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Input needed for a Project for a NOOB for a Heating Control System

Hi guys,

We are doing some renovations at home (Sydney Australia) and as part of this we are going to implement a Hydronically heated floor. (basically pump hot water through a slab) This will be in and running for next winter. What i need built is essentially a fancy differential temperature controller - as i can not find anything even remotely similar on the market that will do everything that i want. I will have a storage tank of hot water which i will need to monitor the temperature of - during the day this will be heated by a solar setup on the roof so i will need to be able to have a settable temeprature difference between the two that would control a 24v relay. e.g. Lets say i set that i want the tank to be at a maximum of 40 degreee C. (Set point 1) So this would need one temperature probe that could be positiioned in/on the tank I also want to set that if the roof is 5 degrees (or more) warmer than the tank (and the tank is not at 40 degrees) then turn on the relay (which will activate a small circulating pump). In the event that the differential temperature becomes less than 5 degrees turn off the pump The system would then need to have a 2nd Set point for monitoring the room temperature (lets say i set that to 22 degrees) ( I would actually like a couple of these inputs (say 3) for 3 seperate thermostats) which the system could monitor and have seperate outputs (relay) for each one. (So i could have 3 different areas that were being monitored and potentially running at different temperatures) Each of these outputs would be tied into a "master" so if any were active the master was also active - this would drive a relay which would drive a circulating pump and finally the outputs of each of the

3 zones would then drive a solenoid for each zone that would be on or off Lastly a time controller that could contol the different temperatures for potentially differnet times of the day - so for instance the Home theatre would run at 18 degress during the day but at 5PM would raise the temperature to 22, whereas the laundry and bathroom area would run at 22 degrees during the day and then go down to 15 degress overnight ??

All of this would have some form of LCD interface to enable the monitoring and setting of each of the elements

Any ideas how i would go about this - i am not up on Electronics but do COmputer systems for a living.

Craig

Reply to
Craig Curtin
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As you are already familiar with computer systems, how about a PC based solution using something like National Instruments multi-function card

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They also do some software called Labview. which is a visual programming thingy where you just use drag and drop and a minimum of coding.

National Instruments aren't the cheapest for this sort of stuf, there are other manufacturers.

Another option is a PLC, but by the time you have added an LCD display, it becomes more expensinve than a PC based version.

Kevin R

Reply to
KevinR

The centre for alternative technology in wales, uk have a pamphlet on how to build a simple solar heating controller that sounds similar to what you want. This uses two diodes as temperature sensors, and has a full circuit diagram and pcb mask included. So you could try emailing them -

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http://www.niftybits.ukfsn.org/

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Reply to
andy

Heated floor in Australia???, come on, I thought your country was Phooo! hot!!

How can you get rid of the latent heat in the floor during the day?

Kind regards, Gordon.

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Reply to
Gordon Youd

IN winter it can be chilly and our houses are never designed for it (DOuble Glazing etc).

The particular area that i intend to heat has very little area exposed to sunlight in winter so i do not have many issues with "Solar Bloom" (what happens when the sun contributes to the heat of the room). Hopever having said that i intend to run a constant circulation systsem whihc tend sot be slef balancing when left alone

Craig

Reply to
Craig Curtin

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