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MULTIPLE ZONE VALVE CONTROLLER with wired remote temperature feedback appliance solution.


VINCELdUB

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Hey all you out there in this wonderful world of home automation and customization. On many installs over the past 10 years I have run into many finished homes with a boiler room and radiant heat w/ zone valves being controlled by local thermostats with a 2wire LVT running back to zone valve. I have combatted this with control4 thermostats and the accompanying remote sensor(Thermistor). But when 5-15 zones are needed, it gets expensive to use as many thermostats to control a single relay for the zone valve. Especially since there are virtual thermostat drivers out there that work.

 

 

 

What this long intro is trying to say is; Is there any interest in a small form factor piece of hardware that will allow multiple zones to be connected to it, and to be able to report the corresponding zones temperature to control4. In a retrofit type of solution. Attached are some pics of recent installs I have done to combat this issue. And if so, I have begun some R&D into a device(appliance) that will accomplish this. I am looking for any input or thoughts on this. Thank you for reading this long winded post, Vince.

 

 

 

 

 

 

befec55627e4f5b1e96f5e2d04119172.jpg

2271c1ecaf3ec577b26390942f342851.jpgc4bf6c42586dc3daaf527e1236738ba7.jpg

 

 

 

77c3c691367e94dc3a230bab3b480587.jpg

 

 

 

e009dcee63bb3ca56b09311726f22510.jpg

 

 

 

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I am thinking of a simple web interface. This interface will then share its info with control4. Control4 would be used for the more advanced functions like scheduling and occupancy. In the event C4 fails, the heat setpoints should remain on device. This is the plan.

Again, this is preliminary, and really appreciate your input. I don't want to miss anything here. Thank you!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hey all you out there in this wonderful world of home automation and customization. On many installs over the past 10 years I have run into many finished homes with a boiler room and radiant heat w/ zone valves being controlled by local thermostats with a 2wire LVT running back to zone valve. I have combatted this with control4 thermostats and the accompanying remote sensor(Thermistor). But when 5-15 zones are needed, it gets expensive to use as many thermostats to control a single relay for the zone valve. Especially since there are virtual thermostat drivers out there that work.

What this long intro is trying to say is; Is there any interest in a small form factor piece of hardware that will allow multiple zones to be connected to it, and to be able to report the corresponding zones temperature to control4. In a retrofit type of solution. Attached are some pics of recent installs I have done to combat this issue. And if so, I have begun some R&D into a device(appliance) that will accomplish this. I am looking for any input or thoughts on this. Thank you for reading this long winded post, Vince.

2271c1ecaf3ec577b26390942f342851.jpgc4bf6c42586dc3daaf527e1236738ba7.jpg

befec55627e4f5b1e96f5e2d04119172.jpg

77c3c691367e94dc3a230bab3b480587.jpg

e009dcee63bb3ca56b09311726f22510.jpg

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I think this is a great idea. I have an exact same use case of in floor heating with 8 zones. Would love to unify a thermostat.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have the same issue with in one case 27 Zones Radiant Heat,

 

The issue is even deeper because the you have to get a coupler driver to bring the A/C with on to 1 thermostat for less clutter.

 

I found 2 solutions,

One if you use the cool master they do provide a relay output for every room that you have Heat, that's a half solution because it will sense the Heat from the A/V return which is not good for Heat,

 

The second solution is to get from control by web (I sent an email to Alan Chow for support on it) get the analog module it could have 8 temperature sensors the you could use almost any type of relay in my case I'd use the axxes relay then would get from Yatun the software thermostat driver and they're you go, you're a happy camper,

 

Let me know what you guys think of this,

 

At the same time I'd be willing to spend some money on more simpler solution

 

 

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I have the same problem, i use coolmaster and Heatmiser thermostats for the FH and as feedback thermostat, the problem is the coolmaster works by Their own sensor witch is placed in the ceiling near the interior machine.

 

Sorry for post at the middle, is not exactly the same problem but is the same type!

 

Thanks

 

 

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I have the same issue with in one case 27 Zones Radiant Heat,

 

The issue is even deeper because the you have to get a coupler driver to bring the A/C with on to 1 thermostat for less clutter.

 

I found 2 solutions,

One if you use the cool master they do provide a relay output for every room that you have Heat, that's a half solution because it will sense the Heat from the A/V return which is not good for Heat,

 

The second solution is to get from control by web (I sent an email to Alan Chow for support on it) get the analog module it could have 8 temperature sensors the you could use almost any type of relay in my case I'd use the axxes relay then would get from Yatun the software thermostat driver and they're you go, you're a happy camper,

 

Let me know what you guys think of this,

 

At the same time I'd be willing to spend some money on more simpler solution

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Short on time at the moment. but a quick reply.

 

Option two is possible. I have considered the same solution, however the cost of putting the individual pieces together is quite high. And all relies on network communication to work.

 

The solution I am building is designed to be a stand alone option, that will also allow perfect communication with control4.

 

Communication options I am working on will be zigbee, serial, network wired and network wifi. Trying to be as versatile as possible.

 

As for a 27zone radiant heat system, I know that we could scale this up to that easily. Perhaps, if needed create remote clusters for radiant manifold locations.

 

Thanks all for your continued input! And...

 

 

 

 

Happy Automating!

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I am in need of this exact solution on a job coming up in about 3 weeks! Wish there was something.

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Sorry just read this now. Three weeks is up.

 

Sorry. As with most products. The tweaking is slow and cumbersome. To be careful to produce a quality product any control4 dealer would be proud of.

 

 

Happy Automating!

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No worries. I had a job that starts on Monday that could have used this but I had to go another direction. I'm sure there will be another one coming that I'll need something like this though.

 

 

Keep me posted.

 

 

 

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Yes I'm using the C4 ones. We were going to centralize all of them but then the client surprised us and said they wanted them out and liked the look of them... sometimes you can never guess what clients will like. Your install looks great, very clean. Nice work.

 

 

 

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That is a group of ten relays. I do this to close the loop on the thermostats. Adding a protection layer to separate the thermostats from the boiler system. I have had solenoid wreck a thermostat once.

 

 

Happy Automating!

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I could not find my wiring diagram, so I will write one up when I get a chance. Here is a photo of the relay I was using. I could put 10 of them in that spot you can see in the picture. Less than $14 each. And cut a small piece of DIN rail for them to attach to. e89edcf19183561e3bbe907c67d480af.jpg

 

 

Happy Automating!

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