Jump to content

Welcome to Smart Home Forum by FIBARO

Dear Guest,

 

as you can notice parts of Smart Home Forum by FIBARO is not available for you. You have to register in order to view all content and post in our community. Don't worry! Registration is a simple free process that requires minimal information for you to sign up. Become a part of of Smart Home Forum by FIBARO by creating an account.

 

As a member you can:

  •     Start new topics and reply to others
  •     Follow topics and users to get email updates
  •     Get your own profile page and make new friends
  •     Send personal messages
  •     ... and learn a lot about our system!

 

Regards,

Smart Home Forum by FIBARO Team


  • 0

Fibaro TRVs not opening rad valves


h2009

Question

Hello 

 

Wondering if someone can help me please. I've setup my zoned heating in HC2 heating panel and all my TRVs have external sensors which are reporting the temperatures correctly; however the issue I'm having is that the TRV's aren't opening the valves enough to allow the water to pass through the valves and hense there is no heating. 

 

Can anyone suggest a fix for this - noting that I've got 22 TRVs to do this on. 

 

A manual method is to turn the TRVs to max which allows the water to pass through. 

 

Its worth noting that I was using Call For Heat Scene script by Dave Harrison however it was only running through the script once then never again. 

 

HC2 - Firmware Latest 

TRVs - Firmware Latest  

Boiler Receiver - HRT4 

 

Relay script: 

Please login or register to see this code.

Please login or register to see this attachment.

Please login or register to see this attachment.

Please login or register to see this attachment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Answers 42
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters For This Question

Top Posters For This Question

Posted Images

Recommended Posts

  • 0
2 hours ago, petergebruers said:
  • All it needs is... a steady source of hot water and battery. And this brings us to the issue of room thermostat and boiler control. The boiler should take care of the hot water problem. It has a boiler thermostat, and possibly some settings and maybe an external probe. You see, I do not mention a "room thermostat" when I talk about boiler control, this is intentional. Please read on.

 

2 hours ago, petergebruers said:
  • If your boiler is less than about 20 years old, and you already have Thermostatic Radiator Valves on all radiators, then you almost certainly do not need a room thermostat, so please remove your room thermostat. You also do not need scripts and relays to control your boiler. This is a general advice. It *always* surprises people. It seems like magic, no boiler control and no room thermostat, yet the idea behind it is simple... Please give it some thought then fully dismiss the idea if you do not like it. Like electrical systems, heating systems come in to many variants. To give 100% accurate advice, you'll have to tell a lot more and I cannot answer all questions, that's what a heating specialist is for... Also, you do whatever you want so below you'll find scripts for boiler control anyway. Instead of a room thermostat, I recommend an outside probe to help your boiler controller to determine the optimal water temperature. Again, if it is less than 20 years old you either already have one or your boiler controller has an input to attach one.

 

2 hours ago, petergebruers said:

Any questions? Go ahead! There are no stupid questions... I learn from people asking questions, either because it makes me formulate the answer or makes me aware of things I do not know! Thats good!

 

Starting from the third quote... I'm going direct to the first and second one: my source of hot water into radiators is less than 20 years old. It is Immergas Eolo Star 24E.

Please login or register to see this image.

 

It deliver hot water into radiators at my desired temperature (60 oC). It is deliver it "permanent" at the same temperature but only "on demand", when the room thermostat is requesting it (in our case, a scene in HC when the heating panel is starting the scene).

The boiler is pumping the hot water at the same temperature in all rooms. That's why I need to use the TRVs: to keep different temperatures in different rooms.

But let's speak about only one room.

 

2 hours ago, petergebruers said:

You also do not need scripts and relays to control your boiler

How the boiler will know when to start heating and when to stop? 

 

2 hours ago, petergebruers said:

You can install a TRV, set the thing to 24 °C if you like that, and it will start to open and close the valve

After reaching 24, the TRV will close the valve. What about the boiler? Will still run in my case...

 

Or maybe I miss something...

Edited by adyboss
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0
1 hour ago, adyboss said:

How the boiler will know when to start heating and when to stop? 

 

After reaching 24, the TRV will close the valve. What about the boiler? Will still run in my case...

 

I have similar setup, so let me answer what you can do:

 

- the boiler have to run always (bad, as it does consume always energy, even if you set TRV to off)

 

or (with less energy consumption, but still my boiler is running longer than with original thermostat):

 

- the boiler will get "off" command as soon the TRV with highest set temperature (in my case living room, where my sleeping room have lowest set temperature) has been reached for at least 10minutes. No window check here, that was too complex.

 

- the boiler will get "on" command as soon the actual temp on TRV (with highest set temperature) is lower than 1° as the set temperature and no window has been opened in last 15minutes. If window was opened, after 30minutes (that was actually bit too high this winter), the boiler then get on (as auto protection from under-temperature)

 

This setup allows me to use FGT001 (actually with FGR sensor) for all rooms (with lower set temp as living room), and MCO Home thermostat for living room (actually connected between my original thermostat - set to max - and boiler, just to allow data flow from my original thermostat to boiler, dirty but working hack).

 

My setup is experimental, so i will not share any code, but you can get an idea how it can be setup. 

 

Btw, there is lot of discussion about Fibaro Heat Controller not working properly, i'm sure some customer have just understanding issues, some environment issues, and other Fibaro TRV problems. For me, i did created simple scene, running for all Fibaro TRVs together with heating plans (when using them without heating plan, probably the way @petergebruers described is better, my scene need Fibaro TRV with heating plans setup!). Here my scene, nothing to set, as it does takes all Fibaro TRVs in account, and if they running manually (or it will get OTA firmware update in the future), my scene will simply ignore them:

 

Please login or register to see this code.

My approach is to read scheduled values, to set twice a hour Fibaro TRV to same temp value in manual mode (for 5 mins) and then back to heating plan scheduled settings, and to resync heating plan scheduled values once a hour to all Fibaro TRVs.

 

Since i'm using it, there is no temperature "drift" in one or other direction ( i do record the temperature in the office room as well with two other temp servers, to be able to compare what Fibaro TRV is measuring and what others do). 

 

 

Please login or register to see this attachment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0
  • Inquirer
  • Hi All, thanks for your posts. 

     

      @

    Please login or register to see this link.

    Whilst I understand exactly what you've said and I do agree with you on all points; I still feel that there is an issue. 

    At the moment, to avoid any relay issues with the boiler being turned on/off - its always set to on. 

     

    However the TRVs are not opening in rooms which are cold; i.e. 

    Bed 6 which room temp from additional TRV sensors is showing16c. 

    If I manually turn the TRV to "red" light on the top the room heats and then the TRV reverts back to its default temperature (which is what I expect). 

     

    My issue atleast is why is the TRV not opening itself when its own internal sensor and the bluetooth sensor are reporting its too cold from its current (default) set point?

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0
    8 minutes ago, h2009 said:

    At the moment, to avoid any relay issues with the boiler being turned on/off - its always set to on. 

     

    This cannot be acceptable in my situation.

     

    10 minutes ago, h2009 said:

    However the TRVs are not opening in rooms which are cold; i.e. 

    Bed 6 which room temp from additional TRV sensors is showing16c. 

    If I manually turn the TRV to "red" light on the top the room heats and then the TRV reverts back to its default temperature (which is what I expect).

     

    As @petergebruers explained (with a lot of tests and graphs), the TRV crash and not responding to commands. I think this is your problem (maybe @petergebruers will confirm it or correct me).

    Mine is why TRV is closing too early, stopping me to achieve the desired temperature set :)

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0
    3 hours ago, adyboss said:

    Or maybe I miss something...

     

    You have carefully read my topic, I appreciate that!

     

    You have picked some interesting quotes and you have provided useful remarks.

     

    No, you do not miss something, al the information is in fact in your own post. No, my boiler and your boiler won't explode without a room thermostat.

     

    I thikn... You have all the correct information, but you are "not adding it up properly" but you are nearly there. Let me do that for you and you will never be confused again.

     

    At the moment... Your heating system has THREE types of thermostats (probably more but I am not counting some safety devices as thermostats though they actually qualify as such).

     

    They are all autonomous systems... but they are tied together in your setup, through the water, or because they are in the same room, or because you wrote code to "influence" them. So although they work independently, what they do, also influences the other thermostats. Please, think about that statement for a moment, it is very important.

     

    Important questions to ask:

    • What is the thermostat measuring? What sensor does it use? Does it expose the measured value? Sometimes it does (FGT-001 plus external sensor, Popp LC derived, my Viessmann controller) - sometimes it does not (FGT-001 without sensor, Danfoss LC12 and LC13).
    • What is the target temperature? Where does it come from? If you say: 25 ° degrees, where does this number come from? Is it a dial? Is it some computer algorithm? Does it depend on time of day?
    • What is it controlling? Does it open/close a valve? Does it turn on/off something? Does it set motor speed? Does it set heating power output of furnace?
    • What algorithm does it use? 50 years ago, it was a mercury switch connected to a thermometer... If the vial tipped, it opened or closed the electrical contact, starting/stopping your heating system (burner and/or pump). Nowadays, such simple on-off control is almost never used. It usually is some form of PID controller, which stands for "Proportional Integral Derivative controller ". Actually, it is probably a self-tuning PI controller. The D is not used very often (because it can lead to instability), and the PI controller in your house appliances uses clever tricks to determine the operating parameters. Otherwise you would have to use some kind of "tuning protocol" to adapt it to your specific need. This might sound like I am hitting you with some mumbo-jumbo but there is an important message: your thermostat is probably not doing on/off control! if you want to know more about control systems, you'll have to look up PID...
    • What is this thermostat influenced by? It is related to the previous questions. Think of anything that might "throw off" regulation. For instance, if you open your fridge, cool air escapes.

    Now is the right time to try to answer that of any thermostat you can think of. Maybe... apply this to your fridge?

     

    So now let us investigate the three kinds of thermostats, and answer those questions.

     

    (A) TRVs on your radiators.

    • What is the thermostat measuring? They measure (or at least "estimate") room temperature.
    • What is the target temperature? This has been discussed in the previous post, the set-point comes from a combination of "turning the knob", the app, the heating panel and Lua code you wrote. 
    • What is it controlling? It adjusts the water flow of your individual radiator. It opens the valve by a certain amount, often expressed as a ratio, for example: it opens by 10%.
    • What algorithm does it use? All TRVs known to me are self learning PID controllers, not simple on/off. This is important to know if you want to understand its behavior.
    • What is this thermostat influenced by? They are influenced by the water temperature, and the heat loss (or production). If the water gets hotter, same valve opening means more heat so temperature will rise. Higher temperature differential (inside - outside) means more loss so temperature drops. If you invite 10 people, turn on your valve amplifier (tube amplifier) and the TV then temperature will rise due to the introduction of an external power source. And there is more...

    (B) Boiler Thermostat

    • What is the thermostat measuring?  The sensor is in the boiler. it measures the temperature of the water. A pump moves the water, so it is not a "static" thing. Cold water enters, hot water exits...
    • What is the target temperature? Your computer has a target temperature, in your case it is 60 degrees C but I all talk about that later. You are clearly aware of the fact it exists, you say: "It deliver hot water into radiators at my desired temperature (60 degrees C). I use an outside temperature sensor, and my "computer" calculates the set-point on that temperature and a few parameters.
    • What is it controlling? Whenever there is "a call for heat" it will control the heating element (electricity, oil burner, gas burner). Some heaters have different levels (for instance: it could have 3 gas burners so it can turn on 1, 2 or 3 different levels). For sake of completeness... Some of you have a mixing valve, with underfloor heating this is very common. In this case, you can think of the two systems (heating element + mixing valve) to act as one control to reach the desired temperature. Now you probably want to talk about "call for heat" and I will come to that later.
    • What algorithm does it use? All heating systems known to me are self learning PID controllers, with added parameters, sensors and logic. To be honest, I only know 3 systems very well and they are all about 15 years old. Mine is a Viessmann. It has about 100 configuration parameters and options. It's connected to an oil burner and a mixing valve. The other one is a Vaillant gas system, it has even more settings. I won't go into detail because the important message is this. Do not underestimate the intelligence of your "boiler". To give you an example: your controller probably has some rules to avoid starting and stopping too often, because it can be inefficient and cause wear. So it might secretly run up to 65 degrees although it was set to 60, because it is more efficient to do so. To understand what your heating system is doing, you might need to find a "technical reference" and enter special diagnostic menus...
    • What is this thermostat influenced by?  Overly simplified, If temperature is below set-point it will start the heating element. During normal operation, cold water is pumped in. Hot water goes to the radiators and they cool the water. So the main influence is: "call for heat" or "demand for heat". This might surprise you, you were expecting "influenced by the room thermostat". Yes, that is true, in a way, but it is not the only factor! Let us assume you do not have a room thermostat and you force your system "always on". What will happen? The boiler makes water, in your case of 60 °C and your radiators cool it. So cold water enters the boiler and it will go into a certain on/off rhythm to make up for that temperature difference. Let us assume, you set all TRVs to 4 °C and they all close? What happens? Hot water leaves... the pump pumps it through a bypass (to keep the water flowing, because water cannot flow through the radiators) and hot water enters the boiler. So what does it do? Nothing... If the water is still 60 ° the controller is happy. Slowly (depending on the insulation of the boiler) temperature will drop. That heat is lost if your boiler is not in your house, but if it is... It could be the equivalent of a 60 W light bulb and heat is not lost (it goes into your house). But I am digressing. The important messag is: the on/off cycles are influenced by the amount of heat required by the radiators? No heat required? No heat produced! Some controllers have intelligent pump control, they can turn of the pump if there is no heat demand (to save power and wear). Or you might have a pump with constant pressure control, which adapts its running speed to the opening or closing of the radiators.

    This is the right time to have a coffee break and also maybe have a biscuit. And google that reference manual of your heating system.

     

    (C) Room Thermostat.

     

    Firstly, do you have a room thermostat? I bet most people do...

     

    And let us start with a fun fact... Some of you have a something that looks "room thermostat" but it is actually NOT a room THERMOSTAT. I have never seen anyone mention this, but I know they exist and in fact I am one of those very few that own one! You might not know you have one too! To make it even more confusing, if your device has a very fancy graphical interface, and shows you a number, say 21 ° you might be convinced it IS a thermostat. If it looks like a duck... and quacks like a duck and walks like a duck then it must be a duck? In this case, not. It might have no sensor so it does not measure room temperature and so does not control temperature at all. But it might be setting the target temperature for your "computer" so it knows what the water temperature should be. Although I bet they are rare, I really recommend you try to find out, whether that fancy device on the wall is actually a "thermostat" and not a remote control. Because the next part only applies to real thermostats!

     

    You think you need one, but let's first determine what it does.

     

    • What is the thermostat measuring? Assuming it is a real thermostat (see previous paragraph!) it has a sensor inside its box, mounted to a wall, hopefully away from heat sources. So it measures something between air temperature and wall temperature which might be a more optimal thing than a TRV, with its sensor inside the head, close to the radiator or maybe under a cold window.
    • What is the target temperature? I would say, generally, they look like "the heating panel" on your Home Center. So it has a clock, you have your day and night preferences, and a dial to override that schedule. It might have all sorts of bells and whistles, but basically it is the home owner who puts in the data.
    • What is it controlling? This is were it gets tricky. Does it control the boiler? Have a look at the documentation. The thermostat might output some sort of on-off signal. Off clearly means... no heat. But on means... See point (B) above. If you have a more advanced "room thermostat" (which may be not a thermostat at all!) those 2 wires might use a digital protocol! My Viessman is old, but it is all-digital. The two wires do not turn on or off my heating system. It looks like a thermostat, and it can be used as such, but not in my case. So it looks like a duck, but it is not a duck. My "Vitotrol 300" might be using an early version of a protocol called "opentherm". I cannot tell you a lot about opentherm, I have read about it on wikipedia. 

      Please login or register to see this link.

    • What algorithm does it use? If it is an electronic device, with an output contact for boiler control, it will be some kind of PID. If it is really, really old, it might be an on-off type aka "bang-bang" aka "hysteretic" - but it would surprise me if you still have one of these... Maybe you own a NEST? 

      Please login or register to see this link.

       I quote: "

      Your Nest thermostat starts learning from you on day one. But it will take several days to learn and start using a temperature schedule.

      During the learning period, it’s up to you to teach your Nest thermostat good habits to help save energy. Turn it down before you go to bed, before you leave for work, or any time you would turn down a regular thermostat to save energy. Your thermostat will learn what temperatures you like and when you want them, and create a temperature schedule to help save energy and keep you comfortable.

      When it’s finished learning, your thermostat will know when to automatically turn the temperature up or down for each day of the week. ". So as far as I understand it, it is a self learning PID which does not take a fixed schedule, but rather tries to find out that schedule by itself.

    • What is this thermostat influenced by? It measures temperature where it is installed, and everything which influences your TRVs also influences your room thermostat.

    Let us investigate 2 different scenarios. Users participating in this topic probably have All three thermostat types. I only have two.

     

    TRVs + Boiler thermostat + Room thermostat.

     

    • I am not saying it cannot work. That would be stupid, because clearly users have tried it. I am not calling anybody a liar.
    • But I do claim, it might work because of some coincidence and because the real world does not always match the theory...
    • I have strong indictions, almost all users struggle with this: "but how do I turn on the boiler if I have multiple TRVs". That question has been posted several times, and usually people end up implementing a Lua scene which basically does this: "If a TRV is set higher than a certain reference point, in ANY room, then increase the setting of the room thermostat so the boiler certainly turns on".
    • After you have read all this... don't you thing "something does not feel right"? You have a room thermostat, but you are kind of overruling it, by using some Lua script? Don't you get a gut feeling, the thermostat is no longer a thermostat?
    • Also, people ask... Why in the world, does the Home Center NOT have any on/off signal for the boiler? Why don't they have this, so we can avoid scripting. Same thing about the FGT-001. Why don't all FGT-001 talk to each other, so I can determine "if one of them is open, so I can turn on the boiler?". Don't you think such a glaring omission is in fact... not needed? After all those years, some TRV manufacturer would have thought of that?

    I am not trying to insult all clever people who came up with "boiler control scripts". It probably works. I see @tinman posted his setup, and I am not going to comment on it, but all boiler scripts users say "I had to do this the because without this, the boiler will run all the time and it will cost a lot and cause wear". No, it does not run all the time, I can show you the graphs, and the extra wear and energy loss in my case is about 1%.

     

    I am going to make an assumption: you only have one room thermostat, and TRVs in all rooms, including the room with the room thermostat. Let's call that room "the main room". Also, let us assume your room thermostat really turns your boiler on and off (on meaning: the boiler thermostat kicks in to control the water temperature, e.g. set to 60 degrees C).

     

    In that case... You have 2 "fighting" thermostats. Which one wins?

     

    • Suppose you set your TRV and your room thermostat to the same setting, for example: 21 degrees C. That will work, right? Let's try to find out.
    • Suppose, the TRV is close to a window. So actually, it thinks it is very cold in the room, colder than it actually is. So it will try to heat more, and if you were to measure in the middle of the room, it would probably get hotter than 21 degrees C. So the valve opens 10%... not enough.... 20%... not enough... And so on. Let's assume at 50% we get close to the target temperature at the valve site, but that gives 22 degrees in the room.
    • At the same time, the room thermostat, which is on a wall that is heated by another room, actually thinks it is slightly hotter in the room than it actually is in the middle of the room. While the valve is opening, the room thermostat detects temperature is getting closer and closer to 21 °C. So it *decreases* the on/off rhythm of your boiler. this means... less hot water for the valve.
    • You see where I am getting at? The controls are "fighting". While the valve opens, the boiler decreases power output. Then the valve opens even more, temperature increases, but the room thermostat further reduces power output? Which one is going to win this fight?
    • In a lab, in an idealized setup, the TRV will go 100% open because it thinks it cannot reach the target temperature (because it is in a cool spot). The room thermostat wins the fight, it decreases the power output until the room temperature is 21 degrees.

    Now you may argue... "but it WORKS, does it not"? Yes, indeed, but in this case *you can remove your TRV* because it is not in the control loop! Just take it off, and it will give exactly the same result!

     

    I could turn this upside down and in this case, you'll find that the TRV wins, and that the room thermostat will go out of the regulation, and you can remove it...

     

    There is a reason why you can still get adequate control and it has to do with "elasticity" of the control loops (I do not think it is a technical term...). Imagine you attach two strings to an object. If you pull one to the left and the other to the right, one side wins and the object either follows your left hand or your right hand. Now use two rubber bands instead of strings. Can you control the object a bit with your left hand? And a bit with your right hand? In this case, your controllers might agree on some equilibrium!

     

    It is also quite possible your controllers oscillate, and your room temperature oscillates (now you see what this is all about! Check that temperature, check that control loop!).

     

    Time for another coffee break! Or one of your favorite beverages. I bet your head explodes, because mine does.

     

    But you want to know why I can run a system without a room thermostat, don't you?

     

    Let's quickly reread "(B) Boiler Thermostat" several paragraphs back. What would happen if I "close my room thermostat". Again: I do not have a real room thermostat, it is a digital controller, so "closing my room thermostat" does not make sense to me. In fact, as per default, my controller does not take into account room temperature. If I wanted a room thermostat, I could simply go into the configuration menu of my controller and enable it, then set another parameter to "how much influence the room thermostat has on the water temperature". I understand, this sounds weird, because you think a room thermostat per definition would turn the heater ON or OFF. I simply cannot do that!

     

    If you have no room thermostat... Your heating system produces water of a certain temperature! I controls the on-off rhythm of the heating element to reach that temperature. If *nobody* is using that heat, it stops!

     

    So... To answer these questions I asked a few paragraphs back: *** Why in the world, does the Home Center NOT have any on/off signal for the boiler?  Why don't all FGT-001 talk to each other, so I can determine "if one of them is open, so I can turn on the boiler? ***

     

    That is because... your TRVs really DO TALK to your boiler, by opening and closing the valve! If they are open, cold water gets pumped in and the boiler thermostat turns on the oil or gas burner. If they are shut, there is no cold water and temperature does not drop (it drops, very slowly).

     

    You do not have to believe me... I only want to share this because I hope you'll try to get that technical info on your heating system, then study it. The system you have, might not be as stupid as you think!

     

    I would like to conclude with two suggestions.

     

    • Set your room thermostat to something high, 2 degrees above the highest TRV setting. Monitor the system during 24 hours. What happens?
    • Water temperature has an impact on how fast you can heat a room, but it also determines how "easy" it is to control! It can really be too low or too high... I can spend another post on this... But I am tired right now! I use an outdoor probe on a north facing wall...

    It took me almost 4 hours to write this post... While I was typing this, at least two users chimed in but I am too tired to respond right now...

     

    Also, I would like to apologize for my style... When I reread this, I almost sound like I know everything, I am the only one with the knowledge and "thou shall remove those room thermostats". That is not what I want to say, I tried to write something useful and I (oversimplified). I feel like I HAD to simplify, because I could write five more of these posts. To remove some part of the arrogance, I would have had to spend another 4 hours, at least, and I am simply too tired. And I do feel some urgency, because there are quite a few topics on the FGT-001 and I bet only part of the issues you experience is due to the algorithms, firmware, bugs or whatever you would like to call it. I am not trying to defend the FGT-001, I am trying to tell you "hey, I spend hours on this topic, reading, graphing and experimenting, and I want to share this. Heating might be much more complicated than you thought it was...".

     

    Any questions? Go ahead! There are no stupid questions... I learn from people asking questions, either because it makes me formulate the answer or makes me aware of things I do not know! Thats good!

     

     

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0
  • Inquirer
  • @

    Please login or register to see this link.

     

     

    Thanks for your post. 

     

    6 minutes ago, petergebruers said:

    TRVs + Boiler thermostat + Room thermostat.

     

    • I am not saying it cannot work. That would be stupid, because clearly users have tried it. I am not calling anybody a liar.
    • But I do claim, it might work because of some coincidence and because the real world does not always match the theory...
    • I have strong indictions, almost all users struggle with this: "but how do I turn on the boiler if I have multiple TRVs". That question has been posted several times, and usually people end up implementing a Lua scene which basically does this: "If a TRV is set higher than a certain reference point, in ANY room, then increase the setting of the room thermostat so the boiler certainly turns on".
    • After you have read all this... don't you thing "something does not feel right"? You have a room thermostat, but you are kind of overruling it, by using some Lua script? Don't you get a gut feeling, the thermostat is no longer a thermostat?
    • Also, people ask... Why in the world, does the Home Center NOT have any on/off signal for the boiler? Why don't they have this, so we can avoid scripting. Same thing about the FGT-001. Why don't all FGT-001 talk to each other, so I can determine "if one of them is open, so I can turn on the boiler?". Don't you think such a glaring omission is in fact... not needed? After all those years, some TRV manufacturer would have thought of that?

     

    I see what you are saying and understand it; so let me give more information on my case: 

     

    Boiler = System boiler (Worcester Bosch) - 3 Zones // 1= Hot Water - 2= Under floor heating[controled by heat miser] - 3= Central heating 

    ------> All of the above have the same 'set temperature' controlled by a dial on the boiler to give a flow water rate of 70c 

     

    In my topic I'm only talking about 3 - Central Heating. All my radiators have Fibaros TRVs + the additional sensor

    The trigger to open the zone for central heating is a secure Z-wave switch - However for my testing its always set to 'ON' 

    There is no additional rooms stats of any kind. 

     

    I should also add my setups is completely brand new (boiler/plumbing/rads/etc). 

     

    The only room control to determine heat is set from the TRV on each radiator. Given the Fibaro talk about temperature readings I'm referring to the TRV are thermostatic (not thermostats). 

    A TRV's job is simply to regulate the flow of water at given set points (this might be '1 to 5', '0 to 30c' or even 'A to D') its not really important however the symbol given to measure the flow is. 

    In Fibaro's TRV sense they use Degrees. 

    And in my situation the the TRV isn't regulating itself at all, at any given set point; unless I manually turn the the TRV heat to one extreme. 

     

    Let me give you another actual example: 

    A room has 2 radiators; 1 radiator has a Fibaro TRV and the other has a traditional TRV (1 - 5 numbers on it) - See attached for the 'match up' between 1 to 5 and degrees. 

    Now in the room which reading 16c (measurement from 3rd device) 

    The traditional TRV set to '3' radiator is hot until the room temperature reach 18c whereby the radiators goes warm. At a room temperature of 21c, the radiator is cold/luke warm 

     

    However at each point 16c / 18c / 21c the Fibaro TRV radiators is stone cold; unless I manually turn the dial on the TRV to Red or Magenta. 

     

    Please login or register to see this attachment.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0

    To all users... Thank you for your insightful answers and remarks.

     

    I cannot respond to all post right now but let's make one thing clear...

     

    • FGT-001  FW 4.0 can crash "open" or "closed".
    • The issue was confirmed by Fibaro on december, 19 of 2017. I'll put a link to that post.
    • Some people seem to very happy with this FGT, it does not seem as if all users are affected.
    • I wrote these long 2 posts because depending on your setup, you might not notice the crashes, or they simply work for you.
    • Fibaro has identified "a bad calculation" and is preparing and testing a new firmware, OTA, for all HC users.
    • There is no official ETA but support told me "fixed Q1 2018".

    I hope this helps...

     

     

    Edited by petergebruers
    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0

    Thanks @petergebruers, I now own 3 FGT-001's. Today I noticed an issue with the last two I bought.

    They were still heating while should be closed because of temperature excited the set limit. 

    First I went trying to fix this in the heating panel, didn't help. then I tested a lot of open/ close set temp commands.

    As this didn't solve the problem I looked further. Turend out that the old valves in my heating system didn't close completely. tried a few more things. Then I placed back the old TRV's and still the same.

    So the problem wasn't the FGT-001's but the valves itselfs. I never noticed because I am at work before the heating starts or working on the house so I don't go into the bathroom or kids room.

     

    TL;DR: not closing CAN be caused by the valves and NOT the FGT-001's. tomorrow I'll try a brand new valve "in hand" and see if it will close completely

    The valves are:Danfoss RN-A that are +/- 20 years old. As I am replacing the complete heating system I will not repurpose those valves.

     

    Jim

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0

    wind direction sensor installed and running :D 

     

    I will try to explain my configuration. Remember that my English is not very good.

    I am using it 2 years with satisfactory results,
    1  boiler gasoil
    12 TRV popp (with room temperature sensor) (1st year use Danfoss LC13)
    12 zones
    1 relay to activate the water circuit of the boiler
    Fibaro heating panel to manage hours, temperature and heat demand.
    A VD in each room to operate the heating panel (in case I want to change time settings or temperatures I do not have to go to the panel interface). The VD adjusts the 4 times, temperatures and cancels or turns on the heating panel). I use the option to cancel the heat panel if the windows open more than 10 min. When they close again activate the panel with scenes, to cancel the zone press the OFF button and to activate it again press the ON button.

     

    1.-adjust in each room the thermostat as main (the heating panel will use this thermostat)
    1.- in panel, connected devices, associate to each room the temperature sensor that we want to use with boiler relay and assign to the room.
    2.- in panel, heating panel, create the zones and assign to each zone the rooms.
    3.-in each zone adjust the schedule of hours and target temperatures.

    VD configuration
    1.-indicate in the field 'port' the ID of the zone of the heating panel.
     

    Please login or register to see this attachment.

     

    well, as @petergebruers said the TRV open and close according to their criteria, they do not inform when they open or close, and they are not related to the temperature sensors.
    Then the room temperature sensor can indicate 21.9º with a target temperature of 22º, then the active panel demands heat and activates the relay of the boiler, but the TRV does not open the valve because it considers that it is not necessary yet . So to solve this, what I do is that the temperature sensors of the room in connected devices I adjust an offset of +1 in the configuration of the device, this way it informs as if there were 1º of more in the room. So if the temperature drops to 21.9 degrees it's really 20.9 degrees and the TRV has already opened the valve before. That's why I said more behind that 1º of difference is not appreciated and is sure that the TRV opened the valve to receive heat.
    He has been 2 years and the residents of the house have never complained :P

    Edited by rls46
    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0

    Hi @rls46,

     

    15 hours ago, rls46 said:

    temperature sensor can indicate 21.9º with a target temperature of 22º, then the active panel demands heat and activates the relay of the boiler, but the TRV does not open the valve because it considers that it is not necessary yet

    This is the FGT's bug :/

     

    15 hours ago, rls46 said:

    I adjust an offset of +1 in the configuration of the device, this way it informs as if there were 1º of more in the room. So if the temperature drops to 21.9 degrees it's really 20.9 degrees and the TRV has already opened the valve before

    And now the heating is starting (the relay of the boiler is ON) - valve being opened already

     

    I think only now I understand what you mean (sorry... I was slow... my fault not yours :) )

     

    Unfortunately for me, this mean on tablet UI (installed on wall) I wil have a wrong temperatura value presented (1 oC more).

    What you have declared as "main thermostat" and what as "main temp sensor" for that room?

     

     

     

    16 hours ago, petergebruers said:
    • FGT-001 can crash "open" or "closed".
    • The issue was confirmed by Fibaro on december, 19 of 2017. I'll put a link to that post.
    • Some people seem to very happy with this FGT, it does not seem as if all users are affected.
    • I wrote these long 2 posts because depending on your setup, you might not notice the crashes, or they simply work for you.
    • Fibaro has identified "a bad calculation" and is preparing and testing a new firmware, OTA, for all HC users.
    • There is no official ETA but support told me "fixed Q1 2018".

    Hi @petergebruers,

    I think it should be added my and @rls46 problem too:

    • FGT-001 valve is closing too early and reaching setpoint is not possible

    Or maybe this can be included in "Fibaro has identified "a bad calculation" and is preparing and testing a new firmware, OTA, for all HC users."

     

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0
    1 hour ago, adyboss said:

    I think only now I understand what you mean (sorry... I was slow... my fault not yours :) )

    As I said, my English is very bad ;D

     

    1 hour ago, adyboss said:
    17 hours ago, rls46 said:

    I adjust an offset of +1 in the configuration of the device, this way it informs as if there were 1º of more in the room. So if the temperature drops to 21.9 degrees it's really 20.9 degrees and the TRV has already opened the valve before

    And now the heating is starting (the relay of the boiler is ON) - valve being opened already

    exact

     

    1 hour ago, adyboss said:

    Unfortunately for me, this mean on tablet UI (installed on wall) I wil have a wrong temperatura value presented (1 oC more).

     

     

    1 hour ago, adyboss said:

    What you have declared as "main thermostat" and what as "main temp sensor" for that room?

     

    If you have more than one device that measures the temperature of the room (sometimes with several devices can happen, door sensors, motion sensors, etc), use another as the main sensor of the room to display correctly on the tablet or phone mobile.

    Main temperature sensor configured in the room does not affect the heating panel, only the sensor configured in linked devices.
    since I have duplicate temperature sensors, I use as main the one that shows the correct values temperature in tablet and smartphone.
    Thermostat as main in the room affects the heating panel, it will be this thermostat where the panel will send the temperature settings according to the schedules.

    Edited by rls46
    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0
    38 minutes ago, rls46 said:

    Main temperature sensor configured in the room does not affect the heating panel, only the sensor configured in linked devices.

     

    38 minutes ago, rls46 said:

    Thermostat as main in the room affects the heating panel, it will be this thermostat where the panel will send the temperature settings according to the schedules.

     

    WOW! I will try this approach :)

    Thank you for the tip.

    Edited by adyboss
    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0
    2 hours ago, adyboss said:

    Or maybe this can be included in "Fibaro has identified "a bad calculation" and is preparing and testing a new firmware, OTA, for all HC users."

     

    You have a point... I'll edit my previous post.

    Edited by petergebruers
    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0
    7 hours ago, rls46 said:

     

    Main temperature sensor configured in the room does not affect the heating panel, only the sensor configured in linked devices.
    since I have duplicate temperature sensors, I use as main the one that shows the correct values temperature in tablet and smartphone.
    Thermostat as main in the room affects the heating panel, it will be this thermostat where the panel will send the temperature settings according to the schedules.

    Hmm, this should be in the manual....

     

    I just tried linking my motion sensor temperature, but when I click "add device" I cant choose the TVR.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0
    58 minutes ago, jimicr said:

    I just tried linking my motion sensor temperature, but when I click "add device" I cant choose the TVR.

     

    I think, this has always been the case. The FGT-001 can only be linked with its dedicated sensor.

     

    The "Linked Device" is designed to make your own thermostatic device based on a sensor and a relay. A TRV already is a thermostat... A thermostat, by definition, contains a temperature sensor and drives something (a relay, a valve, a boiler) to reach a certain temperature. BTW I do not use linked devices, I cannot tell much about them.

     

    If you want a sensor to control a TRV, you can send target temperature or ON / OFF to the FGT-001 (a little bit of Lua code)... But I would not do that. If you make an error, it might get very hot very quickly. Also, on-off control is not the best algorithm. But it is possible.

     

     

    Edited by petergebruers
    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0

    Thanks for your reply @petergebruers, I am new to the FGT-001 and only had them a couple of days so still tinkering with them in the middle of rebuilding the house.

    So if there is a tempsensor inside the FGT-001, is there anyway we can get the reading? I could only find the set temperature in "value".

     

    I might be looking at this all wrong, just trying to understand the device

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0

    @jimicr on connected devices?
    here only temperature sensor and relay actuator

    TRV is not added to the heating panel or connected devices, only configured as the main room thermostat. The heating panel will send the adjustment values to the main thermostat configured in the room.

    -----
    the summary of how the system works is,
    create linked devices (temp + relay) is assigned to a room
    Heating panel, create zone and assign rooms.
    then, when the temperature sensor configured in connected devices falls below the temperature of the control panel, it activates the relay every minute in a loop until the value of the temperature sensor rises above the value set in the control panel.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0
    4 minutes ago, jimicr said:

    So if there is a tempsensor inside the FGT-001, is there anyway we can get the reading?

     

    The FGT-001 only displays temperature if you add the external sensor. Without the sensor, it displays "--". It costs 15 EUR when bought seperately. I published this topic to help you decide if you want it or not:

     

     

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0

    Thanks for your reply @rls46 I have a mixed system now, 3 FGT-001's and a lot of very old TRV's and normal valves. Most of the old stuff will be gone in a year or 2 - 3 as I am planning underfloorheating when the ground floor is being rebuild.

    Just try to get to know the ins and outs of the Fibaro TRV's.

    Thanks @petergebruers will look at it!

     

    Jim

     

    P.s. The external temp sensors are a no-go for me, the FGT-001's are in my kids rooms (aged 4 and 6) I am sure if I'd buy the lot that Fibaro produced it still wouldn't be enough to reach 2019 ;)

     

    Edited by jimicr
    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    • 0

    Doing this on my phone after a short night, so sorry in advance. 

    I have opentherm thermostat in the living room that is the big boss of the heating. 

    So if I am thinking right: without the extra temp sensors for the fgt001 and no relay switch on the kettle the heating panel is of no use for me?

     

    Jim

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Join the conversation

    You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

    Guest
    Answer this question...

    ×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

      Only 75 emoji are allowed.

    ×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

    ×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

    ×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


    ×
    ×
    • Create New...