Double insulated wiring requirement

[Alan]

Hello,

I have a couple of X10 controlled appliance modules (see link below) which are essentially a remote controllable relay. I wish to use some of these to remotely switch floodlights on and off. However, they only have short lengths of single insulated wires coming from them. See here:

I wire this into a junction box, this will leave exposed single insulated wiring. My understanding is that all accessable wiring should be double-insulated - is this correct? Do I need to mount these modules inside an enclosure to make them double-insulated?? (And "safe"?)

Many thanks,

Alan.

[Lurch]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 11:59:49 GMT, "Alan" strung together this:

Yes.

Yes.

[Andrew Gabriel]

If you disassemble them, you will find they consist of the part you bought, with the addition of a 13A plug/socket/fuse. ;-)

Yes as Lurch said. You could mount them in the top of a box with the upper part exposed for setting the housecode and unit numbers, but with the bottom opening and wires inside the box. That wouldn't be suitable for outdoor use though.

You can also get DIN rail mounting ones which fit in a consumer unit. Actually, I bought an empty consumer unit just for mounting these. You could fit them in a waterproof CU or DIN rail box for outside use. The DIN rail ones are more expensive than the plug-in appliance modules though. The DIN rail lamp module is much better quality unit than it's plug-in equivalent though, always doing switch on/off through a smoothed dimming operation, and it includes a connection for operation via a momentary action switch if required, quite separately from X10 operation. (Also claims to support 'professional X10' whatever than is -- I think it might be scene settings, but I don't have anything which can talk 'professional X10' protocol to it.)

[Andrew Gabriel]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^ usually cheaper often cheaper Take your pick, sigh...

[Alan]

Andrew,

I found some 'X10 professional' bits here:

like the look of the 4 channel dimming transmitter to fit inside existing light switches!

I need to use the wired appliance modules to control some (fixed) floodlights, so plug-in modules won't help. I havn't used the DIN units yet, but may try them soon. However, looking at the one on the letsautomate website, if I fitted it into my existing CU it would't provide any current limiting breaker functionality like a MCB so would need fitting into it's own box downstram from the CU. They don't mention that on their website so I bet some people have them in CU's unprotected!

Alan.

[Lurch]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 17:17:07 GMT, "Alan" strung together this:

Well whaddya know, I'm a pro and didn't know it! Didn't realise that's what it was. I've just been speccing some of that up for a job, thought it was just normal X10 stuff but a different make.

[Andrew Gabriel]

cheapest supplier I could find at the time, with a good range of items.

The point is, if you take a plug-in module apart, you end up with exactly the item in your photograph -- that's just the top half of the plug-in module. Plug-in modules are often cheaper (although not from that supplier).

or you cut the buzz bar short and just use the rest of the CU case for DIN rail mounted things. I used a separate CU case as a distribution/switching box for lighting. I also included a 3A Type B MCB to protect each DIN rail X10 dimmer, in the hope it might protect the triac if a failed lamp arcs across. They have a 20mm fuse on the front, but MCB's are probably faster operating and the dimmers are expensive enough that I would like to protect them best I can.

[Alan]

Pulled a plug-in module apart and confirmed this. "wired" version comes with a mounting bracket which could be useful though.

Didn't know this - do now, thanks.

Alan.