Is ELV Max! a reliable system compared to FHT80b (or ZWAVE)

[pbrand]

To add to my own question, I have bought some Max! stuff from Conrad (so it's the eQ-3 version and not ELV) and comparing to FHT it works like a breeze.

-It ís bidirectional.
-It seems to be quite stable, but this can only be checked on the long run.
-It's very responsive! When I adjust the room thermostat, the radiator valves respond in a manner of seconds.

Unfortunately there is nothing in the max! product range that can automatically operate the boiler of my city heating system, depending on the need for heat. But I will handle this through a zwave relay switch (controlled by raspberry with razberry) and checking the opening of al radiator valves.

But still, so far so good

[sj3fk3]

Unfortunately there is nothing in the max! product range that can automatically operate the boiler of my city heating system, depending on the need for heat. But I will handle this through a zwave relay switch (controlled by raspberry with razberry) and checking the opening of al radiator valves.

But still, so far so good

If you controlled the boiler for the city heating, wouldn't you automatically turn of the heating for everyone? Correct me if I'm wrong, but usually the boiler is where the actual heating of water takes place right? Usually by burning something like gas. Or is your boiler actually a "warmtewisselaar" that takes the heat of a closed city system and uses that to heat the tapwater? I'm asking because some cityheating systems directly heat tapwater and I'm still not clear what your boiler actually does in relation to the city heating.

[pbrand]

If you controlled the boiler for the city heating, wouldn't you automatically turn of the heating for everyone? Correct me if I'm wrong, but usually the boiler is where the actual heating of water takes place right? Usually by burning something like gas. Or is your boiler actually a "warmtewisselaar" that takes the heat of a closed city system and uses that to heat the tapwater? I'm asking because some cityheating systems directly heat tapwater and I'm still not clear what your boiler actually does in relation to the city heating.

Im my case, I don't actually have a physical boiler. It's more used as an analogy.

I have a city heating system with a continuous (hot) water flow. There is however a valve in the city heating water pipe in my house. When this valve is operated, I can turn the hot water flow on or off in my house. Turning the water flow off when no heat is needed (in the house) is more efficient (because otherwise the hot water will still flow through the pipes which costs energy).

[sj3fk3]

Im my case, I don't actually have a physical boiler. It's more used as an analogy.

I have a city heating system with a continuous (hot) water flow. There is however a valve in the city heating water pipe in my house. When this valve is operated, I can turn the hot water flow on or off in my house. Turning the water flow off when no heat is needed (in the house) is more efficient (because otherwise the hot water will still flow through the pipes which costs energy).

I understand, still the loss of energy though the transport in the pipes must surely be very low? This valve is normally operated by a thermostat somewhere? You might also consider doing something with two jeenodes, could be cheaper and more fun then the razberry route.

[pbrand]

I understand, still the loss of energy though the transport in the pipes must surely be very low? This valve is normally operated by a thermostat somewhere? You might also consider doing something with two jeenodes, could be cheaper and more fun then the razberry route.

I have never measured the energy loss through the pipes in the house. But as city heating is quite an expensive form of heating, every joule counts

Perhaps a jeenode (hadn't heard of it yet) is fun to play with at some point, but for now I'll stick with the raspberry and razberry, because I already have bought them and it is a convenient means to control my zwave network

And with mono I can still develop in .net on the raspberry

[Digit]

Here you can see the behavior of a ELV MAX Radiator valve trying to keep the temperature constant.
Bright red = Temperature (Oregon Scientific), Dark red = valve position, green = temperature setpoint.
Still need to do some calibration

TempsPic_000084.png (20.62 KiB) Viewed 18398 times

[MarnixT]

Good to hear all this.
I'm using elv max as well and I like it too.
There's a great piece of software called max buddy that you should check. First I would suggest installing it on Windows, but later you can also try headless on the raspberry.
I've also made some script to try and integrate max buddy with domoticz, which is also running on the raspberry.
Not sure how you plan to use razberry but it's also supported by domoticz.
I think what you need is a script, which could be done in domoticz which compares the setpoint temperatures with the actual temperatures for all rooms. If the difference is more than say 1 degree the relay should be turned on.

Migrating to mqtt also had me interested. Not sure how far Robert hekkers is with this.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

Update: good to see you in this thread digit, didn't see that

[Digit]

ELV Max is controlled from a Raspberry Pi nowadays
With Node.JS & MQTT of course, just like 90% of the rest of my Domotica system.
The last bits & pieces always take the longest, but I think that if all goes well, I can pull the plug of my Windows based Domotica system around March next year

And yes, maybe I'm not posting that much anymore, but I still read almost everything.
Let's say that I'm distracted by a lot of other things, lately

[sj3fk3]

Here you can see the behavior of a ELV MAX Radiator valve trying to keep the temperature constant.
Bright red = Temperature (Oregon Scientific), Dark red = valve position, green = temperature setpoint.
Still need to do some calibration

TempsPic_000084.png

Are you using a PID controller? Something like https://npmjs.org/package/node-pid-controller

[pbrand]

@Robert

Nice graph Indeed some calibration has to be done Have you measured the temperature which the max! thermostat reports also? In my test room, the max! thermostat reported half a degree to high. So I adjusted that in the max! software and now the thermostat seems to control the temperature reasonably well, within +- 0,5 degrees celcius.

Can you, by the way, perhaps share another new blog on your recent insights concerning MQTT? What is the message structure (tree etc.) you are using now for example? Can't find much on that subject on the net (yet).

@Marnix

I know max buddy and other software packages. Thanks for the tips. But I want to get rid of my system dependencies concerning hardware and communication between them. So I decided to use MQTT as the communication protocol between all my (future) domotica components.

My plan now is to write a gateway for the max! system and a gateway for the razberry. These gateways should handle the translation of MQTT message to and from the actual devices. In this way the systems are agnostic of each other which is good (separation of concerns )

In case someone is interested in my (slow) progress, I'm trying to blog occasionally on http://www.adreamerslair.nl

So far I did not see any domotica software which also uses MQTT (except homa but I simply hate javascript ) so I can use it with my own system.

[pbrand]

Are you using a PID controller? Something like https://npmjs.org/package/node-pid-controller

The max! thermostats, like any thermostat out there I would think, have of course there own PID controller embedded. And I should think that two PID controllers won't operate well together....

[Digit]

Are you using a PID controller? Something like https://npmjs.org/package/node-pid-controller

No no, the Cube & Radiator valve do that - I just tell the ELV Max system what temperature I want, that's all.

[sj3fk3]

Are you using a PID controller? Something like https://npmjs.org/package/node-pid-controller

No no, the Cube & Radiator valve do that - I just tell the ELV Max system what temperature I want, that's all.

Aah, ok.. I thought for a second that you wanted to override it all.

[Digit]

Nice graph Indeed some calibration has to be done Have you measured the temperature which the max! thermostat reports also? In my test room, the max! thermostat reported half a degree to high. So I adjusted that in the max! software and now the thermostat seems to control the temperature reasonably well, within +- 0,5 degrees celcius.

No, cause I don't have the Max! thermostats. I already had a lot of temperature sensors in the house, so no need for them.

Can you, by the way, perhaps share another new blog on your recent insights concerning MQTT? What is the message structure (tree etc.) you are using now for example? Can't find much on that subject on the net (yet).

"Your wish is my command" Just kidding. I will of course, some day.. too much other exciting things to write about
And I know, with the freedom you have with MQTT regarding topics, payload etcetera also comes great responsibility
I use 4 (or was it 5..) top level topics. Have a look here, maybe this will help to give you some ideas.

BTW, I've really learned to like Javascript a lot, it has outgrown the stage of the 'onclick' on a web page.
You can develop a complete Home Automation system with it

[Rene]

I have in 6 rooms a Max room thermostat which control each one or more radiator thermostats. A node.js application communicates with the Max cube and publishes each event, a change in temp, setpoint or valve opening, via Mqtt. A rules engine based on nools.js listens to all events and as soon as one room thermostat reports a setpoint which is higher than the current temp it issues a command via mqtt to start heating. Again a node.js application, connected to the otgw, picks up this command and raises the setpoint of an iSense room thermostat connected to a Remeha Calenta boiler. As soon as all setpoints are reached the rules engine orders the otgw ro lower the setpoint. I have this solution working for a few weeks now and it is working allright. Previously rooms were not heated becuase the temp in the living room matched the setpoint. Now I can control the temp in each room individually.