Yet another Heating newbie - FS20 Solution question

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  • jpearce
    Automated Home Lurker
    • Nov 2011
    • 4

    Yet another Heating newbie - FS20 Solution question

    Hi,

    I'm yet another newbie, looking to automate my central heating system. I think I would like to use some of the components of the HouseHeat system (FS20) - but possibly in a different way to others.

    My starting point is that I don't have TRVs of any description on my rads, and I have a simple manual timer on my boiler, with no room thermostat at all.

    So, phase one would be to replace the manual timer with something that can be wirelessly controlled, prior to doing any re-plumbing of rad valves, etc.

    I have read about the FHZ1300, and the boiler control FHT8W units and, since I am in IT, I would be comfortable with putting FHEM together, running on a Sheevaplug or NSLU2 to do the controlling.

    What I'm unclear about is: can I directly control an FHT8W from an FHZ1300? I know most people start by adding a number of room thermostats (FHT 80B) and associated TRV controllers, and linking them to the boiler control. In this case I gather that the boiler control receives messages directly from the thermostat and decides if boiler is required. However, in my case, I would be looking to initially simply use timing based logic (replacing what I have with my manual clock), and then proceeding to temperature sensing/zoning, and TRVs in later phases. So, I would be looking to use the boiler control in a dumb mode of just responding to "On" and "Off" messages directly from the FHZ1300.

    Can anyone tell me is this a runner, or have I completely misunderstood what's possible with the FS20 based system?

    Many thanks,
    John.
  • jwxfs
    Automated Home Jr Member
    • Oct 2011
    • 15

    #2
    You could try a Honeywell Wireless Programmable Room Thermostat pack that comes with either the BDR91 / HC60NG relay module to switch the boiler on / off. You could then attach their Evotouch Controller and HR80 TRV's when ready. I am sure that you could also use some of their other units to achieve the same effect.

    Comment

    • jpearce
      Automated Home Lurker
      • Nov 2011
      • 4

      #3
      Thanks for the Honeywell suggestion, but I think I want to stick to the FS20 protocol.

      I guess my question boils down to this:

      Can I directly control an FHT8W Boiler Control from either a FHZ1300 or CUL device?

      Comment

      • jwxfs
        Automated Home Jr Member
        • Oct 2011
        • 15

        #4
        Sorry can not help you with that question (I was going to go a similar route to your end solution but swapped to Honeywell when I discovered their flexibility for zoning etc). The 2 Honeywell Evotouch controllers were easy to set up for 20 radiators / 16 zones.

        Is the NSLU 2 the Netgear slug? If you are in to your programming some of the other automation threads on this forum have guys who do a lot of their own automation programming and may be able to point you in the right direction. I do suspect that it will mean a change from Househeat
        Last edited by jwxfs; 3 November 2011, 07:06 PM.

        Comment

        • jpearce
          Automated Home Lurker
          • Nov 2011
          • 4

          #5
          Hi,

          Yes NSLU2 is the famous slug! I want to run FHEM on a device such as this or a plug computer with an attached CUL device which can control FS20 devices in the home.

          Comment

          • NickC
            Automated Home Lurker
            • Nov 2011
            • 8

            #6
            @jpearce did you get sorted? My FHT8W shows on my web interface with a radio button to turn it on / off but I've a feeling it is only able to report state rather than be controlled directly.. happy to test for you if your question is still unanswered?

            Comment

            • jpearce
              Automated Home Lurker
              • Nov 2011
              • 4

              #7
              Originally posted by NickC View Post
              @jpearce did you get sorted? My FHT8W shows on my web interface with a radio button to turn it on / off but I've a feeling it is only able to report state rather than be controlled directly.. happy to test for you if your question is still unanswered?
              Hi NickC,

              I went with a different solution for my phase 1 (boiler control). I've got FHEM, running on a Sheevaplug, giving commands through a CUL to an FS20 live switch (instead of an FHT8W), which is controlling switched live to my boiler. Works like a dream - I can control directly, via web or an android app I wrote, or automatically through the time/temperature based logic I have running on the plug.

              Thanks for the offer of help though!

              jpearce.

              Comment

              • NickC
                Automated Home Lurker
                • Nov 2011
                • 8

                #8
                Hi JP
                What a relief to get someone willing to talk FS20 in English in 2012 thank you very much I'm a bit stalled on my heating home automation at the moment due to total lack of knowledge in terms of how to get FHEM to graph room temperatures and unfamiliarity with linux generally which means I don't really understand the right log defiitions to make in my config file.

                Any code or advice you are willing to share would be gratefully received - I'm running FHEM server on a win 2k laptop using strawberry perl and CUL plus CUL RFR to try to reach all rooms but not convinced that's working. Also for info in case you haven't come across them I'm running 5 x jogglers (native ubuntu based O/S) to distribute my media library mainly for audio using squeezebox server and squeezeplay clients.

                if you are willing to help my email address is "nick" with (the chamberlains dotbiz)after the @sign.

                all the best

                Nick

                Comment

                • fredd500
                  Automated Home Jr Member
                  • Jun 2009
                  • 29

                  #9
                  If anyone is interested, I have some graphs up on my blog which show stats from my FHEM installation.

                  Heating in the bedrooms is a bit erratic at the moment due to a faulty TRV - I have to use the supplied head (and not an FHT actuator) and keep it set to 5 to stop it knocking. Consequently, it gets heat whenever any other room is asking for it (i.e. downstairs) and the FHT room stat fights to control the temperature (but of course fails miserably). Hopefully I will get this sorted soon.

                  Blog is at http://www.cpmills.com/ Heating graphs can be accessed through the tab at the far top of the page.

                  Chris
                  Chris

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

                  Comment

                  • NickC
                    Automated Home Lurker
                    • Nov 2011
                    • 8

                    #10
                    Originally posted by fredd500 View Post
                    If anyone is interested, I have some graphs up on my blog which show stats from my FHEM installation.

                    Heating in the bedrooms is a bit erratic at the moment due to a faulty TRV - I have to use the supplied head (and not an FHT actuator) and keep it set to 5 to stop it knocking. Consequently, it gets heat whenever any other room is asking for it (i.e. downstairs) and the FHT room stat fights to control the temperature (but of course fails miserably). Hopefully I will get this sorted soon.

                    Blog is at http://www.cpmills.com/ Heating graphs can be accessed through the tab at the far top of the page.

                    Chris
                    Hi Chris - nice work there that looks great and has some nice functionality. I have finally sorted my log file definitions to get plots for each of my rooms but still have some rooms that aren't reporting actual temperature - I think this is to do with binding the fht devices to my CUL but can't find a consistent set of instructions on how to do this.. if you can help with that it would be appreciated!

                    Nick

                    Comment

                    • fredd500
                      Automated Home Jr Member
                      • Jun 2009
                      • 29

                      #11
                      Sorry, no experience with using the CUL - I have an FHZ1300PC.

                      Are you getting anything from the FHT's ? For what its worth, I do find a regular 'reset' of the devices helps by sending the "set TYPE=FHT reset1 255 reset2 255" command.
                      Chris

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

                      Comment

                      • NickC
                        Automated Home Lurker
                        • Nov 2011
                        • 8

                        #12
                        Hi Chris

                        Yes they reliably report desired temp and actuator position, just no actual temperature which is frustrating.

                        I've got a similar line in my config to 'wake them' up as some have described it:

                        define Study_refresh at *04:00:00 set Study report1 255 report2 255

                        Any chance you could email your config (address in the thread above) so I could see what I could learn from it?

                        Rgds

                        Nick

                        Comment

                        • fredd500
                          Automated Home Jr Member
                          • Jun 2009
                          • 29

                          #13
                          Sorry yes, report1 and report2 not reset!

                          I also have a "define wakeFHT at *00:40:00 set TYPE=FHT time"

                          In terms of FHEM config, all I have that is relevant is:

                          define FHZ FHZ /dev/fhz1300pc <-- Would be the CUL device in your config
                          define FHT_LivingRoom FHT 1962
                          define FHT_Kitchen FHT 5221
                          define FHT_Bedroom1 FHT 292b
                          define FHT_Bedroom2 FHT 4f44
                          define FHT_Bedroom3 FHT 2b47

                          The codes will obviously be different in your config. Are you using a CUL device in the config or is it possible to 'drive' it as if it were an FHZ? The reason I ask is I am wondering where FHEM gets its code to interpret the FHT radio messages. If it is in the FHZ module, then you would obviously need that module loaded. If you are using the CUL module, it could be that the CUL ignores those messages. Understanding all of this would require a detailed knowledge of perl though so you can debug the code.

                          Have you tried setting

                          attr global verbose 4

                          and looking for error messages in your log files?
                          Chris

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

                          Comment

                          • NickC
                            Automated Home Lurker
                            • Nov 2011
                            • 8

                            #14
                            I have attr global verbose 5 but will have a look for errors and will also add that extra line thanks.

                            above my FHM PGM2 plots I get messages like
                            Cant find string terminator " anywhere before EOF at (eval 147) line 1
                            unlike other errors that give a module name where I can atleast go and try and understand what might be going wrong (without any grasp of perl) I'm not sure where to start with these. Hence hoping to find an english speaker who is willing to share a config file for a windows setup as it seems to be things like windows path separators that introduce lots of the issues.

                            Comment

                            • fredd500
                              Automated Home Jr Member
                              • Jun 2009
                              • 29

                              #15
                              Hmm, yes, definitely looks like a bug in the FHEM PGM2 code.

                              Personally I don't use the web interfaces at all. I have a native app on my iPhone and for my graphs, query FHEM's XML interface. Have you tried telnetting in to the server on port 7072 and typing

                              list <devicename>

                              That will show you all the stats FHEM has for your FHT devices. Could it be that it is getting the temperature, but just can't render it?

                              Have you thought about downloading vmware and running a full Linux on it? Might be easier than trying to get FHEM running under Windows.

                              For what it is worth, I found the developer's grasp of English very good indeed and he was very responsive. You could try posting something (in English) to the FHEM google group page and see if he can suggest something.
                              Chris

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

                              Comment

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