In this Salcombe Devon tutorial, I show you the exact way we prep our cables for Control4 Smart Lighting keypads once the physical install is done. The whole idea is to leave everything safe, tidy, and ready for the next stage (programming in Composer) while the builders and decorators crack on. I’m working in a stud wall here, so I keep the labels because they can push up with the cable numbers—there’s no point cutting them off. From there I strip the outer jacket, trim to length, deal with the draw tape, and sort the drain wire properly. After that, I sleeve the earth, strip the red and black cores, and then twist the conductors tight. One of the little annoyances is when you’re using a double ferrule they don’t always fit nicely in the terminal, so I make sure everything is twisted and cut down to the right length (around 8mm for the terminals). I then grab the keypad connector (I leave the actual keypad in the box for now) and wire it up using the stickers on the keypad: ground, positive, and data +/-. Before anything gets screwed back, I always test the link and check there are no shorts—then coil it back up in the box, ready for faceplates and buttons later, and finally make sure your plate screw isn’t going to hit anything before you drive it home.