you wouldn't believe it would you it's yet another glorious day here in yorkshire and we've decided
to take a trip out to the leeds and liverpool canal we're not here for a spot of fishing
or taking the narrowboat out we're here to investigate the range we can get on these
rf solutions ferret wireless receivers now we've looked at wireless switching on the channel before
but none that get to the distance we're going to show with these products so obviously efixx we have
to do these trials someone has to do all the hard work so rick i think it's time for you to take
a little walk well it's not the gym membership i expected well don't mention the perks you get with
this job we fix free exercise and fresh air comes with uh comes to work another channel while he's
tottering off up to 200 meters so we could check out that range let's just explain what
we've got in the box below us we've been we've brought out the Power Oak for our power supply
we've looked at that on the channel before but we've put the ferret receiver and its power supply
in this small waterproof box and hooked it up to the red flood light so once uh once rick
found out how far away 200 meters is and as you can already see it's it's quite a considerable
distance we're going to find out if this actually works obviously with these wireless receivers
the great thing about wireless obviously you can obviously it saves the wires that's what we're
trying to do so it's a great scenario if you have to switch something that's a considerable distance
away and think of the amount of cable you could be saving as you do that so i think rick's getting
there so let's just uh let's oh i forgot i'm gonna have to take that down to him now i'm gonna have
to walk the 200 meters and then come back to see if it works so we've now installed our ferret
wireless receiver down there down the canal with rick which is 200 meters away he has measured it
just behind the tree and down by the narrowboat there i'll just give him a little flash to see
if he's there yes i can see the red light in the distance you know wireless switching is
fantastic obviously if you've got a really difficult switching route you're possibly on
different circuits even in a different building that ability to do remote switching with a vast
range of receivers is great now with this product this one here will do 200 meters or up to 200
meters line of sight which is what we've got here and this one will do up to an incredible
1 000 meters so i think now we need to cut back to the workshop and let's take a closer look
at the system and how it goes together well rick i think we've easily proved that was 200 meters but
you're still flashing what are you up to it's the new uh canal traffic light system oh well you
could have a you gotta have a full-time job there now we've done 200 meters that pretty seamless
what about a thousand meters i think that could be your next challenge yeah wait i'm on my way there
i'm not going to make the mistake of leaving the power supply and having to bring it to you but you
give us a ring when you get there do we not bring a segway i'll see you back at the studio bye-bye
well i'm sure rick will be back with us at some point but while he's wandering the canal banks
let's have a look at the system we've used there rf solutions produce lots of different
types of wireless control systems a lot of them are pre-packaged with enclosures and
suitable glanding to get an ip rating but the one we've used is the ferret and that is a small
pcb module now the advantage of that is you can sneak it in as the name suggests
ferret into equipment that could benefit from wireless control so i've mocked up here what
you might do if you say had a garden lighting installation and you wanted to control some leds
we've got 230 volts ac feeding this led driver output side is 24 volt dc constant voltage
and we're distributing that by these wiggle two two ones to some Robus Macau cob led strip that we've
seen on the channel before and our ferret wireless receiver already prepared this to a number of the
control options from rs solutions probably the most familiar one is this light switch
version here which is completely self-contained so there's the battery in there and the wireless
transmitter and it works exactly as you'd expect with a light switch so switch it on you can hear
the relay clicking on the ferret and the led strip illuminates and then switch off goes instantly off
these fobber remote controls are a good option if you want something on a key ring
and there's a few different modes of operations here you can get multi-channel versions
but this one here is a momentary action so when i press and hold this you'll hear the
relay click in and as soon as i release that it will switch off this version here is set up to
latch the relay so we have on and off control so again there's the relay switching on there's the
relay switching off this trap option very robust case here is what we had down by the canal it's
got this external antenna that helps increase the range up to that 1000 meters if possible
and this version has been set up again for momentary operation so press and hold and you
can hear the relay engage and then as soon as i release it it will switch off so let's just have
a closer look at the wiring of the actual ferret module itself so just zoom in on the connections
so here's the supply from our led driver so the negative goes straight out to the led
strip on this side and then also feeds one part of the power supply of the ferret module itself
and a same on the positive so again we're feeding the actual um the board itself the electronics to
obviously make the wireless receiver operate so this will work between 6 and 24 volts dc
and then this is our relay end so again i'm taking the positive supply into the common
terminal of the relay and then i've connected the output to the led strip to the normally
open side and obviously when the when it receives a signal the relay engages and switches that strip
on so this is set up for low voltage if i wanted to do mains voltage switching and
still power the module itself for its working electronics at a low voltage and rf solutions
have created this handy little power supply to do that which takes mains input here and then
it's low voltage output at that side which would connect into the input terminals here
so that's a great option if you want the switch there the primary side of an led driver you may
have to do that say if you were trying to work with constant current leds i think that little
ferret pcb is a fantastic solution for garden lighting like we've demonstrated there imagine
the scenario you're already building an enclosure to include the led power supply you can just put
that small ferret pcb in there to add control in larger gardens that can significantly simplify
your wiring because with that 200 meter range you don't need to bring all of your wiring back
to a central location like you might have to do on multi-channel systems that are out there you just
put it in the control gear enclosure or possibly even in a 13 amp socket feeding a specific area
using that small power supply you can turn any socket into a remote switching socket now let's
next deal with that other issue that comes up we showed you lots of different control solutions
there uh fobs and conventional light switches but what if a customer has a very specific type of
light switch that they want to use for wireless control or you're in a scenario where it's very
difficult to get new switching circuits installed i'm now going to show you a product we can turn
any type of light switch into a remote control light switch using this little bogey board here
i don't know if i don't know where rf solutions get the naming from but let's see how you can use
the bogey so i've got a dolly switch here from the hamilton perception range that's a range we've
looked at before so it's very high end available in all sorts of finishes but what i've managed to
do here is turn it into a wireless remote control switch to operate the ferret so here we go just
operate like any normal switch and there we go the ferrets received the signal and turned the
leds on and again off again so flip it over we'll see here this will take up to four channels so i
could convert a four gang switch into four gangs of remote wireless switching just with one simple
board it comes in two variants there is a battery powered version that i've got here or you can
permanently power it from a 12 volt dc supply now people sometimes get hung up on the on batteries
but this will last for eight years based on 100 switching cycles per day which says that's a
that's a lot of switching your lights on and off unlikely to exceed it in most installations so i
think that's a fantastic solution again think of those installations where you do want to match
the exact type of light switch that customers have or you're rewiring a property and it's incredibly
difficult to get switching wires to a particular location or you're in an existing installation
and you want to add another switch location and again this is compatible with all the other
devices you see in the range so you could mix and match and have traditional switches
and fobs and some of the other kit from rf solutions pairing the ferret with the various
remote control options it couldn't be simpler there's a small read switch on the side of the
device which is triggered by a magnet and that allows you to pair up to 30 transmitters and you
can also change the operating mode of the switch as well you could turn it from a latching relay
into a purely momentarily operating relay now we've covered a lot in this video traditional
switching but i think there's some other options for using this control as well we're about to look
at this millennium slim the world's smallest plc it's great for sort of energy saving applications
but i'm thinking i'll be able to pair this ferret device with the plc either to trigger its inputs
or to switch from its outputs to trigger remote devices so that's one of the applications i found
for the ferret i'd be interested to know what you think are you already using these solutions from
rf solutions have you used the ferret in an application we'd love to hear how you're using
it and how you found your experience as ever put your questions comments below and we'll try and
get back to as many as we can i might even get rick to do it if he ever shows up again