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?
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!
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 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.
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.
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:
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
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.
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.
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.
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.