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How much the valve is open (Fibaro Heat Controller)


speedy

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I'm going to chime in on this post since I'm in the exact same situation.

@petergebruers, I've read all your posts and references (just stating that beforehand).

 

Keeping a boiler running all the time is NOT a solution. Yes, boilers have controllers for the pumps and burners to make sure it does not exceed the threshold agent temperature.   The pump pressure sensors are there as a fallback, and was designed to handle comfort zone valves, but not designed to run constantly under high pressure.

So sum it up, the CONS of keeping the boiler always running:

  1. Excessive stress on the pump and burner
  2. Transport circuit is always heated even when ambient room temperature has been achieved. 
    1. You have more running agent in your transport circuit than in your radiators. There are CONS here: energy used to heat up the agent is a constant "leak".
    2. The heating circuit produces wasted heat when not needed.
    3. Anti-frost mode is impossible to automate since the boiler will keep the whole circuit heated.
  3. Condensation based boilers do not work in this scenario. They need the water temperature to be at max. 50C, usually 43-45C. The temperature sensor on the returning agent is much more sensitive (a drop of 1C on return turns the boiler back on).

To give you a concrete example: I have multiple apartments, ranging from 2-4 rooms each. The first few I bought were set up with a boiler and mechanical TRVs. The last two were set up with boilers and room thermostats (one per apartment). The cost was 45% on average higher on the apartments with TRVs and no thermostat due to the boiler "leaking" by running all the time (with burner and pump adjusting according to return agent temperature). Just to be clear, the comparison was done on radiators with the same size and the same targeted room temperature.

I later exchanged the mechanical TRVs with Danfoss Z-Wave TRVs. I can't really provide a cost efficiency reports on them because they were a complete and utter failure (didn't open/close, some got stuck, etc. a whole mess of a problem). So 12 Danfoss TRVs in the trash (or the "recycle" bin in my lab).

 

Now, I agree with you that what you proposed is a viable solution and works out just fine, if you ignore two aspects: energy efficiency and wear-and-tear on equipment.

I think most of us here want to automate our homes with efficiency and comfort in mind. I doubt anyone here, regardless of budget, simply does not care about spending more on heating than needed or wearing out their equipment.

 

The TRVs as they were designed now have a flaw. They were designed for central heating, as seen in the UK, Germany or other countries. They regulate the heat, without caring about the source.

This thread is is set up by us, weaker mortals, who actually care about the source of the heat. The problem we have is simple: we need to turn of heating when it's not needed, due to the reasons mentioned above. The comfort is already handled by the TRVs.

 

I do not agree that this problem is not a problem (which I see that the current topic seems to be heating towards). It is a problem which we're aiming to solve, in a ego-less manner.

 

Having the valve report the opening percentage would help us a lot. This would allow us to start the boiler when heating is needed. No, the heating panel linking is not a viable solution because if you have multiple rooms, it does not handle concurrent requests.

TRVs like Eurotronic Spirit Z-Wave Plus should report the percentage and help us. Unfortunately Fibaro does not support that TRV entirely (see the topic below)

 

 

I would very much have liked to use Fibaro devices for my home and the Heat Controller would have been great, but I have not seen any answer from Fibaro saying that they plan on reporting valve opening. Maybe I missed something.

 

In the meantime I managed to set up a script that does what I need with Eurotronic TRVs, but not to my liking: I can send full open/full close commands to the valve and also start/stop the boiler based on values reported by the TRV temperature sensor. This has been working for me for the past two weeks, but it's not ideal. I basically bypassed the "smart" part of the TRV, using it only as an actuator.

 

If anyone has other ideas, input or anything, I'd be more than happy to experiment.

 

As a final note: please understand that I do not want to ruffle anyone's feathers, step on toes or the likes. My aim is to find a solution to this problem, because it affects me and my plans for my home.

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1 hour ago, winromulus said:

Keeping a boiler running all the time is NOT a solution.

 

It depends somewhat on the intelligence of your controller... I have been doing that since about 2003. I never had a room thermostat (*).

My controller is a Viessman Vitotronic 300. I can send you the manual if you want me to do that... But it is rather dedicated to this controller and also very long.

 

I do not have all accessories but I do have a mixing valve.

 

Please login or register to see this attachment.

 

 

1 hour ago, winromulus said:

Excessive stress on the pump and burner

 

The pump has not worn out after 15 years. I do have a "bypass". I always ask people "do you have TRVs on all radiators (since the beginning, it does not matter which type) to establish if their heating circuit was designed with TRVs in mind. So they have a bypass, or if it is more recent, they have an advanced (pressure control) pump.

 

My burner is an non-modulation oil burner. It has no level between on and of. So, to produce hot water, it has to do that. The cycle times are determined by a few settings of my controller (an oil burn wants to limit cycles more than a gas burner).

 

If your house needs a certain amount of energy... Your burner has to start/stop at a certain rhythm... It does not matter if the TRVs or any other thermostat is in control.

 

This is a graph of the water temperature (departure). The sawtooth represents the cycling of the boiler.

 

C and E happens when the "domestic hot water" has priority over heating. This is a configuration option of my controller.

 

I can lower that temperature by 5 degrees, but then regulation in other rooms suffers a bit.

 

I need better windows, and better insulation to fix that...

 

Please login or register to see this image.

/monthly_2018_02/FGT_TEST_13.png.5e72f92f5d64189b2c91604b90f3a758.png" />

 

BTW temperature on the north side of my house is not on this graph because I did not have a Z-Wave sensor at that time. It is about 0 °C and the water temperature lags a bit (that is a configuration option) and it probably dipped a bit below 0 °C during the night.

 

My controller has also been set to target 16 °C during the night, so that water temperature drops between 23:30 and 06:30.

 

1 hour ago, winromulus said:

You have more running agent in your transport circuit than in your radiators. There are CONS here: energy used to heat up the agent is a constant "leak".

 

That depends on where that circuit is and what you consider to be a "leak".

 

It  not very significant in my house. The heat that leaks through the pipes, enters my house, so I do not think it is lost.

 

1 hour ago, winromulus said:

Anti-frost mode is impossible to automate since the boiler will keep the whole circuit heated.

I am not sure what you define as anti-frost mode...

 

If I were to leave my house for 15 days and set all my TRVs to 5 °C, the boiler would maybe sit at 50 °C. But I do not consider the heat through the pipes and boiler as "lost" - they help to reach that 5 °C when it is freezing...

 

I could also tell my heating system the target is 5 °C ( it uses weather compensation) so it produces water with just the right temperature. If you do not have that, you could set your boiler to produce water that is just hot enough to reach that 5 °C (poor man's weather compensation).

 

1 hour ago, winromulus said:

Condensation based boilers do not work in this scenario.

 

I can only advise you to check if your controller supports "weather compensation" and "demand heating".

 

Also... If your condensation system can heat all your rooms adequately when set to 40 degrees, then that is OK, is it not? I do not think I ever suggested to set it to 75 degrees or so... Of course, an outside probe for weather compensation will make your life a lot easier.

 

1 hour ago, winromulus said:

To give you a concrete example: I have multiple apartments, ranging from 2-4 rooms each. The first few I bought were set up with a boiler and mechanical TRVs. The last two were set up with boilers and room thermostats (one per apartment).

 

I do not live in an apartment, I do not own an apartment block. I cannot tell much about that.

 

I am talking about heating my house and controlling room temperature in all rooms in a house.

 

I am assuming you have a boiler per apartment? If your apartment has only 2 rooms, a room thermostat is an easy solution, because if you get the temperature right in one room, the other room will be OK too. If that other room is a bedroom, it will be even easier, your room with the thermostat is hotter than then the bedroom, so there is enough hot water to control temperature in that other room.

 

1 hour ago, winromulus said:

The cost was 45% on average higher on the apartments with TRVs and no thermostat due to the boiler "leaking" by running all the time (with burner and pump adjusting according to return agent temperature). Just to be clear, the comparison was done on radiators with the same size and the same targeted room temperature.

 

I want to discuss this with you, maybe in private, if you find the time and have more data to share. That 45 % seems very high too me. That cannot be due to efficiency on its own, so where has all the heat gone?

 

The issue with heating systems is... so much variation... Not only the heating system, but also rooms, room size, insulation, ventilation, climate, ... Also monitoring and diagnosing is not easy, it is a lot easier to measure volts or amps.

 

1 hour ago, winromulus said:

I later exchanged the mechanical TRVs with Danfoss Z-Wave TRVs. I can't really provide a cost efficiency reports on them because they were a complete and utter failure (didn't open/close, some got stuck, etc. a whole mess of a problem). So 12 Danfoss TRVs in the trash (or the "recycle" bin in my lab).

 

I am sorry to hear that. I partially understand what you are saying. I own 4 x LC-12 and 2 x LC-13 and I have issues with 2 of the LC-12 but the other ones are OK-ish. I'll report about the two FGT-001 plus external sensor to replace those LC-12 when Fibaro releases new firmware.

 

1 hour ago, winromulus said:

The TRVs as they were designed now have a flaw. They were designed for central heating, as seen in the UK, Germany or other countries. They regulate the heat, without caring about the source.

 

I am unsure what you mean by this. If you want to discuss this, can you please elaborate?

 

1 hour ago, winromulus said:

In the meantime I managed to set up a script that does what I need with Eurotronic TRVs, but not to my liking: I can send full open/full close commands to the valve and also start/stop the boiler based on values reported by the TRV temperature sensor. This has been working for me for the past two weeks, but it's not ideal. I basically bypassed the "smart" part of the TRV, using it only as an actuator.

 

Yes, I like that kind of experiment. I have done exactly the same with my FGT-001. To do that, I used a PID control algorithm, and turned the output of that algorithm into PWM output (because you cannot set the FGT to a certain "level").

 

In theory, the Spirit supports an opening % - it is in the manual - but it probably requires support from the Z-Wave controller.

 

Now, why would your own algorithm work better than that of the Spirit? This is an honest question! They claim they "learn" the parameters for their algorithm, then adjust the valve to get a certain temperature. Is their implementation flawed? I only tried this on an FGT because it has issues, and because it is fun to do. But it is not practical, too much actuator noise and battery drain (FGT has rechargeable cell, so that is less of a problem).

 

I get the impression, after 5 years of "not so much talk about heating" finally a lot of users seem to interested in temperature control.

 

This is good!

 

I hope you enjoy talking/reading about this as much as I do. Because this way, I learn something new on this forum every day! My lesson for today: some people do not heat houses, but they heat multiple apartments...

 

(*) Little white lie: the Vitotronic 300 combined with the Vitotrol-300 remote control (which I have) can do "pure weather compensation" or "pure room thermostat control" or "weather compensation + room temperature influence". I have toyed with all possibles settings so I can tell you a lot more about that.

 

 

Edited by petergebruers
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Hi @petergebruers

 

Regarding why the TRV algorithm is preferable, it will make it easier for you to not offshoot the desired temperature. Of course I can manually tune my scene until I get it right. Was hoping I don't have to.

I did not set it to full/closed on purpose, it was the only way I could control the valve. The TRV has a Boost (full open) and OFF mode (full close). I just toggle between the two. I agree about the actuator noise and possible battery drain (debatable if it's higher if done all at once or slowly, as done by the TRV).

 

Regarding central heating, what I meant was the TRVs were designed for multi-building or multi-floor dwellings, for lack of a better word. Basically apartment buildings with one boiler for all (where you need comfort zones as the central boiler runs non-stop) or houses, same as in your situation. They work great for ensuring the comfort.

In my situation, comfort is a need (hence TRV) but also efficiency. I do not want to keep the boiler running while heat is not needed and the "leak" (explained below) is a serious expense.

 

What I meant by leaking energy has more to do with keeping the boiler running non-stop. If certain rooms/areas/floors don't need heating or have been cut off entirely, the agent that is hot is running through the circuit. That circuit's heat dissipation is a loss (the significance depends on a lot of factors), but usually it results in quite an increase of cost.

The insulation around the pipes, thickness of walls, etc, all play a part, but in a building with 45cm walls of brick, with 10 cm exterior wall insulation and also insulation around the pipes, it still bleeds heat. I've monitored the boilers and they start heating for 1 minute in a 10 minute interval. That's 6 minutes of burning every hour. Again, no radiator on the circuit.

Apart from the gas being burned for nothing, the boiler's pump is running as well, which is an electricity drain as well.

 

By anti-frost I meant the freezing prevention mode the boiler has. The problem is a heat loss over time problem. If you set your house to maintain 5C, you're basically setting it as ambient temperature. Energy efficient anti-frost means keeping the heating agent at a minimum of 5C. This reduces costs a lot since you're not warming up the walls.

In theory a heat barrier is established somewhere around 18C. If your pipes are at 50C and there is no heat barrier, that means the exchange happens between your pipes and the exterior temperature directly (say 0C). The higher the temperature difference, the faster the heat transfer, the more the boiler has to start to compensate. If you have radiators as well, that's even faster (more exposed).

To summarize: maintaining 5C on agent is in a whole other ballpark than 50C on agent and 5C ambient.

 

Regarding the 45% cost increase: An apartment boiler (24kW-45kW) running for 5-6 minutes every hour non-stop will cost you. I paid those gas bills :)  The apartments I own are in the same building and the difference was a bit of a shock, both for me and the tenants I rent to. 45% was the average I had, for some people it might be more or less, depends on the factors mentioned, configuration etc. 

 

Now, back to what we wanted from the heat controller: basically we need two parameters: one to enable valve opening reports and second to configure opening value. I don't think anyone needs to actually control the TRV valve, just to know if it's open so we can start pumping some agent. I know this will result in some battery drainage, hence the option to disable if not useful (for configurations like your own). Still, I'd be more than happy to charge those batteries compared to the gas bills :) 

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Thank you for your elaborate answer. It would be interesting to have more data... Like what was the average room temperature, what was the water temperature (departure and return) and so on. 

 

35 minutes ago, winromulus said:

Regarding the 45% cost increase: An apartment boiler (24kW-45kW) running for 5-6 minutes every hour non-stop will cost you.

 

 

Yes. Do you mean it would run "5 -6" minutes extra? So it should not run that much (extra)? That is about 2.4 -> 4.5 kW so that is not the pump (my pump is 0.06 kW) so if you change from TRVs to room thermostat and everything stays the same (which is possible in a lab, but highly unlikely in real life) you say that amount of power disappears? Isn't it more likely, that one of the two scenarios produces a hotter room? Isn't it possible you have large windows facing south and one year was sunnier than the other?

 

43 minutes ago, winromulus said:

To summarize: maintaining 5C on agent is in a whole other ballpark than 50C on agent and 5C ambient.

You seem to think my heating system always produces water of 50°C, this is not the case. It depends on the difference between set-point (which is 21 °C during the day and 16 °C at night) and outdoor temperature. But indeed, there is an issue and I'll come to that later.

 

Outdoor temp right now is 9.1 °C , and water temperature is 34.6 °C.

 

If I wanted to leave the building on anti-freeze, I'd set my heating system to holiday mode, 5 °C, manually, because I do not have an IP interface to my system. Then it would not pump any hot water because the mixing valve closes. If I do not change this setting, the water would indeed be too hot just to get 5 °C in all rooms.

 

If I needed this very often, then it would be nice to be able to set this from a scene or a VD. I am not sure if I could make some interface, I doubt it. I do not have any experience with this, but more recent systems support an API called "opentherm".

 

Some controllers, like mine, also turn of the pump in this case.

 

But is not an automated system...

 

If you have large heat losses (losses defined as: nobody rents the apartment so *all* heat is considered "lost") and need minimal heat (say 5° for freeze protection only) for longer periods of time (say days) I understand why you do not want "weather compensation boiler control" on it's own... If we are talking about a 2 room apartment, one heating system per apartment, then a simple Z-Wave on/off thermostat in one room would probably do what you want. Then the other room might have a mechanical or Z-Wave thermostat.

 

Have you ever tried this? Use a room thermostat, but in that room you use a mechanical TRV set to a fixed position, or even a valve set to about 75%? Then that room will determine the average water temperature, and it should be slightly higher so you get a bit of headroom to control temperature in the other rooms. Then use Z-Wave TRVs in the other rooms. In this case, you do not need boiler control. I have tested this in my house, and it is not bad at all. This would give you the possibility to set all your rooms to 5 °C and that will turn down the water temperature significantly during that period. I do not have a lot of experience with Z-Wave room thermostats, I own an older on/off version of a Qubino thermostat, but you'd probably want something with a display and buttons... In this case, you do not need "the reporting of the opening of the valve"...

 

40 minutes ago, winromulus said:

Now, back to what we wanted from the heat controller: basically we need two parameters: one to enable valve opening reports and second to configure opening value. I don't think anyone needs to actually control the TRV valve, just to know if it's open so we can start pumping some agent.

 

 

Oh, but we both want this, only for different reasons ;-)

 

You want it, to determine if one of your radiators opens, and I want it for diagnostic purposes!

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  • 6 months later...
On 12/19/2017 at 1:39 PM, kalmanv said:

Eurotronik Spirit can report this, unfortunately Fibaro cant display it yet.

And were we can see the report?

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  • 2 months later...

Hi All, Fibaro and petergebruers specifically,

 

New to this forum, but already an Z-Wave Home Automation user for over 5 years now with the Zipato Zipabox as controller and only Fibaro end modules (24 modules and counting). Recently added 3x Fibaro Heat Controllers and I like the design, the Z-Wave responsiveness, the rechargable battery and that they can work by just setting the temp, BUT I also would like to have the info and possibility of valve steering percentage.

 

Let me explain my setup:
-Heating system --> Intergas HRE 36/30 which I read out with an raspberry through a pl2303 connected to the PC connector on the Intergas motherboard. Pumping all data to influxDB and using Grafana to display all. I even have 4x DS18b20 attached to the external pipes of the Intergas HRE, also graphed in Grafana.
-Living room --> underfloor heating
-Bathroom 1 --> underfloor heating
-5 rooms + bathroom 2 --> large as possible type 11 radiators and a design radiator in bathroom 2
-One Opentherm thermostat in ON/OFF mode in living room, heating curve is being generated by the outside temp sensor on the Intergas HRE 36/30
-I am heating with a 50/30 regulation with delta of around 20 degrees at the outside pipes for optimum HR mode (yes played around with all settings available in the Intergas to accomplish this, factory default is a no go ;-) ) No white smoke outside at the exhaust, so running very well)
-I have water-side tuned all radiators and underfloor heating, added temperature driven fan's to most type 11 radiator to boost the heat release of the radiator and to get more flow in the room. I can heat for hours without reaching internal temp to high interruptions on the heater
So far so good, right?

 

I have bought the following:
- Secure SSR 303 boiler relais to enable Z-Wave possibility to turn on the Intergas throug ON/OFF (= overruling the OT thermostat in living room). Works perfectly
- 3x Fibaro Heat Controllers with external temp sensor (were on firmware 4.3 but updated them to 4.4 and included them on my Zipato which shows also version 4.4) Yes; bought a second hand HCL, added as secondary controller and was able to update all my Fibaro modules for which firmware updates were available.

 

In the setup with the living room driven thermostat which controls the Heating source (Intergas) everything seems to work just fine when the heating source is on. As you have read I have underfloor heating which is a slow heater/buffer. This results in long times of no heating (2-3 hours) and the rooms of my teenage girls are getting chilly because of this. To get this solved I need to go to Zone heating instead of livingroom thermostat heating only. Like the EvoHome system (which my brother has) but better and with resident and room precense awareness, etc. to make it fully dynamic. I have programmed this with Python and through the Zipato API I can update the Fibaro virtual Thermostats and the Fibaro Heat Controllers.

 

Last evening, Zone heating go Live :-) And it worked.....till the living room was warm enough and it shut the Heat Controller valve to off on the underfloor heating unit (yeah I know, I use the FGT on the underfloor heating unit and it is not entirely made for that). Result is that most of the rooms were warm enough except 2 rooms and the heating unit (Intergas) could not get rid of the generated heat. And it started to stop for a while (15mins) and starts over again for about a minute and stops again for 15 minutes, repeating this forever.... I think I can solve this by fully opening the return valve on the radiator itself and program the heat controller to go 100% open for a couple of minutes till I see return pipe temperature rise above 30 degrees and then set it back to 10-15% or something where the heating unit can get rid of the produced heat. I have all the information needed to accomplish this, I just cant read/set the valve opening percentage manually. I probably can also solve it a little bit by opening the Heat Controller valve on the underfloor heating unit just a bit, but same problem of not having the ability to set the valve opening % manually.

 

Another feature request I would like to do is the following:
As the Fibaro Heat Controllers are intelligent and should be just set the temperature and forget: I would like to know when the Heat Controller expects/wants heating with a ON/OFF switch device on the FGT or something like that so I can react on that and turn on the Heating source. Now I have to figure this out myself or use a virtual thermostat which never alignes because I dont really know the FGT algorithm. I can only turn the heating device on when valves are opened ofcourse. Already had a couple of times that I turned on the heater and the FGT does......nothing....valve not openend so it seems. Using a hysteresis of 0.5 on the virtual thermostat for the radiator attached FGT's. Again would be helpfull if I can read the % of valve opening. if 0% do not turn on heater ;-)

I have looked through all child devices and values but did not find something like that. Correct?

 

Below, are settings I can find looking through Zipato API for the FGT device (woonkamer=living room, Rihab=daugther):

# python ZipatoAPITest.py "Fibaro Heat Controller - Woonkamer"
Search for device by Name Fibaro Heat Controller - Woonkamer
{u'uuid': u'b940b732-de55-4f55-bb1d-f3d054397165', u'link': u'/zipato-web/v2/devices/b940b732-de55-4f55-bb1d-f3d054397165', u'name': u'Fibaro Heat Controller - Woonkamer', u'tags': [u'disThermostat']}
Fibaro Heat Controller - Woonkamer b940b732-de55-4f55-bb1d-f3d054397165
--> Endpoint: External temperature sensor - Woonkamer 5ca980fb-6ca5-4218-9fe7-39c473fd4586
-----> Attribute: value1 f63760a6-a671-4d44-a093-eae9671759da
--------> Value: 23.5 with timestamp: 2018-12-10T12:28:48Z

Fibaro Heat Controller - Woonkamer b940b732-de55-4f55-bb1d-f3d054397165
--> Endpoint: Fibaro Heat Controller - Woonkamer 6faab2b3-c6c5-4588-b52e-737f3792a7af
-----> Attribute: value9 f880d893-004f-41bd-8f39-e9d3d5742a28
--------> Value: HARDWARE_FAILURE_EVENT_INACTIVE with timestamp: 2018-12-08T09:30:09Z

Fibaro Heat Controller - Woonkamer b940b732-de55-4f55-bb1d-f3d054397165
--> Endpoint: Fibaro Heat Controller - Woonkamer 6faab2b3-c6c5-4588-b52e-737f3792a7af
-----> Attribute: mode bb79ab31-65a8-4bc3-8933-778a99ba5b3c
--------> Value: MANUAL_CONTROL with timestamp: 2018-12-10T05:22:03Z

Fibaro Heat Controller - Woonkamer b940b732-de55-4f55-bb1d-f3d054397165
--> Endpoint: Fibaro Heat Controller - Woonkamer 6faab2b3-c6c5-4588-b52e-737f3792a7af
-----> Attribute: value1 07858902-f530-407b-9f0f-f6e9c3d9f468
--------> Value: 23.5 with timestamp: 2018-12-08T15:44:42Z

Fibaro Heat Controller - Woonkamer b940b732-de55-4f55-bb1d-f3d054397165
--> Endpoint: Thermostat endpoint - Woonkamer 14edc40c-020a-450a-a0b6-68ee5d0af2bd
-----> Attribute: mode 7183dda7-01a5-434d-a81c-027ebcdf291b
--------> Value: HEAT with timestamp: 2018-12-09T21:01:05Z

 

# python ZipatoAPITest.py "Fibaro Heat Controller - Rihab"
Search for device by Name Fibaro Heat Controller - Rihab
{u'uuid': u'4808ba15-d8e1-43df-89a6-2e38a33b4fc5', u'link': u'/zipato-web/v2/devices/4808ba15-d8e1-43df-89a6-2e38a33b4fc5', u'name': u'Fibaro Heat Controller - Rihab', u'tags': [u'disThermostat']}
Fibaro Heat Controller - Rihab 4808ba15-d8e1-43df-89a6-2e38a33b4fc5
--> Endpoint: External temperature sensor - Rihab 95068b62-46e7-495c-927b-c9b9acde60d7
-----> Attribute: value1 69d67fd4-5191-47ff-b99b-fc212cddd5b3
--------> Value: 18.7 with timestamp: 2018-12-10T09:55:47Z

Fibaro Heat Controller - Rihab 4808ba15-d8e1-43df-89a6-2e38a33b4fc5
--> Endpoint: Fibaro Heat Controller - Rihab c046daa0-6d55-46d2-a183-81ea18643ff7
-----> Attribute: value9 42e7497f-5b4d-4219-bd2a-d094bc7ccf40
--------> Value: HARDWARE_FAILURE_EVENT_INACTIVE with timestamp: 2018-12-09T16:07:09Z

Fibaro Heat Controller - Rihab 4808ba15-d8e1-43df-89a6-2e38a33b4fc5
--> Endpoint: Fibaro Heat Controller - Rihab c046daa0-6d55-46d2-a183-81ea18643ff7
-----> Attribute: value1 35fc9807-e768-4685-959d-4ad136cac0a4
--------> Value: 18.0 with timestamp: 2018-12-10T07:46:58Z

Fibaro Heat Controller - Rihab 4808ba15-d8e1-43df-89a6-2e38a33b4fc5
--> Endpoint: Thermostat endpoint - Rihab e111f1cd-395a-4fb0-897c-3a03e6e61f31
-----> Attribute: mode dbe4d506-8a70-4094-ba48-098d849e5165
--------> Value: HEAT with timestamp: 2018-12-09T20:45:05Z

 

 

To get my large posting in a nutshell, I would like to have the following on the Heat Controllers:
- read and set the valve opening percentage manually to water-side tune the attached radiator
- when the Heat Controller expects/wants heating it sets an ON/OFF switch device or something so I can react with a change event on that (within Zipato) and turn on the Heating source. It knows the moment already because the FGT is opening the valve.

-@FIBARO: If you want to make a killer Heat Controller, you could add an DS18b20 temp sensor, for example, connected through the usb charging interface which is connected to the return pipe. If so, it would be nice to have an option where I can set the maximum return temp value to the heater. With this you have a device which can automatically water-side tune the radiator for optimum performance (rapid filling with hot water) and optimum High Effecienty mode  on the heater (not returning too hot water to the heater). If no return temp value is given you can use the default 75% of the thermostatic head temperature which the Heat Controller is connected to.

 

 

Like to hear your thoughts Fibaro / Peter!

 

Thanks,
Bas

 

 

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Edited by BasB
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54 minutes ago, BasB said:

Like to hear your thoughts Fibaro / Peter!

Hi @BasB if you want to contact magic Peter, you need to use the @ :) like this @petergebruers.

I'm admirative about your heating setup, and would love to have all those info out of my boiler as well.

Really nice job! 

 

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Hi @Tony270570!

 

Thanks, yes took me a while (and a lotttttt of hours) to get to this point :-) If you have an OpenTherm enabled boiler/heater you can get most of the information I have also with an OTGW if the boiler/heater doesn't have a PC interface. For sure, the heating temp, possible the return temp (if sensor exists in boiler/heater), water pressure and I think also the status (code) of the boiler/heater.

Edited by BasB
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  • 1 month later...

Hello Guys, 

 

I too would like either a percentage open or even just a true or false signal from the Fibaro TRV to request heat from the boiler. Not sure how boilers are set up for you guys but here in the UK combi boilers are the norm. They are designed to give heat on demand and are certainly not designed to run constantly. With this in mind, I need to turn on the boiler only when heat is required.

I have put a solution in place using a virtual device which I am using to compare current temperature vs set point but this is not necessarily the optimum time to switch on the boiler. 

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  • 2 years later...

I cannot believe that Fibaro did not implement this feature. Moreover, I think both calibrated percentage and raw value should be presented as a read-only parameter.

 

This would help in both boiler control logic and diagnosing faulty device or firmware.

 

Actually, my FGT-001 keeps workig, conected to my Home Assistant, for a few days or hours, and at a random moment it refuses to close the valve completely, thus making a nice sauna out of my room. Additionally, although the color menu cycles the colors, clicking the button does not take action. It does not go into standby (cyan), it does not test connectivity (magenta), and more importantly it does not go into calibration mode (white). After several menu attempts, sometimes it works calibrating and works, then it fails again after a few days. It is as if it has multithreaded execution and the valve related thread is frozen.

 

It may be a defective unit, or it may be a 'feature' for those arrogant enough to try connecting the FGT-001 to something other than Fibaro's central units (don't know what to think, since a lot of companies, these days, are mocking their customers with planned obsolence and 'unintentional' incompatibilities, just to boost sales).

Edited by MariusRN
grammar and completions
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They implemented 'Heating Demand Reports' in firmware 4.7 so the device reports if it has 'Heating Demand' or not. 

 

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Hi, @pnutpOwner

 

18 minutes ago, pnutp0wer said:

They implemented 'Heating Demand Reports' in firmware 4.7 so the device reports if it has 'Heating Demand' or not. 

 

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You are right, and to add to your answer, if you set parameter 2, bit 8, it will report in parameter 3, bit 2, the heating demand, at least according to the manual.

 

So at least the boiler logic is helped and you can do it also on HA.

 

But it still does not help diagnosing the device in case of failure (while the device does not detect a failure itself).

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  • 2 weeks later...

This used to work, but isn't with latest firmware unfortunately.

 

I have used tonumber(fibaro:getValue(heatsetids[i], "heatRequired")) == 1

to check if a valve needs heating.... but even when a valve needs heating it returns 0 with firmware 4.620

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