ajd123 Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 I have snow melt cables in my eavestroughs & downspouts. They are connected to an outlet that is controlled by a C4 light switch. Right now the switch is left on all winter which is kind of wasteful. Does anyone have an creative ways to program this so it turns on based on exterior temperature and weather conditions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Topfox Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 I think you can do this once you add the free weather driver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 @eggzlothas done similar with his steps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dueport Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 I do something very similar with our satellite internet dish (for backup Internet). It has a dish heater on it that heats the dish to melt snow off. The dish heater is plugged into a controlled outlet. Then I use the Open Weather driver to program off the "current snow" variable to start a 2 hour "dish heater" timer so it says on for a bit to fully melt everything and doesn't cycle too much every time the snowfall level fluctuates. So programming off "current snow" variable in Open Weather I programmed this: If OpenWeather -> CURRENT_SNOW GREATER THAN 0 If Timer "Dish Heater Heating" is not running ->Start Timer "Dish Heater Heating" Then the "Dish Heater Heating" timer is just a 2 hour timer and programed to turn on the "Dish Heater" outlet when the timer starts, and when the timer expires it turns the outlet off. For your use case maybe you'd want to play with the length of the timer and things but this might be a good starting point for you. Hope this is helpful - good luck! Would be interested in what product you're using for the gutter/downspout heaters - I haven't heard of those but could see the value so will have to look into that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rea Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 3 hours ago, ajd123 said: I have snow melt cables in my eavestroughs & downspouts. They are connected to an outlet that is controlled by a C4 light switch. Right now the switch is left on all winter which is kind of wasteful. Does anyone have an creative ways to program this so it turns on based on exterior temperature and weather conditions? Whatever you do, I'd recommend coming up with something to automate/control better. I have heat cables as well and initially thought it was a great idea to have a thermostat controlled switch and, being a newbie to the mountains, I didn't realize it just stays cold where I live all the time during the winter and the heat cables ran basically all winter. After running through my electric bills, I bypassed the thermostat control and just put the heat cables on a manual controlled C4 switch that I have setup on a 4 hour run-timer that I turn on when it snows. My electric bill during the winter months is now half what it was. Those things draw a lot of power. I've thought about programming it against the weather app as well, but I've found that where I live the weather apps are generally not very representative of my actual weather--a few miles each way makes a big difference in the mountains. Just something to consider depending on where you live. c4toys, Jeffrey and Dueport 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjh Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 Have a look at the linked thread - I’m using the cloud cover driver to control some light scenes based upon how much natural light is outside aka cloud cover. One of the tomorrow.io variables returned is a weathercode which would identify if it is snowing. This thread Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggzlot Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 6 hours ago, msgreenf said: @eggzlothas done similar with his steps I never really tweaked it right. And my heated element is broken and my electrician has ignored me for 8 months. Luckily today we got our first snow, and only 3'', so I dealt with it. So I'm curious as to what others have done... msgreenf 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eggzlot Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 3 hours ago, rea said: Whatever you do, I'd recommend coming up with something to automate/control better. I have heat cables as well and initially thought it was a great idea to have a thermostat controlled switch and, being a newbie to the mountains, I didn't realize it just stays cold where I live all the time during the winter and the heat cables ran basically all winter. After running through my electric bills, I bypassed the thermostat control and just put the heat cables on a manual controlled C4 switch that I have setup on a 4 hour run-timer that I turn on when it snows. My electric bill during the winter months is now half what it was. Those things draw a lot of power. I've thought about programming it against the weather app as well, but I've found that where I live the weather apps are generally not very representative of my actual weather--a few miles each way makes a big difference in the mountains. Just something to consider depending on where you live. Agree on this - also it depends on what you need to heat. For certain things, if there is snow already down or ice, it is too late and it wont melt quickly. So really you need to use a weather driver that has some advance properties to try and look forward to turn on the heating element 2-3 hours in advance so it can warm up. for me, I think there was a moisture setting in the driver or % of precip ir something, so if the % of precip was over maybe 70% and the temp was below 35 degrees I think I switched it on. End of day, I just have wake up driver or agent or whatever set up, so I can turn it on whenever and when the agent timer goes off, the switch for the heating element goes off. So it is kinda manual but kinda automated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajd123 Posted February 28, 2023 Author Share Posted February 28, 2023 5 hours ago, rea said: Whatever you do, I'd recommend coming up with something to automate/control better. I have heat cables as well and initially thought it was a great idea to have a thermostat controlled switch and, being a newbie to the mountains, I didn't realize it just stays cold where I live all the time during the winter and the heat cables ran basically all winter. After running through my electric bills, I bypassed the thermostat control and just put the heat cables on a manual controlled C4 switch that I have setup on a 4 hour run-timer that I turn on when it snows. My electric bill during the winter months is now half what it was. Those things draw a lot of power. I've thought about programming it against the weather app as well, but I've found that where I live the weather apps are generally not very representative of my actual weather--a few miles each way makes a big difference in the mountains. Just something to consider depending on where you live. Maybe consider a system like this for more reliability / accuracy? https://www.networketi.com/snow-and-ice-melting-systems-control-pd-pro/ https://www.networketi.com/eti-snow-owl/ https://www.networketi.com/git-1-gutter-ice-sensor/ rea 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajd123 Posted February 28, 2023 Author Share Posted February 28, 2023 7 hours ago, Topfox said: I think you can do this once you add the free weather driver Can you provide a link to the driver you are suggesting? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajd123 Posted February 28, 2023 Author Share Posted February 28, 2023 7 hours ago, msgreenf said: @eggzlothas done similar with his steps Hey Mitch, what do you think would be the best weather driver to achieve this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted February 28, 2023 Share Posted February 28, 2023 2 hours ago, ajd123 said: Hey Mitch, what do you think would be the best weather driver to achieve this? The chowmain one Dueport 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajd123 Posted February 28, 2023 Author Share Posted February 28, 2023 This one? https://drivercentral.io/platforms/control4-drivers/utility/internet-weather-forecast-control4-driver-chowmain/ Do you know if this can provide weather data for Ontario, Canada? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msgreenf Posted March 1, 2023 Share Posted March 1, 2023 Yes and it should. Driver has a 90day trial Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdcllc Posted March 1, 2023 Share Posted March 1, 2023 21 hours ago, ajd123 said: This one? https://drivercentral.io/platforms/control4-drivers/utility/internet-weather-forecast-control4-driver-chowmain/ Do you know if this can provide weather data for Ontario, Canada? The Chowmain agent pulls data from https://openweathermap.org. You can go to this site and then also read the Chowmain agent documentation and get pretty good detail on what is available. You can also use the organization’s web page to do simple transactions for your location to get a feel for data propagation times (I.e. how long it takes between real-time data capture and transactional data ready for agent consumption/utilization by your C4 system). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neo1738 Posted March 12, 2023 Share Posted March 12, 2023 I have heated mats on my porch/walk. I use open weather free driver. If temp < 34 and precipitation > 0 start timer. Timer runs for 24 hrs (maybe more than necessary) and then When timer expires "If temp < 34 and precipitation > 0 restart timer" else turn off outlet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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