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Carrier SAM module


ERDrPC

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As of now, there is no solid Carrier infinity integration with control4. Check the other discussions, no one has a good solution. There is a good amount of demand out there for a solid integration/driver but unfortunately it does not exist.  

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The sam module seems like the best bet but from what I know (and I looked into it a lot) even the sam module brings a very poor integration if its even still possible. There are a few users that say that they have had some success with the SAM module integration. I'm going to see if I could find the SAM modules online. If anyone has any information on how I could get my hands on one please let me know. If I can get my hands on one I'll give feedback on the integration.

 

Edited by Rob21
I might have spoken too soon
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Any HVAC pros that can chime in: Could I connect both my fancy Infinity touch tstat and a C4 tstat to the same unit?  Infinity touch still controls all variable fan speeds and multi stage heating, but tying in c4 tstat (on the same wires) would allow for C4 temperature control and reporting.  Is this possible?

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Have you tried the Bryant SAM drivers? I moved before integrating mine so I don't have first hand knowledge, but the SAMs are almost, if not completely identical.

In my case, I'm glad I did not dumb it down with a different thermostat. It really did "learn" and adapt as we used it and became the most efficient summer A/C we've ever owned.

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5 minutes ago, Elvis said:

Have you tried the Bryant SAM drivers? I moved before integrating mine so I don't have first hand knowledge, but the SAMs are almost, if not completely identical.

In my case, I'm glad I did not dumb it down with a different thermostat. It really did "learn" and adapt as we used it and became the most efficient summer A/C we've ever owned.

Do you mean the Carrier Infinity thermostat?  I have had one for several years, but I was not aware that they have a learning process.  What do they adapt?

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12 minutes ago, zaphod said:

 

Do you mean the Carrier Infinity thermostat?  I have had one for several years, but I was not aware that they have a learning process.  What do they adapt?

Bryant Evolution. Not exactly the same, but very close.

It monitors temperature change rates, back pressure on zones, changes to one zone when another zone changes and effectiveness of speed vs. temperature control per zone. The kids visiting complained that the new A/C was so loud it woke them up. Their next visit, they thought I had gotten a new A/C or had it fixed. The unit itself eventually turned down the speed when feeding that zone.

The main Evolution thermostat is WiFi and looks just like the Carrier version. The zone thermostats, however, are very "industrial" looking and not that user friendly. I think that is where the Carrier version has their sister Bryant system beat. 

Please keep in mind this is 3-5 year old info. But new owners wrote me and told me how happy they were with it this past summer. They confessed that they didn't believe my energy bills when I provided them during the sale of the house. "You weren't exaggerating."

Edit: And there is no feedback other than results to the learning process. My dealer was the only way I knew. He told me that it could take a couple of weeks in each of the first seasonal changes. As I recall, it had 4 learning triggers: First use of A/C, first use of heat pump, first use of furnace augmented heat, and first seasonal change (heat to A/C or vice-versa).

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Ok thanks.  How prevalent are multi-zone systems?  I live in a very large house in Toronto.  The previous owners did a substantial addition in about 1992 and added a second HVAC system so the house has two furnaces and two ACs driven by two different thermostats in different parts of the house. 

About five years ago I needed to replace one of the furnaces so I added a new Carrier furnace to the older part of the house that came with a Carrier Infinity T-stat.  But beyond that the systems are just one zone, other than manually opening and closing vents on registers.  Are new homes now built with mechanical controls so that every room is its own zone and independently controllable? That makes a lot more sense, but presumably it is much more expensive up front.

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3 minutes ago, zaphod said:

Ok thanks.  How prevalent are multi-zone systems?  I live in a very large house in Toronto.  The previous owners did a substantial addition in about 1992 and added a second HVAC system so the house has two furnaces and two ACs driven by two different thermostats in different parts of the house. 

About five years ago I needed to replace one of the furnaces so I added a new Carrier furnace to the older part of the house that came with a Carrier Infinity T-stat.  But beyond that the systems are just one zone, other than manually opening and closing vents on registers.  Are new homes now built with mechanical controls so that every room is its own zone and independently controllable? That makes a lot more sense, but presumably it is much more expensive up front.

"It depends."

Most homes here in Texas are built with single unit AC/Heat Pumps with Natural Gas or LP augmentation for heat in the northern half of the state. Nicer two story homes have two units like you describe. One thermostat per unit. And that is my current setup. I have an upstairs and downstairs unit controlled by Ecobee 3 Lite thermostats. Each thermostat has 2 or 3 smart sensors. Each bedroom has a smart sensor. Each thermostat is located in the central/primary living areas (up and downstairs). We added one more that move between the office and sunroom, depending on the season.

Since we were house-hunting over the past couple of years, I did notice that there were more zoned systems than I had seen when were house-hunting in the past. The only brands I saw were Carrier/Bryant. 

Zoned is much better than Ecobee/Smart Sensors because zoned will shut off areas (via dampers in the ducts) that don't need a change in temp when one zone does. For example, when the grandkids are here, we put it in "Grandkid mode" at night. Everyone else suffers to keep the babies' room within the comfort range. So my master bedroom might get up to 78 or down to 62 if the unit needs to run to keep the babies' room where Mom wants it to be 68-72* F. Whereas at the old house with the zoned Bryant Evolution, each bedroom stayed in the comfort zone all the time -- only rooms without a dedicated zone varied.

Our recent home search was here on a lake where many homes are "weekender" homes, and a lot are setup like mini-hotels. They use the mini-split systems. This is going to be the way I go when my current systems fail. I'll put a mini-split in each bedroom other than our master. Shut the doors and turn the systems off. When family and friends arrive, they turn on their room like a hotel room (although it is a lot quieter because the compressor is away from the room.) The downside is this time of year, they use electrical heat strips to augment the heat -- very uneconomical -- but shouldn't be used much.

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Thanks Elvis. This is going on a bit of a tangent, but you say that electrical heating is uneconomical but it will likely become the norm.

Here in Ontario most homes are Forced Air Natural Gas for heating but we are likely moving towards electrification to reduce CO2 emissions. We use very little carbon to generate electricity here so that has low CO2 intensity (lots of nukes and hydro-electric).  I believe the government is moving towards banning natural gas heating in the future and push you towards electricity in the form of heat pumps and resistance heating.  But that changed somewhat when we went from a left-leaning to right-leaning govt a couple of years ago.

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2 minutes ago, zaphod said:

Thanks Elvis. This is going on a bit of a tangent, but you say that electrical heating is uneconomical but it will likely become the norm.

Here in Ontario most homes are Forced Air Natural Gas for heating but we are likely moving towards electrification to reduce CO2 emissions. We use very little carbon to generate electricity here so that has low CO2 intensity (lots of nukes and hydro-electric).  I believe the government is moving towards banning natural gas heating in the future and push you towards electricity in the form of heat pumps and resistance heating.  But that changed somewhat when we went from a left-leaning to right-leaning govt a couple of years ago.

Here the consumer won't stand for it if the price of electricity doesn't fall in line with natural gas. We'll see how far the new administration is willing to go, but this would be a huge hit on their constituency's pocket book.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 10 months later...
On 12/14/2020 at 3:52 PM, ERDrPC said:

I have a zoned carrier infinity system. I have the two SAM modules installed. Does my installer use the carrier driver in the C4 database or the homenation driver?

@ERDrPC did you complete your carrier infinity system integration into C4 with the SAM module? If so, can you update on which features do or do not integrate?

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  • 1 year later...

Sorry to resurrect an old tread. I finally have my SAM tied in via RS-232. Now I'm stuck trying to configure the drivers. There are two drivers - network and thermostat. I have two air handlers and 6 zones. Upstairs has 5 zones and mainfloor is a single zone. I'm struggling to figure out the nomenclature in the driver. Each thermostat driver has a choice for system and zone. It doesn't auto populate. I'm guessing my mainfloor is system 1 and only zone 1. I don't know if my upstairs is just a continuation of zones or a new system with it's own zones. Any ideas how to figure this out?

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