A step-by-step working companion to C21 — run the method on a live project, one layer and one zone at a time.
This guide turns the masterclass into a working method. Run the four layers in order for the system, then the per-lecture checklists below for every zone. Each checklist item is a deliverable; collected, they become your motorisation-and-integration specification and commissioning record.
| Layer | Activity | Output |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Actuator (motor) | Torque-sizing worksheet & motor selection per blind (Nm, family, electronic limits) |
| 2 | Control bus | Control-architecture decision record: bus per zone + feedback capability |
| 3 | Integration interface | Gateway selection + per-blind/group object model on KNX/BACnet/Modbus; power & cabling topology |
| 4 | Intelligence | Sensor schedule, control logic, written priority hierarchy (wind/safety local) |
| Bus | Feedback | Best for | Avoid when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Somfy RTS | None (one-way) | Residential, simple retrofit, manual/timed control | BMS status / closed-loop sun-tracking required |
| io-homecontrol | Two-way | Integrated retrofit, feedback without full cabling | RF-hostile facade / very large deterministic estates |
| Zigbee | Two-way (mesh) | Third-party / IoT ecosystems | 2.4 GHz already congested with WiFi |
| Dry contact | None (open-loop) | Safety/global overrides (fire, global wind, scenes) | Individual addressing / position setting needed |
| RS485 / DC wired | Full | Large new-build, integration-critical, RF-hostile | Cabling genuinely impractical (existing building) |
Motorising a blind is trivial; integrating shading into a building's intelligence is an engineering discipline, and this opening lecture establishes the distinction that the whole course depends on. A specifier who writes 'supply motorised blinds' onto a drawing has deferred every decision that actually determines whether the system works: motor torque adequacy, control protocol, power and cabling topology, the interface to the building management system, and the sensor and commissioning logic that makes the shading behave intelligently rather than merely move.
The tubular motor is the workhorse of shading motorisation, and a specifier must understand its anatomy before sizing or integrating one. This lecture dissects the tubular motor — the motor head, the gearbox reduction, the integral limit system, the thermal cut-out and the crown-and-drive adaptor set that couples it to a specific tube diameter — and maps the Somfy product families that have become the de facto reference across the industry.
Motor sizing is where specification becomes engineering, and getting the torque calculation right is the single most important technical decision in motorisation. This lecture builds the torque calculation from first principles: the load the motor must overcome is the weight of the fabric or slat package plus the bottom bar acting at the radius of the loaded tube, and the required torque is that force multiplied by the effective radius, divided by mechanical efficiency, with a safety margin applied.
Once the motor is sized, the next decision is how it receives commands — and the choice of control bus governs reliability, feedback, integration capability and retrofit feasibility for the life of the building. This lecture compares the dominant control technologies: Somfy RTS (one-way 433 MHz radio, simple and ubiquitous but no feedback), io-homecontrol (two-way encrypted radio with position feedback and interoperability across io-partner brands), Zigbee (mesh radio used in third-party and IoT ecosystems), and wired control (dry-contact, RS485/digital-bus and DC data-over-cable).
Motorised shading is an electrical installation, and the power and cabling topology decided at design stage determines whether the system is safe, serviceable and integration-ready or a maintenance liability. This lecture covers the practical electrical engineering: AC mains versus low-voltage DC distribution, circuit grouping and the number of motors per circuit, cable types and sizing for power and for data buses, the segregation of power from data and from other building services, and the provision of isolation, local switching and accessible junctions.
Integration begins with the simplest interface and the most important concept: the dry contact and the gateway. This lecture explains how a shading system exposes control to the wider building — at the crudest level through volt-free dry contacts that any controller can drive, and at the proper level through a gateway that translates between the shading manufacturer's native protocol and a building automation protocol.
This lecture gives the specifier working fluency in the three building-automation protocols that a shading gateway speaks: KNX, BACnet and Modbus. We characterise each — KNX as the decentralised, peer-to-peer European building-control standard with its group-address model; BACnet as the HVAC-centric building-automation protocol with its rich object/property model and BACnet/IP and MS/TP variants; and Modbus as the simple, robust, register-based industrial protocol common on device-level and legacy links.
Motors and protocols give a blind the ability to move; sensors and logic give it the intelligence to move correctly, and this lecture builds the sensing and control strategy that turns motorised shading into a daylight- and safety-management system. We cover the sensor suite: rooftop global and facade-specific sun (irradiance/lux) sensors, the wind sensor (anemometer) that drives the non-negotiable high-wind retraction of exterior shading, rain and temperature sensors, and interior glare/lux sensors for closed-loop daylight control.
With motors, buses, interfaces, power and sensors understood individually, this lecture assembles them into a coherent system architecture — the drawing-and-schedule deliverable that a controls contractor builds from. We work through facade and zone definition (grouping blinds by orientation, room and control intent), the controller hierarchy (local shading controllers, gateways, BMS), the network and addressing plan, and the head-end and user-interface layer (wall keypads, touch panels, BMS graphics, mobile apps).
Installed and wired is not the same as commissioned, and this lecture sets out the structured commissioning process that turns a physically complete shading installation into a verified, documented, intelligent system — the stage projects most often skimp and most often regret. We sequence the work: motor limit-setting and direction checking, address assignment and group/zone configuration, gateway and protocol binding (KNX group addresses, BACnet object mapping, Modbus register verification), sensor calibration and the critical wind-retraction proving, then sun-tracking and daylight-logic tuning, scene programming, and integrated testing with the BMS and lighting.
Motorised shading sits inside a safety and compliance framework that a specifier must map, because non-compliance stalls approvals, voids warranties and creates liability. This lecture decodes the key standards: IEC 60335-2-97 as the particular safety standard for the drives of rolling shutters, awnings, blinds and similar equipment; the general appliance-safety standard IEC 60335-1 beneath it; the South African electrical installation frame of SANS 10142-1 and the Certificate of Compliance; the wind-action standard SANS 10160-3 that underpins exterior-blind retraction setpoints; and the EMC and low-voltage directive context for the equipment itself.
The course closes where real projects live — in the specification and documentation that carry the design into procurement, installation and operation. This capstone lecture assembles every preceding deliverable into the two artefacts that govern a motorised, integrated shading project: the motorisation-and-integration specification and the project documentation set.
Application-based questions. Minimum pass mark 70% (7 of 10). Reveal each answer to check your reasoning and the section it draws on.
Assemble the outputs from every checklist above into a single motorisation-and-integration specification with this spine: