Underfloor heating project for a HA Newbie

Hardware
42

Hopefully you’re still here. I’ve got a question. I’m trying to accomplish basically the same, as you do. Furthermore, I have 12 x 24V Actuators already installed into a pretty dump zone regulating system. I have bought an ESP 8266 development board with 16 relays. Also bought a power adapter outputting 1.5A with 24V. I have hooked up the wires to the board, and it starts booting up. The Wi-Fi starts transmitting, and I can connect to it. Cannot program it, I’ve just ordered a UART to USB connector for that, but that’ll work out.

What I don’t get is how to wire the board and the relays. I assumed the 24V adapter is powering both the relays as the board itself by only using the 2 connector pins. However, looking at your wiring scheme, you have a separate live line and neutral line connected to all the relays. All the relays are innerconnected with a wire on the current. Does that mean if one relay does not have a current, then it is just offline?

43

Hi Martijn,

my setup is slightly different from yours in the sense that my actuators are 230VAC.

Therefore in my installation I have a 230VAC-to-5VDC PSU that I use to power supply the digital part of the ESP-board. The 230VAC power is only supplied to the relays so that they can feed the power onto to the actuators.
In my relay boards each relay has 3 terminal screws where you connect the hot wire in the middle and the actuator to the left side. (The terminal screw to the right (which I don’t use) carries inverted logic so that it is hot when the signal is off.)

Good luck with your project, I hope you are successful and have fun at the same time!

BR David

1 Like
44

Thanks! So in my case, since everything is 24V, I need to split the signal and connect every relay with the hotwire in the middle too. Let’s see what happens :wink: Thanks for your reply.

I’m now stuck at being able to programming the ESP12F. Any pointers on that? I have bought a USB to UART connector, but don’t understand to what pins I have to connect everything.

45

Hi Martijn,

I found some documentation on the esphome page esphome.io. My boards are similar to this one: ESP-12F_Relay_X8 | devices.esphome.io

I have soldered wires and connectors onto my boards to ensure that I have easy access in an emergency situation and don’t have to search through the internet to find the right pin numbers.

I suggest that you practice a little bit with the wiring since I would assume some variations in the boards available on aliexpress.

BR David

1 Like
46

Thanks for the assist. In hind side it was pretty terrible. The wires just didn’t make a good contact. After reconnecting them with a “better” wire in between, I could program it without issues. Now to find the correct GPIO’s

Anyone any thoughts on how to work out how to get the correct GPIO connected to the relays? I now have an extremely basic config:

switch:
  - platform: gpio
    pin: GPIO16
    name: Relay1
    id: relay1

Copied from ESP-12F_Relay_X8 | devices.esphome.io, but it doesn’t do anything. Except when I switch relay 8, they all turn off. At least, I think they do. Because when the light is on at the relay, is the relay then turned ON or OFF?

– right, that is solved. When the relay lights are ON the relay is OFF. Now only to figure out somehow on which GPIO everything is connected

– right, found it. Works now , thanks. Apparently I have a shift registrar. At Generate Relay Config For ESPHome per https://www.gpmidi.net/node/163 · GitHub I borrowed a config which makes everything come up and running.

47

Have you ever figured out which settings are working for you? I mean the KP, KI, KD , KE? I’m finding it hard to fully understand what they are doing, even after reading a lot of explainations.

48

I don’t think I have been near those settings?
Where did you find them?

49

Hi,
I would like to know which thermoelectric actuators you use? I believe generally speaking you can choose between “smart TRV’s” which typically contain a temperature sensor and some logic to open/close the valve based on the requested temperature or a “dumb” thermoelectric actuator.

Since my valves are centralized and hidden behind a cabinet (like most people with underfloor heating), I’m more inclined to go for a “dumb” thermoelectric actuator that just opens/closes the valve based on a command (0-10V). But that is just theory. For the people that are using this in practice: which thermoelectric actuators do you use? Do you use some open/close actuators (NO/NC)? Or what about actuators that can partially open a valve? I have some rooms with pretty stable temperatures, so in that case a valve could be open for e.g. 20% for most of the time.

50

Hi Dries

I have the dumb actuators. They are a combination of Pettinaroli and Roth but all are dumb and NC. They work as binary, nothing with 20% or so.

BR David

1 Like
51

It is an integration I’m trying to use. See: GitHub - ScratMan/HASmartThermostat: Smart Thermostat with PID controller for HomeAssistant

Now first I have to find some spare time to hook everything up.

52

I’m still reading and learning before buying the hardware. I notice some buy 230VAC and other work with 24V. What considerations did you make before selecting 230/24V? I need to buy both my control board (ESP-based?) and my thermoelectric valves.

53

I didn’t choose cause I already had the 230VAC actuators.
And my control board is esp based.

54

Thanks. I was just wondering if there are any pros/cons when choosing 24V of 230V. I do have a 230V power socket nearby, but I can imagine most of us have 230V nearby and choose to transform it to 24V for some reason.

55

For me it is the same reason as @c957031 . I already have 10 actuators installed on 24v. So bought a 24v esp module.

56

Hi Martijn,

I would guess that powering the 12x24V actuators with a 1.5A adapter will not work. I have measured different actuators. The ‘bad&cheap’ have a peak inrush current of about 2A at activation, the ‘better & still cheap’ have an inrush current of 350mA. If you use high-quality danfoss valves, please check the spec of the valves.

57

hmmm, it works pretty well ;-). I guess when switching everything on at the same time, i’d agree it would become instable. So maybe I should invest in a more heavy solution. I didn’t measure and assumed the 350mA (which has been mentioned in a differrent topic too) was very much the same for all actuators.

I searched for the one I bought:

• Ambient Temperature:-5-50℃
• Thrust:100N
• 2 Wire Normally Closed
• M30 Thread:M30x1.5mm
• Stroke Lenght:3-4mm
• Voltage: AC230V/DC24V
• Stable Power Comsuption: 2.5W
• Full Time:3min
• Cable Length：800mm
• Protection Class:IP41
Which is: Wengart Plug Thermal Actuator WG2212

Can’t find much more about it, so should have measured it indeed. I could always replace it by 24V 10A voedingsadapter, 100-240V AC naar DC 24Volt 10A 240W voeding met 5,5 mm x 2,5/2,1 mm DC-uitgang, draagbare 24 V laagspanningstransformatoren voor ledstrips, bewakingscamera’s : Amazon.nl: Klussen & gereedschap, but I cannot find something with 15A for example, which should be save.

58

Hi David and all others who have contributed to this discussion,

It was fascinating to read this!

I am facing similar situation, and wondering what you would do if you could or would not (= don’t have time to learn to) do ESP?

I am considering having Shelly Pro or Shelly 1 installed close to my actuators.The actuators (the caps) are old so I consdierto have them replaced, and have them wired to the shellys. Shellys would connect to HA. HA would read all the temp metes in each room and do all the logic.

On one hand, Shelly pro would be tempting because I could connect to ethernet and I hear its better than regular shelly. On the other hand Shelly 1 would allow me to use 24Volts instead of 230Volts, which would allow me to legally install it myself. Of course electician would have to install the 230 to 24V transformer. Since shelly cannot take 24VAC I would then have to buy 24DC actuators, not sure how good they are?

What do you think, I shelly an ok solution, If I dont do ESP? Is there something equally ready as Shelly (vs ESP) but better? Should I do 230V to get ethernet connetion, or 24V so I can make and maintain everything my self?

BONUS: I am also intersteed in using shelly 1 because then I can use add on to bring in temp sensors for each valve. No I have no metrics on whats going on. Even surface temp from the valve/hose next to actuator would be better than no data.

I also plan to replace my boilers manual temp cauges wth temp probes connected to shelly with add on. I have not found anything as cheap and easy (7 euros for add on and 12 for shelly, and 5 for probe) - that is wire-powered.

59

Hi Joju,

I have spent some time playing with the ESP before figuring it out, but I really find the ecosystem super impressive and useful, not only in this context but in other things in my setup.
With my current knowledge and with your constraint to avoid ESP I would consider either Shelly (I have good experience with them as well) or (for the legality reasons you mentioned) simply getting a number of Ikea TreTakt switches and using zigbee for controls.
One actuator for each TreTakt switch (Staying with 240V actuators) At 8€ per switch I find it OK, priced. This would be the easy, clean and no-nonsense setup that I would consider.

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I would still use the Aqara temperature sensors even though I have found out that they don’t follow Zigbee standard 100% and as such can cause trouble with some controllers/routers. I don’t know your setup, but for me the temperature sensor in the relevant room is a good feature.

Please share your progress!

BR David

60

I am about to start a similar project. My house has district heating and two units on seperate floors controlling 8 zones for underfloor heating (water).

I would like to start with controlling 3 zones with HA and I thought it would be easier to just hook up 3 Shelly 1 minis I have lying around to the zone controllers in the existing control box and remove the cables that are attached to the corresponding room thermostats. Temperature will be measured by cheap temperature sensors in the rooms. I think the existing control box also communicates with the other unit to switch on or off the pump (only one unit has a pump).

So I’m not hooking up the Shelly to the actuators like people do in this thread but to the controllers in the existing control box. The Shelly takes over the role of the room thermostat so to speak and the control box keeps doing it’s thing.

The control box uses 24v for communicating with the room thermostats and 230v for switching on the actuators. The Shelly will be taking the 24v load from the control box for the input. For now, this setup seems the easiest, so that I don’t have to worry about switching on and off the pump and communicating with the other unit. Or am I missing something?