we all know that feeling though we get to the end of an electrical installation and realize
I wish I'd just ran one more cable now it may be you've completely forgotten to run that cable
because it was Friday afternoon and you had the weekend to start or it might be that stage of
second fix where you've finally got around to reading the manufacturer's instructions
and realized you should have ran an extra cable for a widget that needs to communicate to that
new box that you've never installed before that's what I call electrician's regret and in this video
we're going to look at this little white box here the mains link that can help you avoid it
with the ever increasing price of copper cables what if men's link can help you avoid needing to
run a cable in the first place so to demonstrate how effective men's link can be we're going to
control this floodlight above me here that were featured in a previous video from a completely
different building now that avoids the need to run a wire to connect the two buildings together
which would give us another problem because these two buildings are on completely different
electrical supplies and that would give us a safe isolation nightmare so on this building
here we've installed a regular mains powered PIR which is used to control the floodlight next to it
and is wired as any of the lighting circuit would be so let's have a look at how we integrate the
mains link into the wiring the mains link system has two components here's the first one it's the
transmitter and that is wired to the output of our PIR so it gets a main signal and then as soon
as it does that it sends an RF signal out to the receiver and again the floodlight in this building
is wired as a conventional floodlight with PIR control would be but here we've positioned the
receiver and just intercepted the existing wiring the difference on the receiver is it needs a
permanent main supply and then has a switched output to trigger the floodlight so just to
unpack what we've done here a little bit in wiring diagram terms for those who like a schematic and
again apologies for the colours here we've gone back to pre-harmonized colours because somebody
hasn't put all the pens back for the whiteboard but here we go so in building one which is over
there behind us we've wired the floodlight conventionally so we've got our neutral
and line conductors through a switch so we can still switch the lights conventionally
and then into our PIR which then has a switched line output to the floodlight so in parallel with
the output to the floodlight we have the mains link which has its neutral and line conductor
that's sorted in there simple wiring and again pretty much the same situation in building two
with regards to the floodlight it's got a switch so you can switch it off it's got the PIR and it's
got the switched output the only difference with the receiver is it needs a permanent main supply
to it which we take obviously before the PIR and then you've got two options so either the
light is triggered by the PIR or the mains link so in building one we trigger the PIR the man's
link powers up and sends a signal out which is picked up by the men's link receiver in building 2
and the floodlight switches on so Rick's just pointed out actually missed a wire off on my
diagram and that's to connect the PIR in building two to neutral so I'll just put that in there just
as well you're not following my diagrams on site otherwise you'd definitely need a mains link um
the scenario I've described here is only one way so the PIR will from building one will switch the
floodlight in building two but the PIR in building two won't switch it in building one but your RF
Solutions have got you covered if you want to set up a two-way switching installation that's
with the men's link Pro which is bi-directional so this this becomes a transceiver so each unit
becomes a transmitter and receiver and would both need a permanent mains connection to enable that
so bi-directional communication is particularly useful for things like boilers we're bringing the
plumbers into this world where you may need to get a confirmation signal back to a boiler that a pump
has started or a zone valve closed or whatever plumbers do and the calls for heat and things
like that there are a few other versions of this available there is a one to many so you could have
lots of transmitters talking to one transceiver so that's particularly useful for underfloor
heating installations I'll leave a link in the description for the range and also check out
the RF Solutions installers Club where you could actually win one of these if you're quick if not
there's loads of other great advantages to join that scheme the great thing about these products
is they come prepared out of the box so you don't need to do any other setup apart from if you want
to change the radio system now the radio system sets the range you've got two choices FM up to
one kilometer or switch to a lower base system and that gives you up to five kilometers line of sight
range but obviously the environment you're in that affects the real life range here we've got steel
frame buildings and that obviously would reduce that range but that is a big range you're not
going to really struggle in most applications that you find what if you're still not convinced about
Wireless you're somehow nervous that this box isn't going to talk to this box and you won't be
able to check until it's too late the great thing is built in is something called a watchdog and
what happens once it's enabled is this box sends a lot background signal every 30 seconds and if it's
not received at the receiving end the little comms light flashes to warn you that there's
a problem with a link perhaps someone switched off the power to one of the devices but you can
check that that link is working and reliable RF Solutions have been at this for 30 years
so that's just one of the many little features they've put in there to make your life easier
another one is you can take the snubber that's put in there for noisy electrical environments
out because that can cause issues with low powered LED lighting and when it comes to switching you
can switch up to four amps directly from the mains link products and as with all the products we've
reviewed from RF solutions they really do think about the installer this junction box here is IP68
and it's got bags of room in it to do other wiring connections that you might need for the system so
if we thought ahead on our install we wouldn't have needed this junction box here we could have
done all that in there and saved ourselves a bit of money they even supplied a cable glands
the flexibility of this system continues because he can pay the receivers with remote controls to
give you yet another option how to control your lights and if it's lighting control
you're interested in check out the review we made here of the RF Solutions Riot system