Wiring up an electric gate opener in France

[darrenh]

Hi all.

I've wired up a few electric gates on my current and previous houses in the UK .. but now I need to do this on a house in France.

Would this follow the same process - creating a spur off the radial circuit, armored cable to the gate etc.. or does anyone know if there is further regulation? Given the location of the gate it would be really hard to create a dedicated supply from the fuse box.

The gate opener / motor is 24v.

thanks

Darren

 

[FrodoOne]

Is there such a thing as "a spur off the radial circuit".
Would that not be an extension of a radial circuit, which is usual in most countries.

The supply voltage to the "gate opener" appears to be 24 V (which is Extra Low Voltage) so you can extend any such a voltage from the protected "supply" within a building via any sort of "Garden Wiring" that you wish. Of course, depending on the length of the "feed", there may be resistance problems with the conductor length concerned but that is another story.

 

[darrenh]

24V does seem quite low for a mechanical gate opener know .. but I checked and double checked.
Ok - so extension from one of the radial circuit .. and the one closest to the gate...
thanks

 

[FrodoOne]

While 24 V may be low, the current may be high - which is why I mentioned "resistance problems" in the connecting cable.
Please state the Wattage or Current requirements of the Gate Opener concerned.

If this/thes gate(s) are operating slowly in a horizontal plane, the Wattage or Current requirements may be lower than that for a garage door, which must be lifted.

 

[darrenh]

See below - there are two motors
--
160W operating across both / Max power per motor 110W
--

 

[FrodoOne]

For the minute, let us ignore the lights - but you have stated "Max courtesy light charge 100W 230Vac - 40W 24Vac/dc"
the two of which are incompatible.
(Any lights should be replaceable with appropriate LEDs which would draw about 1/10 of the equivalent brightness
incandescent lamp.)

If any "courtesy light" is on at times when the motors are not energised, a third conductor may be required, depending upon how the motors are "set in operation".

Each 24 V motor at 110 W will draw almost 4.6 A or a total of 9.2 A, which is not small but easily carried via a 2.5 mm CSA cable over a "reasonable" distance.

What is the distance and what is the Cross Sectional Area (CSA) of the conductors which you propose to use?
(This information is necessary for calculating resistances losses.)

 

[darrenh]

FrodoOne - sorry I am not sure how to find the CSA information.
I am not actually using the lights so that isn't an issue .. as gate sits under a street light!

 

[FrodoOne]

Any cable which you have (in Europe/UK) will be designated with a CSA (in square millimetres) or (possibly) a wire gauge. (The usual rating for 2.5 mm CSA conductors is about 16 A in the UK and Europe - but please do not quote me on that!)

If it is a "wire gauge", it will probably be related to the (rather weird) American Wire Gauge (AWG), to which a reference can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge - with references to CSA sizes in square millimetres and the resistances per metre length.