C2E616301_GY_C1 Schneider Cuadro H Sixfold Bus-Fed KNX Switch Interface Grey Plastic 13mA ETS Programmable

The C2E616301_GY_C1 is the six-gang grey plastic keypad of the Cuadro H range. Six gangs is the point at which a wall plate stops being a switch and becomes the local control surface for a lighting design. The article number reads in three parts: 301 for six gangs, 01 for a plastic faceplate, and GY for grey.

The electronics are identical across the family and deliberately minimal, because all the intelligence sits on the bus: a KNX participant fed at 21 to 30 volts DC and approximately 13 milliamperes at 24 volts, an integrated coupling unit, a two-core connector with red to plus and black to minus, and no mains terminal anywhere on the device.

The plate measures 86 by 86 millimetres and is 29 millimetres deep. It is held by a metal retaining ring that must not be over-tightened past 6 kgf.cm, because the ring seats the plate against the wall and a distorted ring shows as an uneven joint.

With six gangs, the documentation becomes the deliverable. Each gang carries a short and a long press, so the plate offers twelve operations — and twelve operations invented room by room will be operated differently by different occupants within a month. The convention that holds is functional rather than positional: general lighting, feature lighting, perimeter lighting, blind, scene, and master off, fixed in that order across every room of the type and issued with the group address list.

Six-gang plates belong in rooms where the lighting was designed rather than inherited.

• Hotel rooms and suites use them where the entrance position has to cover several lighting groups, the curtain, and a night scene; the grey face is chosen where the joinery is warm neutral.
• Open-plan office zones apply them where the lighting follows daylight dimming and occupancy, and the occupant needs manual override of several groups.
• Meeting rooms specify them where the room is set to different conditions through the day.
• Residential living areas take them where the client has asked for a comprehensive plate rather than a row of switches.
• Restaurants and lounges use them where the scene changes between service periods.

The practical limit is worth telling a client: six gangs is enough capacity that unused buttons will be reassigned informally, so the as-built documentation should mark the spare gangs as spare rather than leaving them to be filled in later.