Evohome controller multi comms faults.

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  • Drpepper
    Automated Home Jr Member
    • Jan 2015
    • 21

    Evohome controller multi comms faults.

    Hi all,

    Looking for some thoughts/advice.

    We've had our Evohome system for about 3 years now and it's been pretty faultless, until now....

    We the non wifi controller, remote access gateway, one BD91 for heating, one for Water with a thermostat. All in there's around 14 HR92 rad valves.

    I'm getting a lot of comms faults in the fault log, initially it was just the heating relay and rebinding it solved the problem however this morning I have comms faults for both BD91s (heat and water) and a master comms fault. Aside of rebinding the BD91s it seems pulling the controller of its stand forcing a resync seems to also sometimes rectify this, however this isn't sustainable.

    As I said it's been stable for the majority of the 3 years it's been in and nothing has changed in the house recently that could affect it, I'm beginning to think the controller is knackered, at least from an RF comms capability point of view?

    Any thoughts, experiences before I get the installers out?

    Ta, James.
  • paulockenden
    Automated Home Legend
    • Apr 2015
    • 1719

    #2
    Check the battery in the hot water thermostat.

    We've seen cases reported here before where that seems to cause knock-on problems with other zones / relays / etc.

    Comment

    • Drpepper
      Automated Home Jr Member
      • Jan 2015
      • 21

      #3
      Hadn't thought of that as the water temp seems to be recording and behaving, however will give it a whirl, it cant do any harm, ta.

      Comment

      • paulockenden
        Automated Home Legend
        • Apr 2015
        • 1719

        #4
        If those batteries have been in for three years they are probably due for a change anyway.

        Comment

        • Drpepper
          Automated Home Jr Member
          • Jan 2015
          • 21

          #5
          They're probably 12 to 18 months old, changing them seems to have at least appeared to resolve the issue, time will tell, cheers.

          Comment

          • Drpepper
            Automated Home Jr Member
            • Jan 2015
            • 21

            #6
            Problems persist although it now seems to be isolated to the boiler relay which develops a comms fault at 23.12 every night, this then restores at 20.03 the next evening. It's consistent to a minute and has been like this for 4 days now.

            A combination of rebinding the BD91 and manually switching it off/on seems to kick things back into life, however that's not sustainable, I don't need or want an automated system that needs manual intervention every 24hrs.

            The thing is now at doing my head in stage, I'm wondering if I can reuse the majority of the components in another system, Hive or whatever as I can't see the Evohome surviving much longer. I've spoken to our installer by phone but no resolution, I suppose the final stage is to get them back on site.

            Wondering if, as a last straw I should get a new Controller and see if it works, I guess I can always send it back if it doesn't

            Comment

            • paulockenden
              Automated Home Legend
              • Apr 2015
              • 1719

              #7
              Try moving the controller to a different place in the house - perhaps a bit closer to the boiler relay.

              Sounds like something is broadcasting on 868MHz at the same time every day. Neighbour's baby monitor?

              Comment

              • Drpepper
                Automated Home Jr Member
                • Jan 2015
                • 21

                #8
                Moved it into the main bedroom a few days ago, which essentially puts it closer to the BD91 than its ever been, but no difference.

                Were a detached house in a corner of a cul de sac so nearest neighbour is 40m away, walls to walls, also none of them have a baby, lol.

                Everythi g else in our place is running on a Deco WiFi mesh so certainly not 868. Does the newer WiFi controller still talk 868 to be BD91s etc?

                Comment

                • paulockenden
                  Automated Home Legend
                  • Apr 2015
                  • 1719

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Drpepper View Post
                  Does the newer WiFi controller still talk 868 to be BD91s etc?
                  Yup. The wiFi is just for external comms back to Resideo.

                  P.

                  Comment

                  • Drpepper
                    Automated Home Jr Member
                    • Jan 2015
                    • 21

                    #10
                    Hmm, so a WiFi controller isn't going to fix anything unless the current controller is duff, currently no comms faults reported, BD91 light green but boiler not being triggered. Don't know what's going on..... Now looki g to see which bits of the system HR92s, BD91 etc I could reuse on another system or if its a rip and replace all, lost confidence in the Evohome, wife and 4 kids moaning isn't helping, lol

                    Comment

                    • Drpepper
                      Automated Home Jr Member
                      • Jan 2015
                      • 21

                      #11
                      Pulling the controller off the stand and causing a resync seems the only solution, but it takes and hour to resync all the zones which is hardly effective.

                      Comment

                      • DanD
                        Automated Home Ninja
                        • Feb 2016
                        • 250

                        #12
                        Hmm. It sounds like the problem might lie with the BDR91 or its connection to the boiler rather than the controller as you've indicated that although the BDR91 is showing green, the boiler isn't firing. Restarting the controller will trigger it to poll all devices and hence why you seem to eventually get a reset of the BDR91, if its status was incorrect. When you re-bound the BDR91, did you first reset it by a long press on the button (15secs)? If not, it's a simple thing you can try. It's also worth checking the BDR91s wiring in case it's become damaged/loose causing occasional disconnects. I'm not sure how common BDR91 failures/faults are, but at least they're cheaper to replace than a new controller. Another user with a similar problem, but theirs occurred shortly after installation, even found that swapping their HW and Boiler BDR91s over, resetting them and re-binding seemed to fix their comms problem which was a really weird one.

                        Comment

                        • paulockenden
                          Automated Home Legend
                          • Apr 2015
                          • 1719

                          #13
                          Don’t forget that a boiler won’t fire if the water flowing through it is already up to temperature.

                          That always used to get me when I had an old iron boiler and a BDR91. There was power to the boiler but it wasn’t firing. Couldn’t work out why. But it (thought) it didn’t need to.

                          May not be the issue here, but worth remembering anyway.

                          Comment

                          • DanD
                            Automated Home Ninja
                            • Feb 2016
                            • 250

                            #14
                            Good point Paul!

                            Comment

                            • Drpepper
                              Automated Home Jr Member
                              • Jan 2015
                              • 21

                              #15
                              BD91 all looks fine and has been fully cleared and rebound many times. 4 comms faults this morning, all at 0825, HW, CH and 2 rad actuators, both of which have good battery levels, no comms faults from the other 12 of course.

                              Current working thinking is the microswitch in the Honeywell zone valve is caput, seeing as manually switching the heating BD91 on sometimes gets heat, sometimes doesn't and we figure that would confuse the system causing the other symptoms.

                              Eng being scheduled for early next week so fingers crossed we track down and resolve the issue. Cheers for the input BTW.

                              Comment

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