Detect state of switches in series

Context: I'm trying to design a little monitoring circuit that will tell me when my air conditioning is interrupted by my utility's "Saver Switch" which reduces load during peak times.

Specifics: Central air conditioners normally receive a signal to turn on their compressor by having 24 VAC applied to two terminals on their control board by the thermostat (a switch). In my case my utility has wired another (remote controllable) switch in series with the thermostat which can be turned off during periods of high demand preventing the compressor from being run. I would like to monitor the state of both the thermostat switch and the utility saver switch independently. I would also like to monitor whether 24 VAC is being applied to the compressor control board.

Goal: A circuit which will provide three 5vdc logic outputs one which shows whether the thermostat switch is open or closed, one which shows whether the utility saver switch is open or closed and one which shows whether 24 VAC is being applied to the compressor terminals. If any one of the three logic points is low the compressor would not be running, if all three are high the compressor should be running.

Does anyone have some suggestions about how to do this? It seems to me the tricky part is measuring whether the switches are open or closed as they may or may not have 24 VAC flowing through them.

Thanks!

Reply to
BenFranske
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Some sort of optoisolator circuit I guess. D from BC

Reply to
D from BC

Ok, the goal is to understand that the thermostat is asking for the air compressor to be truned on, but the utility says no.

What do you expect to find from this information ??

If the utility says its over loaded and it need to shed, it will shed.

Please help me understand what it is you are trying to get done with this information.

Use opto isolators and a PIC.

Write a little software to monitor the optos and send that information out the serial port to a PC to check the time of day and graph its usage.

Simple

donald

Reply to
Donald

Curiosity mostly, I'd like to be able to look at a LED display and see whether the saver switch is overriding the thermostat at any given time. Sometime down the road it would be interesting for me to interface it with a PC which I can setup to log when and for how long the saver switch is activated along with what percentage of the time it actually prevents cooling. I also happen to believe the utility stretches the truth about how much they activate the switch and would be curious to know if that belief is well founded.

About the optoisolators, I did think about those but how might they be interfaced into the circuit? Don't they need power on the "input" side to operate? When either of the switches is open their isn't any power through it to measure. Another way to look at it is that I need to be able to differentiate between an open and closed circuit between two points and the complication is that there may or may not be 24 VAC flowing through that portion of the circuit at the same time.

Reply to
BenFranske

Ok...I'll give this a shot but I'm no pro. It's half baked...others might fix it up..

Monitoring a switch when the switch control not accessible. Industrial control setting.

control |

------------/ ------->I may or may not be flowing | | | | +----L1--C----+ == -----L2------- | | +---[ ? ]----+

The mystery box [?] contains an oscillator. D from BC

Reply to
D from BC

Note: It's a signal injection technigue. D from BC

Reply to
D from BC

Problem is what you want to monitor. As the switches are in series the closest to source of 24 supply controls possibility of detecting the state of other components as there is NO signal. Two possibilities: a) change those switches to multiple contact ones and apply detectic circuit to another set of contacts on each switch. b) put 24vAC relay on outgoing contact of each switch and scratch your head to make sense of the signals received.

HTH

Stanislaw.

Reply to
Stanislaw Flatto

Ok, I guess the LED display must be an improvement you are planning for in the future.

My first pass would be to put the LED side of the opto across the loads in question.

The AC relay on the compressor will tell you its running or not. The AC relay in your furnace will tell you its looking to cool.

If the furnace wants to cool but the compressor is not ON, the utility must have said no.

Any voltage on the load will also be on the opto. Approprate diodes and resistors will be required to limit the current in the LED side of the opto.

If you want to monitor the low voltage side, you can place your opto in series with the switch and if there is any current flowing thru the switch, the opto will also come on.

then

The output side of the opto would go to what ever circuit you would want to use.

A PIC can be programmed to ingnore the 60 cycle pulses on the output of the opto.

Then you ccan drive your LED display with the other pins of the PIC. ;-)

donald

Let us know how you come along. I may do the same.

Reply to
Donald

Lets start by making a DC supply to run it from using the 24VAC from the transformer. Since the current will be small a simple 1/2 wave rectifier would do for this.

Next we want to provide a small leakage path past the first set of contacts in the string. Since I don't know how much capacitance there is in the wiring, lets assume that a 1 meg resistor will do this. We also need to provide a path to ground for the node between the switches. A 100K and do this.

A ! 1M +--/\\/\\-----+--B C ! ! ! 24VAC --+--/ O------++----/ O---+-- Control ! \\ / 100K \\ ! GND

A-----/\\/\\---->!----+--------- Led Power ! ! ----->!---+--- LM339 Power ! --- --- ! GND

D B---/\\/\\--+----!-\\ LED ! >---/\\/\\----!----/\\/\\----!----/\\/\\----!

Reply to
MooseFET

Thanks for the ideas so far I'm going to ponder this some more. Another idea I had was, and I'm not sure if this is workable or not, to superimpose a constant DC signal over the AC through each switch, use that for monitoring the status and then filter it back out. My concern with that is the capacitors needed to filter the DC back out again after each switch might be larger than standard values. Any thoughts on that?

Reply to
BenFranske

Place diode, resistor, and LED across 24v relay coil of your thermostat (the "upstream" relay). When the 'stat says "turn on", the LED lights.

When the AC goes off, just look at the LED. If it's on, you've been shed.

--
John English
Reply to
John E.

Ooops my sketch missed having a zener on the Vcc of the LM339. It protects the LM339 and the LEDs from voltage spikes. The dropping resistor is shown as intended.

This sounds way more complex than my idea and you are messing with the actual power path through the switches. How about using 10KHz instead of DC?

Reply to
MooseFET

TSTAT Saver +---> to controller / / | 24VAC ---+------+---o o----+----o o---+---[100R]--+ | | | | | [4.7K] [4.7K] | [4.7K] | | | | | | [D1] [D2] | [D3] | | | | | | [LED1] +---[LED2]--+---[LED3---+ | | | 24VAC ---+------------------------------------------+

A glowing LED corresponds with an open switch, or in the case of LED1, 24VAC. The LEDs should be bright enough, even running at ~ 2mA when both switches are open.

Relay contacts can gate the 24VAC to the controller, if necessary, by replacing the 100R with a relay. It will probably work as is. Worst case, the controller will "see" about 6VAC when it should "see" 0V if you do not use the relay.

If you must have the 5 volt logic signals, use AC input optos such as PC354NJ0000F in place of the LEDs, and eliminate D1-D3.

Ed

Reply to
ehsjr

put a resistor in series with a diode across each switch that'll create a small DC signal when the switch opens, if the diodes face opposite directions the sign of the DC will tell you which switch is open.

--
Bye.
   Jasen
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Reply to
Jasen Betts

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