CA5100 and CA600

Other Devices & Integrations Lighting & Load Control
1

Hi Guys,

I’m new to this … I have around 18 outlets to cover … all outlets have small load … LED.

What switches do I need …? I need simple ON off no dimming required ?

CA5100
CA600
:slight_smile:
The price difference is around half … so I hope I can use CA5100 …

This will be controlled by MicasaVerde Lite …

Thank you all :slight_smile:

2

I hate to bear bad news but the CA5100 doesn’t work independently. It is used in a three way configuration with either a CA600 or CA3000. Almost certainly not what you want…

CA3000 is the relay (non-dimming) version of the CA600. CA600 switches are 6/$100 on ebay right now. Hard to get cheaper than that BUT a lot of people have reported issues with them.

I mostly use GE 45612 Dimmers / GE 45609 Relays and I’m pretty happy with them. They are about $48 each. I think people really like Leviton switches but they are a bit more money.

3

Thank you.

I have 2 3 way switches …

So I guess I will need 16 CA600 ? and 2 CA5100 ( for the 3 way setup to work with CA600 )
So CA600 will work fine as ON/OFF replacement ?

Thank you

4

ONLY if you want dimming from what I understand.

5

[quote=“Ndx, post:3, topic:174451”]Thank you.

I have 2 3 way switches …

So I guess I will need 16 CA600 ? and 2 CA5100 ( for the 3 way setup to work with CA600 )
So CA600 will work fine as ON/OFF replacement ?

Thank you[/quote]

I have several of the CA600 and they work great “for incandescent lights”, you really can’t beat the price, works out to about $17 per light. Another great feature is that you can replace just one switch in the 3-way or 4-way circuit and still control the light, this ends up saving a lot of many when half the lights in the house are 3-way and 4-way switches.

You will have a problem with any low voltage lighting though like CFL and LED though with out a dummy load. Check out this thread ([url=http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,9262.105.html]http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,9262.105.html[/url]) were some people are using a $3 resistor to add a dummy load to the circuit which causes them to work fine.

I also found some CA3000 relay switches and they work fine but are a little loud when you turn the lights on or off. It’s hard to find these now days though so automationoutlet.com is recommending me to use the Evolve LSM-15 instead but it is a little more expensive. The Evolve is $49 vs the 6 pack of CA600 for $99 which works out to be about $17 a switch plus another $3 for the resistor may be another option for you.

6

This is not quite correct. There are two problems with LED / CFL lights and dimmers. The first, which the dummy load addresses, is that they may not have a high enough resistive load (because they don’t draw very much current) to correctly operate dimmers like the GE/Jasco dimmers that don’t use a neutral for power but rather get their power through the load circuit. Basically with the GE/Jasco there is always a small amount of current going through the load to power z-wave, and it means that circuits with only one LED/CFL will stay on. I believe this isn’t the case with the CA600, they use a neutral, so you shouldn’t need a dummy load?

More importantly, there is a second reason you shouldn’t use certain LED / CFL light bulbs with a dimmer circuit. Dimmers use a triac to basically trim the AC sine wave, essentially “pulsing” the power. The driver chips in LED and CFL lights that aren’t designed for dimming can work improperly given this pulsed input rather than the expected AC sine wave. You can drastically shorten the life span of the bulbs, or worse case, cause a fire. Either way it is not good.

Basically, make sure you only use dimmable CFL/LEDs in with a dimmer. And you probably don’t need a dummy load with a CA600 either way…