Lighting for Cinema Room - Philips Hue

[Chownsie79]

I appreciate people saving moneys ,but how ever you have not got any insurance for the any said works or maybe damage to your self .

I get that, people do DIY electrical work all the time without giving any consideration to what they are doing, while I am not an experience professional, I have worked on industrial power supplies in a large factory in the past and also done a lot of wiring, checked by an electrician, in my old house. This is not necessarily money saving, this is getting a room completed ASAP. I fully understand the reaction on here now and maybe this isn't the right place to ask such questions as you cannot make recommendations.

 

[buzzlightyear]

here now and maybe this isn't the right place to ask such questions as you cannot make recommendations.

if you require a spark please look at the directory on here to see who is available .

 

[Barnaby Stedman]

why dont you just run it through a switch first then wire it in as a standard lighting circuit? can you no longer fit a switch?

 

[Chownsie79]

why dont you just run it through a switch first then wire it in as a standard lighting circuit? can you no longer fit a switch?

I can do yes, but I figured as the Hue requires the switch to be permanently on and the wiring was left a bit messy/I'll have a pelmet/the ceiling is down, I'd take the switch out completely and house everything in the pelmet with the wireless switch/remote and app to control the lighting. I was thinking FCU for an override if the wi-fi drops out while the lights are on I can just switch it off. The led strip comes with a plug anyway, so I'd be best having a socket in the pelmet plus I need one to power a projector - with another fused spur.

Initially I chased down to the socket because I intended to move it below the cable not in the safe zone and then use the old chase to move the telephone socket up/over and run a speaker cable in for rear surrounds. The other option is to wire the down lights into a switch over there and the wall lights and just have a socket for the led's in the pelmet. The switch would be at the back of the room, so a bit out of the way, but it has to be on switched on for Hue anyway. Some people just connect the wires in the back of the box and then put the cover plate over the top of it.

The wiring you cannot see that I was left with, was a bunch of lever wagos just stuffed up into the ceiling void - while I know this doesn't break regulations, if I'd have left it and had a problem later, it would have been inaccessible! At least by bringing everything into the pelmet it is only fiddly rather than a case of pulling up boards or down ceilings.

The 13A plug was an idea on another forum but I would use a 5A fuse rather than a 13A as the LED's will only use around 110w per 10m length, so <500mA.

 

[Barnaby Stedman]

can you access above the ceiling - has it been boarded over?

 

[Chownsie79]

if you require a spark please look at the directory on here to see who is available .

I'll have a look, but I've tried a few recently and they are all stacked with work at the moment. Hue is designed to be DIY, I'm maybe going a stage further by introducing new sockets etc, but rather than running a load of spurs I'm adding them to the ring.

I have potentially a bigger job whereby the electricians on the build did not put in a new ring main or MCB for my utility room - it is obvious they just took the wiring from a socket in the bedroom above and used that. My concern is we have a washing machine, tumble dryer and all of my AV equipment out there - which to me is a lot of load on that circuit. This is definitely a job for a spark but less urgent.

 

[Chownsie79]

can you access above the ceiling - has it been boarded over?

No I pulled it down as part of the work I'm doing. I've run all my speaker, sub woofer and cat6 cables through and back to a hub. This is the issue at the moment, I want to get all cabling done so I can insulate and board the ceiling - I've a plasterer lined up, so I can get the walls and ceiling skimmed in time for the baby to arrive.

I've found another few photographs, the first, if you zoom in shows the lever wagos that were stuffed into the ceiling void before I took it down - all the cables running along and behind the cat6 cables to the switch have been removed, so I took out all but two of the lever wago connectors, so they just connect feed in and out now.

I intend to patch it where the cables were with hardwall, so the plasterer can skim the whole wall, then have a pelmet around the top with the led strips, down lights inside. I will replace the old wall lights with something a bit more modern and have 4 instead of 3 (so will re-position them).

 

[Chownsie79]

Oh another thing, the wire just hanging down with a wago on it..... I put that wago on, that was just left there without anything on it - it is redundant, but I would have expected it to be tidied up in case someone found the other end and reconnected it!

 

[Octopus]

OP - you are unnecessarily complicating matters.

I would keep the 3 way switch and put each "type" of light on each switch. Then you have the ability to override or switch off the lights with ease (and so could anyone else)

Not having switches or relying on wifi switches is something I would not recommend.

 

[Barnaby Stedman]

well as you have taken the ceiling down it makes sense to me to:
find positions of 8 downlights and run 1.5mm from a switch position and the from one downlight to the next. Do the same for the strip lights and the wall lights. that would seem simplest to me. take the permanent live from the ceiling down to the switch position. make everything good in a wago connector box.