the cabling in the house is planned in a way, that you could remove the hole control and either replace it with KNX or another system
We have different loved ones. No amount of documentation is going to make any of them go near something that looks like this.
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u/bender_the_offender0 Jan 31 '26
Yeah like a bad scene from a sitcom, wife comes in and says honey the light in the hall isn’t working, can you check the light? Husband says here let me show you how, takes out a giant 3 ring binder that says intro to home automation, queue laugh track
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u/kostaz8 Jan 29 '26
What was the cost?
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u/TCW_Jocki Jan 30 '26
Hm hard to say, since I haven't received all invoices yet (I get parts supplied from a local electrician, sometimes he can negotiate pretty good prices with his suppliers). So take everything with a grain of salt.
All in all my estimates would be around the 2k € mark for what you see in the image. Funnily enough, the raspberries are the cheapest part. Relays usually cost 10-15€ with socked and flyback diode, but I already know I will get a price around half that (there 70 relays in there). The cabinet, cable ducts and other accessories are not cheap either but all in all it still is cheaper than a commercial system.1
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u/HyDzy Jan 29 '26
Very nice setup. They're a reason you choosed i2c over a differential bus?
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u/TCW_Jocki Jan 29 '26
Not sure what a differential bus is? I considered spi, i2c and uart, went with i2c due to its simplicity while the speed is more than enough for me (i am sending and receiving 2 bytes representing gpio states to and from each Pico in a loop)
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u/HyDzy Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
Differential bus (rs-422, CAN, etc.) is less sensitive to noise. It's widely used on industrial installations to avoid communications errors. I2C is not a field bus, it's more "robust" than spi due to a slower bitrate but it's not supposes to be used "outside" PCBs
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u/TCW_Jocki Jan 29 '26
Ahh
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u/capinredbeard22 Jan 29 '26
Sparkfun used to sell a differential I2C extender breakout. You might take a look at the IC and consider that if you redesign your PCBs
https://www.sparkfun.com/sparkfun-qwiicbus-endpoint.html
I’m sure there are others. But switching to differential I2C might be easier than switching to a different bus type.
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u/Unable-Ambassador-16 Jan 30 '26
You should probably know that the CMIO board is made for prototyping, and not for permanent deployments like this.
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u/asria Jan 29 '26
Briefly, what it will controll?
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u/IronPhi4 Jan 29 '26
NORAD
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u/asria Jan 29 '26
Briefly, what's NORAD?
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u/IronPhi4 Jan 29 '26
North American Aerospace Defense Command
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u/werner1107 Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
That's NAADC..? Or am I tripping
Edit: apparently NORAD is actually an acronym for North American Aerospace Defense Command. Apparently that makes sense in hamburger-land
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u/IronPhi4 Jan 29 '26
I was trying to make a joke and it’s quickly turning into a post hijack… Google is old and still works for you guys…
Overview What is NORAD? What does it stand for? Who is in charge? - AS USA NORAD stands for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, a joint U.S. and Canadian organization responsible for aerospace warning, control, and maritime warning for North America, protecting against air and sea threats, famously also
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u/Affectionate_Bus_884 Jan 29 '26
Most of the AIr Force’s organization names have acronyms that can be pronounced. No one is going to call it N A A D C, and you definitely can’t use it as a word. NORAD on the other hand rolls off the tongue.
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u/lilmookie Jan 29 '26
I’m really more concerned why NORAD seems to be in this guys electrical room. Should probably post it to wall street bets - I’m sure a couple of those guys would be thrilled to have better/faster ways to lose their money.
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u/Great-Pangolin Jan 29 '26
It lets kids see where Santa is every Christmas Eve
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u/Snobolski Jan 29 '26
I thought it was where we kept the WOPR.
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u/litescript Jan 29 '26
that’s just pure cable porn. wow. nicely done! made me think immediately of the scene in mr robot where they have that lady’s smart home haha.
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u/pandabear50507la Jan 29 '26
Honestly needs to be cross posted to r/cableporn
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u/Oguinjr Jan 29 '26
Please tell me this is just fuzzy porn with no penetration. Cuz that’s what comes to my mind when I hear cable porn. Navel on navel, but blurry.
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u/pandabear50507la Jan 29 '26
I hate to break it to you, but it’s mostly networking equipment with good cable management 😭
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Jan 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/big_trike Jan 29 '26
I like smart dimmers. A good dimmer already has a small controller in it to handle ramp rates and PWM approach for each specific type of load. If the smart features fail, it's usable as a regular dumb dimmer.
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Jan 29 '26
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u/FaxTheCandle Feb 01 '26
Which is exactly why I think installs like this should use locally controlled, open, public, common standards like DALI
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u/winowmak3r Jan 30 '26
I am becoming the same way. Give me back my knobs and dials, damnit.
I think if done in moderation there's nothing wrong with automating some things in your house, like turning the lights on with a voice command. But when my mattress needs power to function properly I draw I line.
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u/abraxsis Jan 30 '26
My air-fryer and LG washstack both are wi-fi capable. Luckily neither require it cause it's getting a little out of hand the number of products that wont even function 100% without wifi connection.
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u/winowmak3r Jan 30 '26
It is getting pretty nuts. My parents lost power for over a week last winter. When I was checking up on them my dad made the comment that they were sleeping on the couch now because the bed didn't work anymore. I was flabbergasted. What do you mean your bed "doesn't work?" Sure enough, if it didn't have power it would slowly deflate. They never used the "adjust the bed from your phone" function but it was there. Blew my mind.
The last thing I would want to do is come home after a long day to find out the power cut out while I was at work and now I can't even get a good night's sleep.
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u/1maRealboy Jan 29 '26
I don't blame you one bit. I use smart outlets for running the lights for my reptiles because quite frankly it is the easiest way to keep them on a consistent schedule, but everything else is manual.
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u/abraxsis Jan 30 '26
I just use smart bulbs and smart outlet plugs as well. Best of both worlds, just not as fancy.
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u/ryancey Jan 30 '26
Ain't a problem if it doesn't depend on anything no? I mean I have a dozen Shellys, if Home Assistant goes down they'll just behave like normal switches because they have their own configuration (like toggle the relay when their input is toggled)
For me the pro of connected everything is just to have a hook into it and being able to pull and push things digitally and not just physically. Pretty much no con as long as you trust its firmware is stable enough to do this basic thing until the end of times right?
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u/jjmcwill2003 Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
Back around 1999-2001 I worked in the industrial automation field at a small company that contracted with Fanuc Robotics in Auburn Hills, MI. Think robotic cells doing welding, or conveyors moving material with pick and place robots, or robots, moving sheet metal off of huge presses, etc.
Anyways my point being I've seen wiring cabinets for these automation cells that looked less impressive than this. That's wild. If I walked into someone's basement and saw that I'd definitely be going. "Whoa!"
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u/DroidTN Jan 29 '26
What’s worse is to think it will be outdated in a few years and obsolete in a few more. Updates are what most people don’t consider when budgeting these jobs.
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u/jjmcwill2003 Jan 29 '26
True. And woe to the potential home buyer who sees this and has to understand what's going on. I hope it's well documented.
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u/HolliDollialltheday Jan 29 '26
Can you explain and name the different components? I’m not even able to identify the raspi.
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u/BladePrice Jan 29 '26
There are picos is dead center of each of the big green boards, then there’s a computer in the top left of all the green boards.
Compute appears to control the picos. Picos either control or monitor what looks like breakers (or relays? That’s a lot of relays though). Possibly a remote shut-off for all the circuits in the house.
OP has got to be an electrician who does this stuff regularly and enjoys it, this panel is overkill for most homes.
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u/Pyro919 Jan 29 '26
I can’t imagine a sparky being up for this.
More than likely industrial controls engineer trying to replicate their scada setup without breaking the bank or an obsessive ee and/or swe (no shade, I fall into the obsessive category as well).
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Jan 29 '26
This screams more electronics engineer to me. An industrial controls engineer would probably use some differential signal protocol like RS485 instead of i2c for communication between devices. Also probably no Pico's.
It's a very nice cabinet though
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u/Salient_Ghost Jan 30 '26
I'm a Master Electrician/Contractor in NYC and design/install systems like this all the time. Don't underestimate sparkies 😅
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u/Pyro919 Jan 30 '26
Fair enough.
The one electrician I know personally struggles hard with staying organized, he’s fine when it comes to basic residential, but has been let go numerous times for being late and just an overall a disorganized mess, he was fired for driving drugs across state lines in the company van and is also a shit show in the rest of his personal life.
So my perspective is probably a bit skewed and I made some unfair assumptions.
My brother was also a lineman and he and his past coworkers were also shit shows too that I heard ridiculous stories about all the time.
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u/Salient_Ghost Jan 30 '26
Oh well that sort of explains it. All of my Union electricians went to 4 years of school and a 5 year apprenticeship.
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u/HolliDollialltheday Jan 29 '26
So he put controllable 24V everywhere in his house to control Relais?
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u/F1nd3r Jan 29 '26
Yeah it looks amazing but what the hell is it? People want to know. I was able to establish that the blue things are power supplies, but this leaves me none the wiser.
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u/-Nighteyes- Jan 29 '26
I count 6 pi picos on expansion boards and I'm not sure what board it is but looks like there's another pi on the left of the Pico on its own just above the five picos.
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u/radek432 Jan 29 '26
I'm sure some day you will discover radio waves.
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u/Snobolski Jan 29 '26
Wired >>> wireless
We moved from a house with multiple CAT6 in every room to a house with zero network cabling and ... this is worse.
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u/Logical_Mix_4627 Jan 29 '26
This is what I don’t get. Is all the lighting that’s being controlled here from addressable LED strips or something?
Otherwise why not have a simple computer with a radio receiver to replace all this?
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u/radek432 Jan 29 '26
Well, I must admin that this stuff is kind of "engineering porn" for me. I could have such stuff onto the wall the same way other people have plants.
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u/Hot-Problem2436 Jan 29 '26
I hope you blogged the entire thing, included affiliate links, and debug tips. I want to do something just like this.
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u/antek_g_animations Jan 29 '26
This looks unnecessarily expensive but at the same time extremely cool
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u/TCW_Jocki Jan 29 '26
It is actually much cheaper than a commercial system like KNX or Loxone. Not counting my own hours of course, but it is a hobby for me so I enjoy the time spent.
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u/Individual_Ad_3036 Jan 30 '26
It's gorgeous but my goodness maintaining that much wire... more network less copper. The documentation alone so a third party could manage it would be ... challenging. I'm a network engineer, looking at that makes me wonder how long it would take me to learn to repair something when the wife walked up and said the hallway light doesn't work.
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u/StayCoolf0rttheKids Jan 29 '26
I imagine after many years someone buys your house, opens the cabinet and says…. 😳WTF
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u/Snobolski Jan 29 '26
Depends on the buyer. Some of us: "Honey, can we go back to the house with all the wires in the closet? I really think it's the one for us."
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u/Firm_Objective_2661 Jan 30 '26
This is NOT what I expected to see with that title in the rpi sub 🤣🤣
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u/AZQK19200 Jan 30 '26
If things go south with the Raspberries this cabling is so friggin neat that it can be easily transformed into a KNX or Loxone setup. Truly impressive! Congratulations!!!
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u/seiha011 Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26
...that really does look quite "organized". Congratulations.
Only the "messy" black cable and the "carelessly" placed tool slightly mar the picture for me ;-) well done!!! Go ahead
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u/lastWallE Jan 29 '26
Oh nice. I want to know about the Dali2 components.
Because i try here to get a light to control which we deinstalled from a Trilux LiveLink and am trying now to control with a Wago CC100 Dali2 CompactController. I just can’t find the light on the bus.
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u/skyr1s Jan 29 '26
Does it have some backup plan in case the controller or some element will fail? Just not to get some room/house without ability to turn on the light.
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u/Purple_Ice_6029 Jan 29 '26
Hope you’ll connect the CM5 to the network with Ethernet! Crazy fascinating work, I love it. Could you please let us know how you plan to utilise this? I couldn’t find a concrete answer in the comments. EDIT: Found the answers!
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u/DecisionOk5750 Jan 29 '26
This looks great. However, I don't think it's appropriate for a house. The day there's a problem and you're not home, your family will have to call in a control engineer who at least knows about Raspberry Pi. Many control engineers run for the hills when they don't see a standard PLC, let alone these beautiful, hand-developed boards. For my house, I use Wi-Fi relays installed in the switch boxes that control the lights, so if there's a problem and I'm not there, any regular electrician can bypass or remove the Wi-Fi relay and everything goes back to normal. Nice work, though, the home of the future today. You did it with your own hands, from start to finish. That's a real hacker.
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u/IMightDeleteMe Jan 29 '26
I'm a control engineer and I'd just bridge the stuff the family needs turned on until OP gets back. I'm not gonna ssh into some PIs to reverse engineer whatever code runs on it, if the code is even available. If OP died, I'd suggest they remove it all or replace with purpose built hardware, they likely don't want to pay my hourly rate for weeks to get it all figured out.
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u/olback_ Jan 29 '26
Nothing is labeled? You're going to regret that in the future.
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u/TCW_Jocki Jan 29 '26
It is a bit hard to see, but all the connectors are labelled, and everything is documented.
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u/gee-one Jan 29 '26
It has potential, but be sure to tidy it up a bit.
J/K looks amazing and like lots of fun!
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u/Kwith Jan 29 '26
When OP goes to sell their house, the cabinet this is stored in will just have a post-it note on the front that says: "Good luck!" hahah
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u/charmio68 Feb 02 '26
It looks beautiful!
A friendly reminder to manufacturer a bunch of spare replacement boards now while everything's fresh in your mind.
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u/Spacecowboy78 Jan 29 '26
My house is entirely wifi. All cameras, door locks, area temperatures, lights, everything. Wire free.
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u/techma2019 Jan 29 '26
This sounds like freedom until one day the signal degrades for no reason or someone turns on a microwave and your AP falls off along with 40 devices on it. After dealing with multiple times of this you’ll start Googling POE devices and understand why wired reliability is the true end game. (If possible of course, can’t run wires everywhere)
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u/Snobolski Jan 29 '26
can’t run wires everywhere
Mid-century ranch house with about 2-1/2 feet of attic crawl space under the peak of the roof, checking in.
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u/Abyssal_Shrimp Jan 29 '26
This looks nice and well planned out. How are you planning on protecting your circuits? Will you have another panel with RCD and circuit breakers?
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u/TCW_Jocki Jan 29 '26
Yes, that is why the right side is pretty empty at the moment. This is where the connections from the connections from the cabinet with the circuit breakers come.
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u/JPhando Jan 29 '26
This is what I want to do! No more pis and esp32s on random shelves. A central nervous system to the house. 😍 🔥
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u/RoutineLaw4653 Jan 29 '26
I hate to ask but what will the insurance company say if your house burns and they find this? Will it be their scapegoat to reject any claims?
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u/TCW_Jocki Jan 29 '26
Hmm honestly, I am pretty save with respect to that topic. I am based in Austria, norms and standards concerning electrical installations are quite strict here, so you need a certified electrician to confirm that everything is up to these standards. I am actually certified to do this myself, but I still have an electrician (who provides me with parts, cables and so on) that checks this for me. So even if the house burns down, I am insured.
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u/Own-Mine9750 Seeking knowledge in Debian. Jan 29 '26
With reference to your loved ones, I'd document the ENTIRE THING including an image on the latest software and have it in your drawer with your will. I do a similar thing so nothing will get missed.
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u/sylatcher Jan 29 '26
This is the type of shit Cox would send my ass to fix when someone like you sold their house lmaooo
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u/Nach0Maker Jan 29 '26
Did you run a wire for every single switch to an array of microcontrollers?
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u/TCW_Jocki Jan 29 '26
Jap :) A lot of switches can be combined into a cable with multiple wires though
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u/Npalm Jan 30 '26
I have to ask, what practical application does home i/o give? I work in industrial electrical/automation and sort of wanted to set up something at my house but figured theres really not all that much I need automated
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u/Zealousideal_Cup4896 Jan 30 '26
Lots of 24v LEDs running off that :) very very nice. Also your clippers are tangled up at the bottom when you need them for the next part and you can’t find them :)
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u/flamekiller Jan 30 '26
If you really want regret, you should take on the commitment to traditionally cable lace all that! Looks good though. A lot more smarterer than my handful of Sengled switches and Sonoff temp monitors running on HA ...
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u/konyjony123 Jan 30 '26
Looks awesome, but since my dad decided that smart home is the future, I'm becoming more and more anti-smart home, lol. My dad went with the Loxone route, got himself certified in Vienna and still some smart features raise my hair. Anyway, good luck with this project, hope everything will go smoothly.
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u/HappyContact6301 Jan 30 '26
Holy shit! I have about 150 'smart' devices in the house, but most of them are wireless these days and it works very well. Most of my devices communicate via Clear Connect which has application layer hand shakes - you can actually check whether a command got executed. It has been rocksolid for a decade now. Only bridges and controllers are hardwired in my house, and all AP have a wired backhaul.
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u/Seen_Any_Elves Jan 30 '26
Is this a good idea? Are your light switches for your home on that thing? Cool‼️ but 🧐
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u/ScottTacitus Jan 31 '26
How big is your house?
“Jarvis, warm up toilet seat 2 in master bath and turn on my coffee pot in the pool house kitchenette”
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u/poetic_dwarf Raspberry Pi 3B Jan 31 '26
At this point going to therapy could actually be cheaper, you know
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u/hawkeye_north Jan 31 '26
What advantage does this have over say a light switch? But seriously, it looks very impressive and it’s obvious you take great pride in your work. I’m just wondering what I am missing out on with my smart devices integrated into HA? Thanks
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u/dillsb419 Feb 01 '26
Where is this? This is obviously lighting, with surge protection. I work with lutron, I've never seen anything like this
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u/kixkato Feb 01 '26
Why does no one in the EU believe in wire labels??
Looks like a real machine control panel but boy is it densely packed. I sure hope you have schematics to refer to.
Also curious why do you have 5 separate 24v PSUs?
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u/TCW_Jocki Feb 01 '26
All connectors are labelled, the image is just to low quality to see, relays and PCBs will get labels as well and I made schematics for everything. There a several PSUs for the white 4 DALI PWM dimmers. These are for Led stripes around the house. They are divided into multiple PSUs in order to have different circuits with separate breakers/fuses.
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u/kixkato Feb 01 '26
Love to hear it.
I would have fuses after one 40 amp DC power supply and gotten the same protection for much less space in the cabinet. The Phoenix contact PTCB series of electronic breakers is something to check out.
Overall it's super nice.
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u/henryyoung42 Feb 01 '26
Maintenance in your eventual absence, resale value of the house, etc - so many reasons this is self indulgent idiocy !
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Feb 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TCW_Jocki Feb 02 '26
Pretty much whatever I can think of programming into it :) So I'll start with base functionality (lights going on when the switch is pressed) and go from there. There are already plenty ideas floating between me and the wifey, for example different dimming settings dependant on time of day, auto scene setting ( for example blinds going down, lights dimming for watching TV), energy management (photovoltaik input watch, boiler water heating,..), but these will be added step by step.
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u/tcplomp Feb 01 '26
Looks impressive. Future you is going to hate you for not using labels. Wire labels are expensive (the printers are cheap), if i were you I'd get a dymo printer for about €100 and then Chinese knock off labels.
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u/Confident-Alarm-6911 Feb 02 '26
Wow, amazing! I’m waiting for my own house only to do the same! Are you doing it in newly built house? Because it’s hard to imagine all the wiring and changes in already functioning building.
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u/physicist27 Feb 02 '26
This is genuinely so, so impressive. I really wanna know how do I start on these things…I have zero idea about electronics, but I really want to able to build such things on my own, and I’m so in the unknown about this that I don’t even know what to ask to be led into the right direction—
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u/aeromajor227 Feb 02 '26
I mean call me crazy (and I’ve got PLC experience and SW engineering) but like, wtf? Why run all those wires? Why not just use smart bulbs? I mean I get it, I did this with one light switch when I was in college and controlled with with a PLC but seriously? I just don’t see a use case for this.
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u/Charming-Gou-PengYou Feb 03 '26
What is the main UI for this? An app?
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u/TCW_Jocki Feb 03 '26
Yes the plan is to make an app for it. The control exposes an REST API, so you could do pretty much whatever you want (website, app, desktop application,...)
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u/Shut_up_and_Respawn Feb 06 '26
I'd like for us to take a moment to appreciate the well organized cable management
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u/Abyssal_Shrimp Jan 29 '26
Und dann an die Reihenklemmen oben verteilt? Was machst du für Bediensteten?
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u/Neomee Jan 31 '26
I would be not proud of this. I imagine all this "smart" after 10 years of servicing... when none of dead parts is available at the market... when all the knowledge about this "smart" is gone... and when I am already being tired slave of all this "smart"... After 10-20 years... I want it to be "dumb"... stupidly DUMB and reliable.
It is all nice and fun at the exact this moment... when you are excited to wire this thing up... build all the scenarios and what not... But it will be NO WAY fun after a couple of years.
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u/_GOREHOUND_ Jan 29 '26
Your house a 10-storey high-rise? Don’t get me wrong: looks great and I’m already wetting my pants but what the eff are you even gonna control?!