Problems with Temperature settings of Conrad Rad Heating Controllers

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  • JonMoone
    Automated Home Lurker
    • Oct 2010
    • 7

    Problems with Temperature settings of Conrad Rad Heating Controllers

    Hey,
    I bought three sets of the Conrad FHT80B + Rad Valves, for 3 bedrooms.
    The typical temp in each bedroom is approx 18 or 19 degress in the morning.
    I am having problems with FHT80B temperature settings.
    In order to get the valves to open at all, I have to set the FHT80B comfort temp at 22 degress or higher,
    If I set the FHT80B comfort to 21 degresses or less, the valves remain permanently shut (displaying 0%).

    Has anybody else encountered apparent Temperature inaccuracy of this scale (+3 or +4 degress inaccuracy)?
    Any suggestions?

    Thanks
    J
  • martynwendon
    Automated Home Sr Member
    • Feb 2009
    • 57

    #2
    Originally posted by JonMoone View Post
    Hey,
    I bought three sets of the Conrad FHT80B + Rad Valves, for 3 bedrooms.
    The typical temp in each bedroom is approx 18 or 19 degress in the morning.
    I am having problems with FHT80B temperature settings.
    In order to get the valves to open at all, I have to set the FHT80B comfort temp at 22 degress or higher,
    If I set the FHT80B comfort to 21 degresses or less, the valves remain permanently shut (displaying 0%).

    Has anybody else encountered apparent Temperature inaccuracy of this scale (+3 or +4 degress inaccuracy)?
    Any suggestions?

    Thanks
    J
    In my experience they've always been reasonably accurate - the Thermostats report temperatures within half a degree or so of 1wire temperature sensors I have in the same rooms.

    Might be worth getting one of those infra red thermometers to measure temperature around the area of the Thermostats to make sure they're not in a cold spot in the room?


    Martyn
    My Blog

    Comment

    • toscal
      Moderator
      • Oct 2005
      • 2061

      #3
      Whereabouts in the room and how high have you mounted the thermostats.
      And rather than having a cold spot you may have a warm spot. Try another location for the thermostat and see if that makes any difference.
      Something else to consider, is that you may have inadvertently paired the valve controller with another thermostat as well as the one in the room. Bit of a long shot I know. But try seeing what happens with just one set working and all the others with batteries out. If this works then put the batteries back in another set and try again etc..
      Good luck.
      IF YOU CAN'T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU'VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM.
      Renovation Spain Blog

      Comment

      • JonMoone
        Automated Home Lurker
        • Oct 2010
        • 7

        #4
        Sorry for delay in replying.
        I bought a fhz1000 so I could read the actual temp of the fht 80bs.
        Two of them and the fhz1000 are reporting similar temp.
        But one 80b is 0.8 degrees higher than the others.
        Also the device I was using to measure the room temp for comparison purposes is reporting >1 degree less than all the 80bs.
        I need to get another independant read of the temp to see which is accurate.
        Will update later.

        Comment

        • russell_allen
          Automated Home Jr Member
          • Oct 2010
          • 25

          #5
          Hi Jon,

          I've had this happen on one occasion, where I had to set the temperature to 23 or 24 degrees to open the actuator at all in a cold room (around 16 degrees), but it's certainly not a recurrent problem. Is this happening all the time for you?

          Right now for example in the room I'm in the temperature feels comfortable (so around 19 degrees), but I notice the thermostat's set to 21.5 degrees and the actuator's at 94%. If I set the temperature down to 17.5 degrees, the actuator closes down immediately to 26%, which I guess is to maintain the temperature.

          I'm at the point soon where I'll have full computer control and logging of my system, so once I've had it running a week I'll try and update my blog with some graphs to show how my devices are responding.

          Russ
          Russell's Home Automation Blog

          Comment

          • JonMoone
            Automated Home Lurker
            • Oct 2010
            • 7

            #6
            Hi Russell,
            It seemed to be happening pretty regularly the first couple of weeks.
            But at the time I did not even have a FHZ1000 and so couldnt query the 80B actual temp's, to understand what was happening.
            Now that I have a FHZ1000, I can query the temp, but its a manual process, and so still not 100% clear whats happening all the time.
            I need continous data logging ability

            I'm going to get a CUL or FHZ1300
            You're using a CUL. Besides being cheaper than a FHZ1300, what are other advantages/disadvantages/limitations?

            Thanks

            Comment

            • russell_allen
              Automated Home Jr Member
              • Oct 2010
              • 25

              #7
              Originally posted by JonMoone View Post
              Hi Russell,
              I'm going to get a CUL or FHZ1300
              You're using a CUL. Besides being cheaper than a FHZ1300, what are other advantages/disadvantages/limitations?
              Hi Jon,

              My advice would be if you're not IT literate, probably go for the FHZ1300 as it comes with some software as part of the package (not great software from what I've read, but it's a complete app with a friendly UI), and cruicially it also comes with the correct firmware already loaded, so it should be just plug and play.

              However, the CUL for me was a significant whack cheaper, I'm a bit of a hacker so the existing software was of zero interest to me, and I'm comfortable with loading the firmware up. I should mention that someone else on my blog has asked for the process to do this, I'm going to try to get something up on my blog, but it won't be 100% as my device has already been flashed once.

              So it depends if you're comfortable monkeying around with it, or if you just want to plug it in and get something working minutes rather than hours.

              Hope that makes sense!

              Russ
              Russell's Home Automation Blog

              Comment

              • JonMoone
                Automated Home Lurker
                • Oct 2010
                • 7

                #8
                Hey Russell,
                I bought a CUL and am awaiting delivery

                J

                Comment

                • russell_allen
                  Automated Home Jr Member
                  • Oct 2010
                  • 25

                  #9
                  Good choice, IMO! Can you let me know how you get on setting the thing up? I still recall that for me the process was:

                  1. Plug in device with button held down on the bottom
                  2. Install the CUL.inf device drivers from the busware website
                  3. Install the Atmel software to flash the drive
                  4. Install the CUL firmware (http://www.koeniglich.de/culfw/culfw.html)
                  5. You should be able just start testing the thing with the FHEM server.

                  I've written a more complete process on my blog at http://www.eclipcecreate.co.uk/post/...me-Server.aspx, but I'd really appreciate you commenting on the post if the guide is not accurate.

                  Russ
                  Russell's Home Automation Blog

                  Comment

                  • JonMoone
                    Automated Home Lurker
                    • Oct 2010
                    • 7

                    #10
                    Hey Russell,
                    I'm up and running. I'm using Linux so some of the steps are a little different than in your Blog. I'll post a couple of things that caused me some trouble later.

                    Question
                    The plots/log files that are generated for the FHT devices only show "Actuator %" values, no measured temperature values. Is this the case for you also?
                    Looking at FHEM Command Reference, it appears that FHT devices do not support GET. If so, any idea how to get measured temp values?

                    J

                    Comment

                    • russell_allen
                      Automated Home Jr Member
                      • Oct 2010
                      • 25

                      #11
                      Originally posted by JonMoone View Post
                      Hey Russell,
                      I'm up and running. I'm using Linux so some of the steps are a little different than in your Blog. I'll post a couple of things that caused me some trouble later.
                      Good stuff, look forward to reading it!

                      Originally posted by JonMoone View Post
                      Question
                      The plots/log files that are generated for the FHT devices only show "Actuator %" values, no measured temperature values. Is this the case for you also?
                      Looking at FHEM Command Reference, it appears that FHT devices do not support GET. If so, any idea how to get measured temp values?
                      This was (and still is) one of my biggest frustrations - the FHT devices, providing you've got the right type, do send the measured temperatures, but only at an interval that they seem to choose - something like every half hour. So unless you've got a lot of devices, or you sit there for an hour or two, these messages are rare to see coming in. I think FHEM reports them as "measured-temp"?

                      Russ
                      Russell's Home Automation Blog

                      Comment

                      • JonMoone
                        Automated Home Lurker
                        • Oct 2010
                        • 7

                        #12
                        FHEM has beeen running for the past few hours and I haven't seen any measured temp values in the log files, only actuator values.
                        This is frustrating

                        Comment

                        • russell_allen
                          Automated Home Jr Member
                          • Oct 2010
                          • 25

                          #13
                          Hmm... do you know exactly what model FHT device you have? The one I've got in front of me here says FHT 80B-2 (underneath a dumb sticker that just says what batteries it takes)

                          Also, try sending the following command and see if anything improves:
                          set fht_device_name report1 255 report2 255

                          Russ
                          Russell's Home Automation Blog

                          Comment

                          • JonMoone
                            Automated Home Lurker
                            • Oct 2010
                            • 7

                            #14
                            One of the FHT80B's started reporting temperature
                            No idea why/how just that one

                            Also FHEM crashed with this error for no apparent reason:
                            Select error -1 / Interrupted system call
                            Not sure if you've seen it before?

                            Comment

                            • fredd500
                              Automated Home Jr Member
                              • Jun 2009
                              • 29

                              #15
                              I think the FHT80b only sends actual temperature readings when they change so if your temperature is relatively constant, you may not see anything reported.

                              With mine, I try not to get too hung up on what the temperature says/is set to. If I am cold, I up the temperature. I have the defaults set in the living room (so 21 deg comfort and 17 set back) but often up it to 23 because it feels cold. I am not overly worried about that because whatever it is set to it is better than the old system I had (bad idea I know, but I have my sofa's under the window and in front of the rads because there is no where else to put them and with the old system, the TRV would close too quickly because it gets really toasty behind the sofa, but not in front where we are sat!)
                              Chris

                              Automating my home in a family friendly way - My blog: http://www.cpmills.com/

                              Comment

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