Going to be completely re-wiring my kitchen as part of a remodel and am going to extend my Insteon investment

We currently have a three way setup with a light and will be installing more lights and other switch locations. There are four exits to the room, so I figured a KPL at each exit. Rather than wiring them all together, using Insteon I can control things from each location of course.

Now, in a couple of the locations, they are new, and there would be no load connected to the switch at all. I figured I'd just run a dedicated power circuit to that location just to give the KPL power. I'm assuming I can use it in that way, and be able to assign all buttons (looking at the 8 button unit). So on KPL #1 for example, it would be hooked to a load, Light A so button #1 would control light A. KPL 2 would not be hooked to any load at all, but I'd like to have button #1 control light A in a multi-switch configuration so they are all in sync.

Doable, right? In my head it seems so, but I'd hate to buy this stuff and get stuck and end up having to run the wire. I think the copper I'd be eliminating in this setup may be enough to justify the purchase of these switches....

Yep, you can just cap off the KeypadLinc LOAD wire if there is no load wired at that location. Should work without any problems.

Excellent. Here's what I'm thinking of doing, let me know if there's a better way that you can think of

We have a full unfinished basement under the kitchen. I'm going to be putting a sub-panel down there for all the kitchen wiring. There's going to be 6-8 different lighting circuits in the kitchen with under cabs, in cab, cans, pendants, etc. I thought I would just use in-line dimmers for the lighting circuits, but I wanted to make them accessible in case of service needs and things like that. So rather than put them into the junction boxes at the lights/outlets, I thought I would just home run all of the circuits to the panel in the basement. Right next to the panel I'll put in a 6-gang or two 4-gang boxes and mount all the in-line dimmer modules right there.

Then I'll just hook the KPL's into an outlet run or a dedicated home run to the panel. I'll get all of the lighting circuits on the same phase just to make sure they all communicate well.

With this arrangement, everything should be easily serviceable I'm thinking. Good / bad idea?

Ken

Sounds pretty good to me. And having the lighting load lines all run to a central location buys you the flexibility of using a centrally located hardwired controller if you ever want to. Just make sure you have some Cat5/6 run to that location as well from your server location/closet. I don't know that it will ever be necessary, but flexibility is nice when it comes to wiring...

Getting Cat5/6 there is easy. What's an example of a hardwired controller and the benefits? Might be a good time to do an upgrade

Oh, and I think I know what it is, but want to clarify, and if I go that route what are ones that Indigo supports well and would integrate / play OK with my existing Insteon stuff?

I don't have any good examples of hardwired controllers -- Indigo doesn't currently support any. That said, given Indigo's plugin architecture it would likely be relatively straightforward for someone to add support for them if they have an open serial or IP protocol. And plugins can create dimmer/relay devices that inherit all the UI/functionality of Indigo's native dimmer/relay devices, so nothing would be lost on the usability (or Indigo Touch) side.

I recently did a kitchen remodel and wired it exactly as you propose. I have multiple lighting circuits in the kitchen controlled by SwitchLinc dimmers (for halogens) and relays (for fluorescents and LEDs) mounted in a dedicated large multi-gang box near the breaker panel in the garage. I have KeypadLincs in and at entrances to the kitchen to control all these lights. It works well and, with custom keys, is quite elegant.

In general, I try not to wire lighting controls this way. This is so they can be reverted to simple manual dimmers /switches if a future owner of the house does not want to deal with the complexity / obsolescence of Insteon or other lighting controls. In this case, there were so many lighting circuits and control points that I felt it was worth bending my own rules.

Yea, I was thinking about it from a future perspective too, if someone wants to change it back to a more traditional lighting setup it would be challenging. Also from a future technology perspective I suppose it could be good or bad, hard to say. I suppose if we ever sell this place I'll need to sell my Mac with it I guess!

If you keep the setup simple so that corresponding keys on the multiple KeypadLincs are linked to each other and to the appropriate dimmer/relay then everything will continue to be synchronized even without the controller and Mac. It's only if you want more complex scenes and all-on and all-off commands that the controller and Mac are required. When I sell the house, I expect that I will de-feature my kitchen setup in this way (unless the buyer is into home automation.)

Follow on question. I picked up the dual-band relay KPL's, not the dimmers, figured the inline modules are dimming modules.

My assumption is that besides scenes, I could take one of these KPL's and use one of it's buttons as a trigger to ramp up and down one of the inline modules rather than just going to a pre-defined scene level. So lets say button 1 on the KPL, I want to be able to press and hold that button to have it ramp up / down a particular inline module.

Is that possible, or do I have to define the trigger to ramp it to a particular level on just a press? I'm hoping I can use the press & hold method.

Or, do you have other ideas? I'm trying to make some of the buttons work like a "normal" dimmer for particular lights, and others be scenes.

Yes - just link it to the InlineLinc as a controller. I don't think you can use button 1 though since you bought a relay model - button 1 controls the load so it will only do on/off.

if i convert them to 8 buttons maybe i can pick up a couple more dimmer buttons.

can you confirm what i need to do to link as a controller? i currently have one dimable kpl that i can maybe use to try it out, or can i only do that with an inlinelinc?

See the INSTEON Link Management document for details.

Yea, that's what I was thinking, but it looks like it's a single press of the button to have it ramp to a pre-defined level. I'd like to use KPL button 3 for example to dim InlineLinc A directly and control it from button 3. So press and hold button 3, have it ramp up InlineLinc A until I let go. That may not be possible to do that?

Um - check the link again...

When you define the link it sets the default ramp and brightness - but that's only when you tap the button. When you press and hold the button it behaves just like holding down a SwitchLinc dimmer button.