ECN Electrical Forum
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Are te silver colored canisters at the bottom mercury wetted relays?

Larry C

The cans at the bottom appear to be standard low voltage lighting control relays. Those are usually dual coil latching relays--one coil is pulsed on to turn the lights on, and the other is pulsed to turn them off.

The enclosure may be homebrew (not even sure about that), but that PC board sure isn't. There should be a manufacturer's name or model number on it somewhere, and a Google search might find info on it.

The input and output wiring, while messy, should be easy enough to trace out once you have an idea how the PC board and the relays function.

NJ:
Looks like the 'old' GE LV lighting controls, and yes, the box may be 'factory', although the circuit board is NOT something I have come across.

Livingston/So Orange older homes were big on the GE LV controls....note the word 'older'. Board may be some interface with a computer type control?

Yes...sloppy, but can be made neat.

The board definitely appears to be some type of interface between "something" and the relays. Doesn't appear to have much in the way of "smarts" on it (I don't see anything resembling a CPU).

Well they tried, at least there is a rubber grommet ( thats falling out) on the bottom left that most of the wires are passing through instad of a sharp edged hole... but man, what a mess! that wooden " backplate" has to go too LOL

A.D

You want a cutsheet ?
It IS a factory made lighting control.


http://www.touchplate.com/cutsheets/cps8-48_manual.pdf

Why?

Wood backplates are sometimes seen in low voltage/telecom enclosures. They certainly make mounting additional components in the field easy (no drilling/tapping, and no worries about wayward chips shorting anything out).

Hoffman provides them in some of their datacom cabinets. I have installed a bunch of these:

http://www.hoffmanonline.com/product_cat...378&itemID=3593

Guy certainly made sure he had plenty of wire nuts before he fitted-off that panel.

Look at them all!.

My first thought was "I've seen worse"

I'de give that a 5 out of 10, ten being the worst.

It looks messy which is what strikes you at first glance, but if you look beyond the spaghetti-method of wiring, I don't see any reason why this couldn't be turned into a halfway decent installation.

The 120/240V side is partitioned off in the lower section with the relay contact terminals and the transformer. The wooden backboard for the LV control board isn't a problem.

Strip out all the messy interconnects, rerun, dress, and lace all the control wiring neatly, and I think you'd end up with something quite satisfactory.

N.J: I only said it should go because the enclosure contains higher power, higher voltage circuits, In my mind what I see there would be like having a fuse or breaker box with a wooden back for example. The potential for a hot connection or a spark to start a fire is present.. If this enclosure had nothing but L.V low power / datacomm stuff and a receptacle mounted in a proper box to plug in power supplies, I would think that kind of set up would be acceptable to having a wooden backboard, such as what those Hoffman enclosures are sold for I would imagine.
Just my opinion tho..

A.D

Electure:
Nice find with the link!!

I grew up in a house worse the that. Maybe that is why a became a sparky.

You sure that's home made? It's been a few years since I've seen one but I've done a lot of the old "Touch Plate" brand low voltage stuff and that eqpt looks exactly like their stuff. The bowl of spaghetti is definitely home made, as is the can but the board and relays appear to be "touch plate" brand.

Steve,
It's not home made. It is a Touch Plate unit.

That was already determined in a previous post.

I'm with Electure and NJWirenut. I used to work with a bunch of that equipment in Northern NJ mansions, and even more here in the DC area in much smaller homes. The service company I worked for here had quite an impressive stock of Touch Plate panels and parts. I enjoyed the challenge of working with them, especially after someone tried to "fix it themselves". I love doing control wiring of any kind.

I seem to recall that the backboard wasn't really wood, but more of a phenolic material. I still didn't like how there was so much space on the low voltage side, yet the high voltage side was so cramped where more space was really needed. On any new installations that I did, I would run a nipple or two to a trough below the cabinet and do all of my line-voltage terminations in there. I'd just run pigtails from the relay terminals through the nipples into the trough so no actual splices had to be done in the HV compartment of the panel.

The printed circuit board allows for an interface with computer-based energy management systems. It's not sophisticated at all, but gives a nice and easy way to interface lighting controls with security systems (IE: Panic buttons) and remote programs for off-site control of lighting and devices.

It's just a crappy-looking installation, that's all. Touch Plate is pretty good stuff in my book otherwise.

wire nuts were on sale that week

I wonder why he's disappeared and can't be found?

I'm wondering about all those wires going from the HV side to the LV side, through the (loose) grommet at the left by the transformer.

Also, it looks as though the relay at the far right is falling out of its hole.

Two thing
1) If it works good
2) Just put a panel over it and every thing will be fine.

As someone said, here in northern NJ they use to install these LV lighting controls all the time. It was a big rage around the '60's I believe. I have seen and worked on several styles of those relays. I believe Amprobe even made some of those relays. There was a trade name of Remcon Relays. By the doors of the rooms there was 1-5 push buttons and you could control any light fixture you wanted from any door if you so desired. Usually the lighting control box was in the attic with a ton of those little relays attached to it. Each relay had a tag to tell which light fixture it controlled. The biggest problem with that is, when I go there the tags had fallen off and it was a hunt and peck routine to try and find the correct relay.

Harold:
Thinking back down memory lane.....
Sprawling ranch house in Livingston, GE brand LV lighting control throughout house and exterior lighting.

In master BR, a selector switch, circular, large (3" knob) and numbered detents for individual circuit control and a "master" all on/off detent. This selector looked like the really 'old' giant dimmers!

No PC board, just a ton of relays in the attic, and quite a few stashed at various lighting outlets.

The ones in the lighting outlet were thru a KO in the 4" round box (HV) with the LV on the exterior of the box.

The number of control switching locations was 'unlimited' basically, just 18/3 LV to each.

It was tough finding parts at the local supply houses, all were 'special' order.

Issues were finding replacement parts quick, and the amount of time tracing out the systems.

Short Hills/Millburn had quite a few also.

John,

Here in Boonton, NJ there were a bunch of houses who had this "new fangled" wiring system in the late '60's I believe. It was a great idea, because you could control so much from any spot. However you can't beat the new systems and the computer wiring that the high end homes now have. The worst part about the low volt wiring in those old homes was that you had to remove the relay through the box and hope that the LV wiring comes through the KO. If you lose the wire, you might have to open up the ceiling to find the end of the LV wire from the switch.

Self-help by home owners occurs because Touch-Plate low voltage switches can 'hang.' This leaves you with a CONTINUOUSLY LOADED COIL. They can't take that abuse forever and burn out.

( Functionally, the coils operate like mechanically held contactors -- you just bump them to switch state. )

Mr. Homeower dives in and starts crossing over full-voltage switch legs towards still functioning coils. Addressing the stuck low voltage switch is beyond his capability -- now that the coil is burned out.

The next thing you know it's a hair ball.

I spent an embarrassing amount of time un-hair-balling my sister's Touch-Plate. After 42 years, and 'Larry', it really needed help.

The more you complicate the plumbing the easier it is to plug it up...This stuff is really nice...when it works.

I work with multiple lighting systems from various manufacturers in an industrial and office environment. None of them have functioned as well as the old reliable wall switch. When Bill Gates (Windows) is running the lights you know there are going to be days when the lights just aren't going to turn on....or off.

RSlater,
RSmike

Some of the lighting at my house is electronically controlled (the motion lights out back and the lighting around the pool).
I am about 20 years with this and so far so good. There is no computer but the controller is CMOS with SSRs controlling the line side. The biggest thing I like beyond the extra control is the delayed power on that gives a hard 15 second reset to the controller on a power hit and keeps short glitches from the utility from latching the motion lights on.