At Connecting.com.au we have a separate trading entity for our lighting supply. We do this via our trading name Feature Lighting.

Feature Lighting was first formed in 1990 with a small shcwroom at Nerang on the Gold Coast. Now it services mainly our electrical customers and specialised projects we become involved in.

With our C-Bus home automation system, lighting forms a very crucial part in how the end project will look at feel. “Scenes” created with the C-Bus  system need dimming and ambiance to create the correct “mood”.

A house lit up correctly will look better at night than in the daytime with just sunlight flooding in from everywhere.

We believe in discrete, low glare “feature lighting” for your home – the light fittings need not be the main focal point but instead the “features” of your home should be.

Today with energy efficiency regualtions and concerns, correct lighting design is very important especially when choosing LED fittings and lamps. 

Basically any appliance can be put onto Tariff 33 as long as it is hard wired. Pools are an exception to this and can have a socket outlet.  Items we have connected onto Tariff 33 are dishwashers, washing machines, 2nd fridges, freezers, air conditioners, clothes dryers, septic sewerage pump systems, booster elements, solar hot water elements.

As well as being hard wired, times will most often need their own circuit but it is possible to have several appliances on a circuit as long as that circuits cable and circuit protection and not comprimised or overloaded. The more items you can connect, the greater the saving.  We can often drop the pool tariff33 circuit into the laundry and pick up those appliances along the way.

If you liked to bake you could even have second oven on T33. Remember again that it is usually turned off around 5 till 9pm- but it is at Energex’s discretion.

One of the other sticking points of T33 pool has been changed. You used to have to have your chlorinator hard wired but now you are allowed to install a t33 powerpoint for connection of you pool equipment. This used to put off alot of people who were worried about servicing of their pool equipment and having to call an electrician out each time to disconnect and reconnect the hard wiring.

One other issue that people are not aware of is that their pool chlorinator timeclock will go out of sync as power drops out each day. This can be rectified with a battery backup timeclock installed in the meterbox or at the pool equipment.

T33 pool has to be connected on a dedicated circuit back to the switchboard and supplied by a Safety switch circuit breaker or RCBO. This can be the most labour intensive part of a change over. If you are lucky, your pool may be already on seperate circuit and you can avoid this extra step.

Once work is done by your electrician they will submit a form2 for Energex to come out and connect the new metering.

This means that the first 4 buttons could be lighting loads then press the 5th button and have 4 Audio controls. Whats even cooler is that when connected with the Multi room audio system by Clipsal, these buttons can take on more “pages” and functions harnessing the extra processing power of the CBus MRA unit.

Once again we have come across old style Cbus power supplies causing weird things to happen on the network. This was about 3 weeks ago.When replaced however with what was calculated to be the correct value  of new power supplies, the network still had issues at times. This was remedied by adding one further power supply.

We also noticed some other strange behavior on the network and found that the network clock was not running. This was located in the original old style PC interface. This was changed to a new type and the network has  been very stable now. Originally we would leave the site and LED’s would flash on switches some hours afterwards.

And guess what? Today we went to a new job and found old power supplies on their way out again. Currently this network is stable but the power supplies are showing typical signs that they are about to fail. We have posted a photos of these from today.

A luxury automated residents on the main Nerang river, Carrara.  We were able to provide complete electrical, lightng and AV design into this project. See our Projects tab for more details.

Smart phones and smart Home Automation – Clipsal C-bus

Home Automation, also known as Home Integration or Smart Home Solutions, is about combining things together within the home electrical system. The days of being able to control aspects of your home via your smartphone or Iphone are here. This  can be done within your home or even when you are away from it. Clipsal Cbus has several ways to achieve this.

Home Automation is revolutionising home security & entertainment. If you’re building a new home, installing home automation infrastructure will get you ready for the future & add value to your home.

If you’ve got an existing home, retrofitting cables is very expensive, but advances in wireless technology means you can now automate too. Wireless is a cost-effective means for automating an existing house, as you don’t need to rip out walls to install cables. Remember though that a wired system is always more robust than a wireless system.

If you are considering an Integrated Home Automation System, then be aware that expert advice is crucial. Our experienced Systems Integrator will determine the features that you need after the initial consultationin & draw up your plans to suit your budget & lifestyle.

See under our “services” for more information about Home Automation and Clipsal C-Bus.

We were invited to Japan by an Japanese Business lady who has interest on the Gold Coast. After designing and installing the Cbus, lighting and AV in her apartment on the Gold Coast, she invited us to Japan to do her new restaurant.  It was quite an opportunity and was a very educational experience. We have since done 2 smaller projects in Japan with the builder who did this project.