Remeha Calenta interface for Homeseer

[bus147]

@Menno,

I've always misinterpreted this line, mainly because I mainly read the blog entry @digits blog and not carefull enough this topic. I thought it was some OpenTherm functionality. But instead it's the functionality as described in the "iSense installatie en service handleiding" pages 25-27 chapter 6.4 "digitale ingang" Am I right? If so thank you for clearing this up.
Some more questions where did you buy that nice soic16 to dil adapter board?
What are the yellow and blue blocks? I presume a relay and a trimmer. But I don't see them in your schematic.
And I see a transistor and some passives, including the large cap. Can you shed some light on their meaning as well?
I won't ask where the headers for the leds are. Oh and compliments for the nice silkscreen on the box.

I'm working on a pump controller circuit for a quinta pro. My heating circuit is separated by a heatexchanger and therefore I've got two pumps. The optimal pump speed is also dependend on the amount of generated heat. Therefore I want to read the actual power output from the quinta and use that in the microcontroller which drives the pumps.

[bus147]

I'm trying to connect to a Quinta PRO via a ftdi ft232rl chip, same as in the remeha cable but on a breakout board. I've configured 5V logic levels. The scope shows the recom program looking for the boiler. The TX line drop to (almost?) zero volt for each bit. But the RX line shows no response, it stays at 5V. I've disconnected the chip and probed the bare cable and every line was 5V except ground. I've swapped TX and RX just to be sure. Still no boiler detected. Does anybody have any suggestions? Must I configure anything in the boiler? Oh and the breakboard works fine when it's connected to a jeenode or some other MCU, that's functional. I'm using the latest (version 5 something) of the recom software.

tia

[Menno]

You are right about the "digitale ingang" as described in the service manual.

The soic16 adapter board is fabricated by myself, but they can be bought on the net, for example ebay.

The yellow block is a relay and the blue block is a switch.

The large transistor you see is in fact a 5v voltage regulator. In combination with the large cap. it produces a nice 5v. for the circuit.
The smal transistor you see is the 3.3v ,voltage regulator as you can see in the schematic.

[bus147]

I solved the connection to the quinta pro. Not by reason but by accident. I removed the ftdi ft232r convertor and switched the logic level to 3.3V to test it with a Jeenode. Yes, there was 3.3V signaling and both send and receive worked. So nothing was wrong with the convertor. Rather frustrated I connected the convertor back with quinta pro and ... forgot the put the logic voltage back to 5V... oops. And suddenly the boiler was recognized. I don't understand why but it works.

Perhaps a bit off topic but I changed the stock pump,an oem model Grundfos UPS 25/70, for another oem Grundfos. This upm 25/70 model is an energy efficient pump with a dc motor. Probably an Alpha2 without it's default control logic, to maintain constant flow or constant pressure, but just a pwm interface to allow the boiler to maintain it's speed. Not only was the energy consumption more than halved but thermal performance was also greatly enhanced.
Disclaimer: This pump isn't the best option for every heating system. For my specific situation with the heat exchangers it's perfect. But most people don't have that. On the other hand if you know what you're doing and want to apply your own pump control strategy, based on a dozen of real time measurements coming in from your domotica system, this is a winner. It's as far I could find the only small pump with an external controllable speed. All general available pumps which are external controllable are way to big and expensive.

regards,

bus147

[lifer]

Hello @bus147,

I've just bought a new boiler (Remeha Quinta Pro 45) and I want to monitor/control it via PC. I also bought a RS232 to USB adapter and I built myself a TTL to RS232 adapter (MAX232). Unfortunately, Recom software refuse to see my boiler (I'm using latest Recom software version - v5.1.0).

I've read your latest post and I don't really understood how did you really managed to connect to Quinta Pro. Could you explain me what's the final procedure (swapping Rx/Tx, logic levels) to make it work?

Best regards,

PS: This is my first post so greetings to everyone!

[lifer]

Well guys.. I found my answer! I had to swap the Rx/Tx signals from the boiler. Actually, on Robert's page, the boiler Tx/Rx signals are from the RS232 side. But the boiler is "emitting" through third pin and is receiving through the second one. So the correct pinout are: 1-> GND; 2->RXD; 3->TXD; 4->5Vcc (from the boiler side).

Next step: finding a custom way to comunicate with the boiler using VB, JS, PHP or Perl (I'm gonna search the forum for any information) to put those boiler data on cloud .

[bus147]

@lifer, sorry for the late reply. I didn't do anything special. The damn cable just works now, even at 3.3V instead of 5V.

I think the cable between boiler and ttl convertor cannot be too long. Perhaps I'll need to add some terminating resistors to minimize reflection. I'll need to look into this sometime. For me the cable works at 2mtr length but not longer.
If anybody has any suggestions regarding termination and maximum cable length please share.

[lifer]

I'm using quite a long cable (20m) but I put the RS232 converter at boiler's side (that's it, the MAX232 itself powered by the boiler's 4th pin) and the RS232-to-USB adapter at PC's side. You could try it too, by using two MAX232 (one at each end) to reproduce the TTL levels at laptop's side, to use your FTDI coverter. Btw, using your FTDI adapter with 3.3V logic might be at boiler's thresolds edge (and even short cable loses could mess up the entire communication).

I guess I read this entire thread (and others) but I didn't found the complete serial protocol between Remeha (Quinta Pro, in my case) and Recom software (I want to write a linux script). Or, is there any platform independent script already done with php, perl, python or something like that? Thanks in advance for any clue.

[Digit]

Well, the complete protocol is in the XML files included with the Recom software.
Each model has its own XML file.

[Chriskras]

Remeha Quinta 30 C also has such a connector and you can also read by the software.
Now I wonder, how do I get hold of his rope.
The order number is 58,900, but however, I find it too expensive.