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How the dead stroke of the valve is handled by the heat controller ?


meute

Question

Hi,

 

The calibration process of the HC adjust his motion boundary to correspond to the mechanical stroke of the valve, but I think that most of the valve have a dead stroke at closed position, for sure my standard M30x1.5 valves have it.

 

What I can see when I'm listening the noise of the HC when he is working is that often he close completely the valve and when he reopen it because heating is requested by his regulation algorithm he not reopen enough to let the water pass through because he still working inside the dead stroke of the valve and never try again to open more until I give it a setpoint at least 3 or 4 °c higher than the room temp.

 

I think that the HC should monitor the impact of the stroke on the near temp to know that for example the first 10% or 20% of the stroke are not relevant for the régulation, or react faster and open more when he not detect heat change with it's internal sensor who is near from the diffuser, ( temp at external sensor will probably not change fast enough for this purpose).

 

At this time clearly the operation of the HC is much worse than the one of a old and traditional thermostatic head. And far from what the spec was promising.

 

Fibaro should fix it fast because the winter is there and my home is not heated correctly and the investment cost is not negligible !

I have not picked this HC to reduce energy consumption because for this part I was happy with my previous Honeywell heads but to get more comfort (right temperature at the right time) and for now it's exactly inverted, every room are much of the time too cold or are heating too slowly thus I make energy economies but I have lost main of the comfort ... 

 

Regards,

Edited by meute
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4 answers to this question

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@meute Clever thinking and a good question!

 

I've been around here for a while and I do not think Fibaro is going to disclose any of the internals of the valve... but sometimes they surprise me so let us wait and see! On the other hand, a simple "yes/no it handles dead stroke" might be sufficient for you.

 

Now, I am going to speculate. It probably handles dead stroke, like other electronic valves, in a rather particular way! They have a temperature sensor at the back, so they can detect if the actual valve is hot...

 

This does not explain why it behaves so badly, but I might have an explanation for that. I think it fits your problem description. The bad behavior has been confirmed by Fibaro and we are waiting on a firmware update.

 

 

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  • Inquirer
  • Hi,

    I know that the bad behavior is confirmed, unfortunately the only information is "we have found bad calculation", but I try to understand how Fibaro intend to handle the regulation process and how it's possible to let passing a so big problem before start shipping the product. This product is completely not functional out of the box and don't do 1% of the job he should.

     

    I can't believe that the first version of a product can be sold with a so bad behaviour by a company who make generally good job and I still try to understand if I can do something myself to be in the same conditions as Fibaro when he have successfully validated their product (hoping they have do validation with good results one day)
    Like that I can maybe find a solution to make it partially work until the update is available in weeks ... or months because without informations on the ETA we don't know ...

     

    How engineer and commercial department can make a so big mistake stay a mystery for me, we don't speak about a 0.5°c or 1°c of offset or error in the regulation in somes special cases but about a completely not functional regulation who result in the two extremes, no heating at all or heating far too much ... some small tests during the validation process should reveal this problem, I detected myself that it was not working as expected in less than 2 days of normal use.

    Are we Fibaro beta-testers ? no, we are final customer !

     

    Regards,

    Edited by meute
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    16 hours ago, meute said:

    Hi,

    I know that the bad behavior is confirmed, unfortunately the only information is "we have found bad calculation", but I try to understand how Fibaro intend to handle the regulation process and how it's possible to let passing a so big problem before start shipping the product. This product is completely not functional out of the box and don't do 1% of the job he should.

     

    I can't believe that the first version of a product can be sold with a so bad behaviour by a company who make generally good job and I still try to understand if I can do something myself to be in the same conditions as Fibaro when he have successfully validated their product (hoping they have do validation with good results one day)
    Like that I can maybe find a solution to make it partially work until the update is available in weeks ... or months because without informations on the ETA we don't know ...

     

    How engineer and commercial department can make a so big mistake stay a mystery for me, we don't speak about a 0.5°c or 1°c of offset or error in the regulation in somes special cases but about a completely not functional regulation who result in the two extremes, no heating at all or heating far too much ... some small tests during the validation process should reveal this problem, I detected myself that it was not working as expected in less than 2 days of normal use.

    Are we Fibaro beta-testers ? no, we are final customer !

     

    Regards,

     

    +1 for this post.

    Generally speaken I am very happy with Fibaro, but this time they are leaving me in the cold. Literally. They need to fix this ASAP.

    The HC isn't working for even a little bit according to the specs and I would recommend everyone to wait buying the HC until this is solved. Currently it is a beta product which is not ready for the market. 

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    I do not disagree but can I say something positive too? I was monitoring this FGT with external sensor, and it was working as expected for some time... I would say regulation was good, a lot better than my LC12 and the external sensor seemed to work in my house, in my room. That is why I say I think the valve crashes and that statement from Fibaro about a bad calculation seems to be in line with a what I think. It could be an overflow, a division by zero, this is purely speculation. The TRV can operate between two switch points  of my heating panel, it does not always crash. As soon as you change the set point of the FGT, it starts working again, for hours or maybe even days. A possible workaround might be detecting abnormal temperature. Or just toggling the set point frequently by 0.5 degrees, I haven't tried.

     

    I have put back my old valves and I will analyse and publish data as soon as they have issued the update.

     

    Please let me repeat, I understand your disappointment and you have every right to repeat and post that as many times as you like. I only want to say I personally believe they'll fix it and I am not sending my FGTs back...

     

    This topic was about how the valve handles dead stroke, and I speculated in my answer it uses the back sensor to detect (hot) water flow. Does anybody have to say anything regarding this?

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