If you would like to order one of these ESP32 based valve controllers checkout my Tindie store: www.tindie.com/products/voltlog/tasmota-esp32-floor-heating-valve-controller/
For the lightpipes I can recommend using old toslink cables. Especially on the thin and cheap one you can easily extract the inner core and insert it into a 3D print
Thanks but I've ordered some cheap PMMA fiber, 2mm thick, black coating which makes it ideal for this application. I just need to 3D print a jig to hold the different pipes in alignment.
Very nice. I would require 2 boards as I have 2 8 port manifolds. Looking at what I would do if current setup failed. Would be nice to see followup with your config in home assistant.
Check out the "Hi-Link 220V to 3.3V 3W mini power supply", if you did not know about it. It's smaller than what you have there and can easily handle ESP32.
I actually have one of these Hi-Link HLK-PM03 modules in my stash, the size is 34x20x15mm while the one I used TDPOWER TAS3-5-WEDT is 38x19x18.5mm so it is indeed smaller and outputting 3V3 directly. The cost is pretty similar at around $2.5 a piece so I will definitely give this a try in a future project. Thanks!
Great elegant result. Hats off.A question I always ask myself... When the esp modules are soldered on the board some route a hole on the main board to help improve the antenna gain. I never knew if this makes a big difference or not. Probably you know as it looks you put a lot of time in this Project. Cheers.
It's important to not have copper pour, tracks or other metal objects near to the antenna as indicated by the hw design guidelines from the manufacturer of the RF module, however a thin piece of FR4 material is not going to make a notable difference so I don't bother removing it.
Interesting project Florin - will be good to see it up and running. Here in North America our zone valves tend to run off of 24VAC using a synchronous motor. I like the wax motor idea - I suspect it may be more more reliable. For this project do you also have slab sensors to help prevent overshoot? or are you relying on ambient temperature only??
Thanks! I have no idea what's popular here but I have seen both 240V and 24V valves being sold, I just found a sweet deal on the ones that I got. I do not have slab sensors, I'm just using ambient sensors and so far I have not observed any overshoot behavior. I'm currently running with a 35 degree water temp so I guess that helps because it's not a lot over ambient but if any overshoot starts to appear I can try an correct for that in the automation loop.
@@voltlog Ahhh... the 35C water temperature will likely minimize overshoot as long as the slab doesn't have too much thermal mass. I've also found that most "off-the-shelf" ambient thermostats are quite slow to respond and have a wide/coarse set-point. Meaning that if you set the thermostat to 22C, it won't turn on until 21C and won't turn off until 23C...a massive range comfort-wise. So if you are designing your own ambient thermostats, this could easily be addressed. Looking forward to more videos on this topic!! All the best!
Hello! I took just a quick look at the controller you designed and I was wondering: wouldn't it be useful to have an output for controlling the pump from the manifold and also an output that starts the boiler when heat is required?
Hi Andrei! That is the nice thing about open source projects. If someone feels they need extra features, they can simply fork the project and modify it according to their needs.
Great project, thanks for sharing. Just a shame you didn't do This and That. :) I would be interested in the final install and curious how you will feed back and regulate temperature. I assume the wax valve actuators are simple ON/OFF controller or do they variable flow control.
The valves are simple on/off and they take 2-3 minutes to fully close/open. They install on the return of the individual water circuits. On the start of the circuits there is a way of roughly adjusting the flow, with those flow valves shown in the video (with red ring and transparent tube). In theory you adjust the flow rate according to the circuit length and then you just do on/off control when set temp is reached. Temperature is measured by individual ambient sensors (zigbee) which report back to HomeAssistant which handles the automation.
@@voltlog You actually can regulate them (and you should for floor heating since it is reacting very slowly - so room thermostats wont do much) with PWM. To simplify: We know valve needs 3min to fully open, so let say valve has opened 50% (roughly 1:45s) so how to keep it there. Long PWM - let say we have a pulse long 20seconds - if we have it ON 10s and OFF 10s it should stay in the same position on 50%, (it is not as simple but you get the idea - you need to add start and stop time...) So if you want slowly closing you set 9s ON & 11s OFF. So you can regulate the water temperature returning from the floor loop. You need extra 11 x DS18B20
Hi, are you still selling the boards? On the site it says out of stock, just wondering if I should wait. Also, could you provide a Link to the Valves you used? Thank you!
WHERE TO BUY???? Have bought all parts 2 month ago because i Need the Same Board! Would buy!!!!! Great Job. Bye the way: measurment of Flow (in/out) temperatures would optimize the system a Lot.
For ordering one checkout my tindie store. The board has an I2C and 1Wire header so it should be quite easy to add external sensors as needed. www.tindie.com/products/voltlog/tasmota-esp32-floor-heating-valve-controller/
Excellent project. I got the lazy version running (a sonoff 4ch ) just of 4 channels - also running tasmota. On the controll side of things. If anybody has a tip for the controllting: A PID type controller which accounts for the very slow response of the wax-motors and the overall heating would be interesting. I currently also use a bang-bang controller via home assistant and node-red.
Tasmota has a PID controller in beta, node-red could also be an option but it ultimately depends on your preference and level of control you desire. Personally I don't even think I need PID as my system is very stable & precise with a simple on/off control.
do you use custom tasmota firmware to see 10 devices in HA? because default tasmota can only see 8 devices. Can you share the bin and/or settings of tasmota? Thanks
Great little valve controller. I’ve considered getting those DIN enclosure for some of my projects - What are your overall thoughts about them? How is the alignment with your push terminals with the enclosure?
The spring connectors that I use are less than ideal, I would say they fit 90% but the enclosure pushes on them. These enclosures are designed for the screw terminal type terminals and with those, I think it would be a perfect fit. Depending on where you get these enclosures the quality can vary (cheap = lower quality).
Nice looking board - and Tasmota also is my favorite for heating automating… ;-) However, i hate those wax actuators - at least for my purposes they turned out to be way too fast in on/off acting, rendering the controlling into some sort of PWM. Which the wax does not like that much over time… At least some of those i have replaced by ‚real‘ motor valves, which also have the advantage to only draw current when they change the valve opening… But for regular floor heating they‘re good enough i guess - and only 10 of those do not waste that much power as well… :)
The valves that I shown in the video take about 2-3 mins to fully close/open so I wouldn't call them fast by my standards. After the first few seconds or so after activation, as the valve heats up, the current drops down to around 7mA. If you consider 10 valves running at 7mA 230V you get about 1.6W of power being burned while the valves are being driven. I don't yet have data collected on how often they would be actuatuated but I would imagine a ratio of 15% ON time or less is realistic. That's pretty reasonable to me.
There will be a second revision once I get a chance to work on that. I recommend you sign-up to the waiting list on Tindie to be notified when it's back in stock.
Can you wall-wart power it, because that would make it safe, ie, no mains on the PCB. I think most drawings are 1st angle projection, but electronics are 3rd angle projection, so you have to pay attention to the perspective.
Looking for something like this! Can you drive two actuators from one channel? Ideally I'd need 13-14 channels, but I can also combine a few zones. If you make another revision consider bumping the channel count to 16, since most of the off-the-shelf units have 10 or less channels. Also, the switch could be handy for reset to AP mode, but maybe mount it an angle pointing downward from the bottom edge so that you can reach it through the opening on the underside?
You can drive two actuators from one channel as long as you don't exceed the maximum ratings of the triac. I do not plan to increase the number of channels because that is the maximum I can fit in the chosen DIN rail enclosure. For those that need multiple channels they can add a second controller. I like the idea of moving the switch to the bottom of the board and I'll probably make the change in the next revision.
@VoltLog Nice project. Which room thermostate you take? Also one with ESP32? And could each room thermostate send the temperature to your controller too? Luckily without an "server" as an RasberryPi?
I use a custom design ESP8266 + relay board which is flashed with tasmota, this controls my heater and acts as a dumb switch in my automation. Then I have a thermostat entity in HomeAssistant that takes input from an ambient temp sensor and outputs to the heater relay. Sure you could make all of this independent of a raspberrypi server but that is not my goal.
