Internet remote monitoring/switching

Make it a local system - when the temperature drops into the danger zone the button is pushed every 30 minutes until a safe temperature is achieved. You could be notified that this is happening. What is the make / model of controller?

You could monitor the state of things and have the system send an email when troubles occur.

Thanks H.J. Simpson. Thanks for your reply. The controller is a Heat Transfer Products Model 925. The company does not offer any remote switching or monitoring options. I have found temperature "dialers" that will call me remotely via telephone when the temp drops below 45 F for about $100. Although this is somewhat of an indirect method, it would allow me to know if the boiler has locked up or if the electricity has gone out. Unfortunately, I'm not usually at one telephone number when I'm travelling and cell phone service is marginal in northern New Hampshire. And the problem of resetting the boiler still remains. I appreciate your efforts. Best regards, Pete

Would a $100 solution work?

A web-controlled device with relay output and an opto-coupler input:

It needs 5 volts DC at 500ma to run it.

You would probably need a router with DMZ capability and either a fixed IP address on your broadband connection or something like DYNDNS to allow associating a a URL with your broadband connection.

Is this a Munchkin -

??

First, you need to get the signal into a computer and the command out of it.

John's suggestion of a

is a good one, but you need to figure a safe, UL compliant way to set it up.

Do you not have a neighbor who could reset the boiler if there is a problem? A temperature alarm / dialler / pager seems safer.

Thanks gentleman; great suggestions. Yes, HJS, the propane boiler is a Munchkin. John, I found the website and the internet relay switches are very reasonably priced. Sounds like an inexpensive way to reset the system via internet. I isolated and soldered wires across the momentary low voltage reset switch and pulled them out to the outside of the case for access. This in no way compromises the high voltage side of things or the gas (propane) circuitry. I could hook a relay to these wires to "press the reset." Just have to figure out the internet-relay connection side of things.

As far as detectecting the fault situation, H.J.Simpson's idea is a good one.....temperature alarms activate a phone dialer at a preset temperature and call pre-programmed numbers to alert me that there is a problem. These can be had for about $120. The only problem there is that it will not differentiate between a boiler fault and a power outage, and I am often travelling away from home weeks at a time in northern New Hampshire where cell phone and pager coverage is iffy to non-existent. I have a call into the Utah company that produces the relays. I wonder if they have a device that detects the "alarm" 120 voltage that is activated when there is a fault in the boiler and makes it possible to be notified via internet. If so, this is probably the next cheapest way out. Lastly, would be the webcam option at $300-400. I work at hospitals and so have easy access to the internet daily.

So worst case scenario would be a detect fault/reset functi> >

No, but my experience is that the bigger the loop, the bigger the problems. So if it has to contact the internet, then you, then you have to tell it to reset, and that has to go back over the net, the loop is too big.

What you want is a minimum temperature to be maintained AND you want to know. This is two problems - reset the system AND log the events.

A system which relies only on AC power being on (which I assume is needed for the boiler / pump to run) is best. So I would use a cheap thermostat which closes the contacts mentioned "wires across the momentary low voltage reset switch" -- simple and cheap. If you cannot hold the contacts closed for technical reasons you could pulse them every 60 minutes with a simple pulse timer -- hardware store type which can close the switch every half hour or similar (type with sliding pins). Or something like

could be modified to do a 5 minute pulse every half hour.

As for logging the events, I am sure there is a sensor system off the shelf which could email you a summary of the temperature hour by hour, every day.

Thanks for posting that. I've been looking for something like that myself.

The web relay device has an optically isolated input, so it could sense that failure line by means of an isolator such as this one:

The SSR input accepts 120VAC and is optically coupled to a transistor switch that provides a low-going output (switch to ground) when the input voltage is applied.

You would have to check the device via the web to detect a problem - as long as you remember to do it each day ;-)

Alternative solutions might include a fault detector of some type, plus a delay timer (whatever is reasonable for thunderstorm-caused outages), plus a relay to operate the reset switch at the end of the timeout period. I can see doing this with a $3 microcontroller chip, the SSR (above), and a few other parts. If you're interested in this solution, send email to piaxe AT jecarter DOT com

If power outages are a problem, then backup power (SLA battery?) should be provided for whatever alert/reset system you use.

Someone told me about this recently..

Use with a pre-pay mobile phone...

It allows you heating system to text you when it's triggered.

John:

Thanks again for all of your help. I'm back home for a week and am attempting to finish the boiler reset circuitry you gave me advice about. As you suggested, I got the WebRelay internet controlled switch and associated components. As you also mentioned, I need a way to access the WebRelay device via the web, but my ISP provides only dynamic IP addresses. The WebRelay must be assigned a static IP address. You mentioned DMZ (my router has this capability) and DYNDNS as a way to do this. Could you refer me to a basic guide or literature that would allow me to understand how this works and how to set this up? Are there any online courses that I could access/enroll in that would teach me this content? I am in the process of searching internet sources for this information. I am assuming that using these entities allows me to access a static WebRelay IP address behind my router despite the fact that my provider offers only dynamic IP addresses. Many thanks for your efforts.

Best regards, Pete

John wrote:

You set up your router to foward the desired incomming traffic on the desired port to the webrelay gizmo. You use a dynamic IP service like

to handle the dynamic IP issue.

Pete,

You set up an domain name with dyndns (call it petesplace.homeip.net). Then the dyndns service gets the current IP of your home internet connection and associates the current IP address with the domain name (you'll need something to activate the internet connection on a regular basis - having a PC check mail every few hours will work and ancient laptops are cheap).

Your access to the IP relay would be via the router, pointing requests for whatever port(s) the relay uses (call it 81) to the local IP address (say 192.168.1.33) of the relay.

You would put

in the remote browser and the router would connect you to the IP relay.

Note that I haven't tried this - I don't have an IP relay - but it's the same process used for VPN and gaming.

The IP relay may have to be in the router's DMZ for this to work.

John