What to pre-wire for shade control?

[victorb17]

We are adding on to the house. I am wanting to pre-wire for automated shade controls. What should I run, and where to? Is there a standard idea here? Cat5, two conductor, etc? Should it be run to the upper corner of the windows? Toward the outside of the wall or the middle?

We aren't sure what we will eventually put there. Do we need to nail something down in order to know?

Thanks!

[mulu]

What shades are you thinking of? These days many here us Bali z-wave shades. For those shades all you need is 12V power (2 conductors). Oversize the cable for long runs so you don't loose too much voltage. I also pulled unshielded Ethernet cables to each shade that I wanted to control automatically. I never needed the Ethernet cables, though (it was meant for the RS motors). The position of the cable depended on the shade. I decided on left/right depending on where I would have liked a manual control. The cables come out behind the shade, so inside the house/wall but very close to the window.

What you see in the picture is the shade, battery compartment which has nothing in it, the green Ethernet cable that is not used, the gray cable that carries 15V and a "gray cable to USB adapter" to the shade. It doesn't look nice but it's all hidden behind the shade. You can't really see it. I wish the hole where the cable comes out would be a bit closer to the window, though.

[pseudocode]

I just motorised a bunch of shades and I'd recommend installing conduit from your power source to by the shade location, but not installing the cable until you know what you're going to do. Once you have the conduit in place pulling either a line cable or a 12v cable is pretty easy, it's finding a route or drilling through everything between that takes time.

In my case, uninstalling shade, adding motor and reinstalling took about 15 minutes each. Doing the mains power cabling took hours

[mulu]

If you take the conduit route make sure you have mostly straight lines. Also make sure you check with your contractor because depending on your location there are rules on how wide a hole you can cut into your studs. Conduit also takes longer to install compared to plain wires. If you do it yourself then the contractor might be ticked off because you take too long, if the contractor is doing it then he will charge you accordingly.

Btw, it looks like pseudocode is from Switzerland. They usually use concrete and bricks unless it's a chalet or a 100+ year home. Conduit probably makes more sense for that. Here in California we use mostly wood (earthquakes) and it's easier to drill through wood to pull new cables compared to going through concrete or bricks.

[victorb17]

What shades are you thinking of? These days many here us Bali z-wave shades. For those shades all you need is 12V power (2 conductors). Oversize the cable for long runs so you don't loose too much voltage. I also pulled unshielded Ethernet cables to each shade that I wanted to control automatically. I never needed the Ethernet cables, though (it was meant for the RS motors).

We don't know which shades yet. Haven't even looked. If I run just 2 conductors for power, why would I also need a cat5?

What gauge did you run? What do you consider long runs? Most would be in the 30' range for me.

[mulu]

You very likely don't need CAT5. I put CAT5 there in case I use RTS motors or want to use it for something else. I don't use any of it. I used Belden 5202UE. It's actually 4 conductors 16AWG and CMR. The cable rating is kind of important when you have rough inspection (fires can travel along wires which is why they care about the rating, at least in our area). You really only need 2 conductors but I chose 4 in case I want to install motion sensors or other devices in the same vicinity. Overkill, I know...

[victorb17]

You very likely don't need CAT5. I put CAT5 there in case I use RTS motors or want to use it for something else. I don't use any of it. I used Belden 5202UE. It's actually 4 conductors 16AWG and CMR. The cable rating is kind of important when you have rough inspection (fires can travel along wires which is why they care about the rating, at least in our area). You really only need 2 conductors but I chose 4 in case I want to install motion sensors or other devices in the same vicinity. Overkill, I know...

Thanks, I like the way you think. I am also an over killer. 😎