Lighting – PLC-Lighting Control-Plug n Play Operation with Relay

I'll go ahead and answer because I think your core question is a good one. It sounds like what your company installs are fairly complex home automation systems, and you're hiring residential electricians to do the wiring. Instead, what you need for applications like this is an electrician with industrial automation experience. They do exactly the type of thing you're asking all day long -- wiring rack-mounted PLCs and relays, labeling wires according to ID numbers on a diagram, high voltage and low voltage wiring and termination.

Another thing you need is a contract. If having your circuits and wires marked a certain way is important to you, then you need to specify that in your contract. You can't just assume that your electrician will know that you prefer ID numbers on your circuits just because he has a sheet with ID numbers on it, especially a residential electrician whose usual clients would have no idea what the ID numbers meant. And then, if something isn't done according to what you spelled out in the contract, you can point it out and the electrician will correct it. The other stories you mention just sound like mistakes that should have been corrected by the electrician, assuming they were his error (was it you or he that ordered the relay panel that didn't have enough room for 200 wires?). Anyway, everyone makes mistakes now and then.

To answer your specific question, there already is a system for diagramming electrical circuits. You should probably already be familiar with these symbols if you're installing home automation.

One last piece of advice for good communication with your electrician if you're working in the U.S. (which you may not be): make sure that what you're calling these devices matches up with U.S. terminology for these devices. For example, in the US, you would never call a switch with an "up" and "down" position a pushbutton. Here, a pushbutton is a button that you push into the surface on which it's mounted. Up/down switches are normally just called switches, at least in a house. I don't know what a wallet is, maybe a wall outlet? And it would be very unusual to have a 220V lamp circuit.

I've been doing something similar for the past couple of months. At present the setup only extends to my workshop (for testing). Currently I am using a single UNO for control which reads various sensor states, including light level and temperature/humidity, plus some door (reed relay) and IR movement sensors. The arduino reads the state and sends messages to some software ( currently Python 2.7 under Ubuntu) over UDP which then does the processing that is required and sends control commands back to the Arduino, again over UDP. The processing currently amounts to checking the internal light sensors and switching on the lights if necessary. Ultimately I want to migrate all my lighting to 12v LED so I can run off stored solar, but at present I am using a system similar to yours in that the relays are in series with the power switch for the lights, normally closed, so that if the control circuitry fails the light switches should operate as normal. I also have some external IR sensors and the same system activates an external security light, this time with a normally open relay. I consider using the normally closed relays as essential for the main lights, otherwise the domestic management will kick off once the system is rolled out to the rest of the house. I want to use LEDS because of their dimmable nature when using the PWM enabled pins of the Arduino, this will then enable a nice low level of light for those nocturnal toilet trips, all automatically of course. I have just taken delivery of a Mega 2560 which will provide a lot more IO. Like yourself I envisage having separate Arduino's for input and output. I am developing the control system in python, with the intention of migrating it to raspberry PI once development has finished. This will allow me to run it all an enclosure with a status screen hooked up to the composite video. I currently have a limited status screen running on the PC, which allows me to control the brightness of LED panels and GU16 bulbs. I have configured the arduino so it will accept commands from any device on the network, so I can set up some control from the android devices I have around the house. I also have a fully working zoneminder installation, but had not considered using it to trigger anything as yet, but then again I don't have any internal cameras on that, just external. I did consider thermal imaging, as you suggested, but I think cost is a major issues (would need to come in at below $100 Australian, per room to be feasible for me), so I'm persevering with low cost IR sensors (about $2 each from China). My Arduino code is not best but I am more than willing to share it. It is currently set up to monitor the various sensors in a constant loop, and also listens for a 3byte UDP string in the form of 410 (4 is light 4, 1 is for on, the last digit is used for a brightness level for the LED)

I do agree with the comment about the resale values of the house, but I'm not planning to move anytime in the foreseeable future. Your needs may be different.

The python code also does some DPMS control of the monitors in the workshop. Currently they are put to standby after 10 minutes of no workshop movement. I am in the process of setting up some power sockets that are switched in the same way as the lights, so the system can turn off things like my soldering iron and amplifiers that I frequently forget to leave on.

Let my know if I can be of any help with your project. It sounds great. Good luck

John