Fröling Fhg controller hamstrung

I have learned a few of the Froling features not documented, and when I tried to implement them, I also learned they will not work in the US version. I agree, would be very nice to have all the info and be able to use the Froling in the full way it was designed to be used.

I am always amazed by the posts of people with computer skills like yours. It makes me very jealous.

I had the same thought about trying to access some of the board level features. Just looking at the large quantity of spare unused output terminals and the sophistication of what the board already does, it's clear there's a lot more flexibility and capability there. Most likely the board is in the range of an upgraded PLC or single board computer with specific added features (like the variable speed motor drives and speed sesning feedback). I definitely don't have the technical skills to sniff the data bus and try to reverse engineer it, I would depend on the factory support.

Just guessing from where the industry in general is, most likely there is a high level IDE development environment for it and for embedded processors, most everyone has given up on developing their own proprietary operating system and everyone runs Linux. That would be my guess, there is probably a high level development environment running ladder logic, C, or Java, on the Linux kernel. Anything like that with networking and storage, there has been a huge change which has dropped the cost and vastly upgraded features the development environment.

If I had the time, my first step would be to get in contact with factory engineering and see what level of support they will allow. Obviously, what you would want is a look at the IDE, which is probably beyond what they want the customers doing. If somehow, you were to gain a relationship with them as an open source software developer for their system, you would be days away from having full and easy access to what is essentially a very inexpensive toolkit.

This doesn't surprise me, I suspect there are more than circ pump modulation features unavailable to the US. Market. I'd think the ammt of US export units would not be enough to change the controller firmware.

Tl;dr. We hacked into one and had a look around. Everything is metric volts, big-endian, un-typeable unicode, and so forth. Good luck.

jebatty said:

I currently run a Alpha on the loading side. On any given Sunday it is set to fixed speed 2.With 1000 gallons of water storage and cold starts it can greatly increase output needs if started in stage 1 and once in the mid burn it moved to stage 2 ,and approaching overheat bump up to stage 3.

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I'm not going to recommend any plumbing changes, but I would guess the cold start loading is a plumbing issue and not due to the speed of the primary, boiler loop (loading unit) pump. I arranged my system with two taps to the secondary distribution loop. One first immediately from the boiler supply pipe to intercept the first boiler hot water and a second tap from the (future) storage tank top to the secondary loop. Don't know if it works as intended but I would like to do another install as a reference design.

With storage, the usual thinking is to try to tap the quick hot water at the top of the tank, which can be a small amount at the cold start. So it would be the distribution system pumps that may be slowed or arranged for domestic hot water priority, where, if too much of the load comes onto/from the tank top water too fast, you may exhaust the small quantity of hot water at the tank top and start pumping the cooler water lower in the tank, slowing your DHW availability.

It may be something like that, completely independent of the primary boiler loop and not anything you would want to add onto the Froling controller. The boiler controller and the system distribution pump/valve controller are separate and stand alone electronic devices. No inter-tie or sharing of duties is necessary or advised, completely different operating requirements.

Assuming the problem is quick DHW availability, the zone controls would be setup with DHW priority, which is standard on typical pump zone controllers, and you could try something more sophisticated with the DHW pump, assuming you have a DHW indirect tank. That is the pump you want to turn slowly, to avoid overpumping the small quantity of hot water at the storage tank top during cold starts, exhausting the hot water at the tank top and mixing the tank's cooler water out to the distribution system.

I have not done it but I was thinking of putting a Bumblebee ECM pump on the DHW loop and setting it to fixed temp control, like 150 F or so, so it will slow down to minimum as soon as it sees 150 F exiting the DHW indirect tank, which will happen pretty fast with a small quantity of hot water. The delta T, heat absorption, through the indirect tank is very low, so the thinking would be to slow the water and give it time to transfer to the load. Minimizing storage mixing, maintaining storage stratification, would be the objective, but it may be a factor of where the distribution system loads tap and return to the system.

It is a sad fact of life that many of the better Euro products are "dumbed down" for the US market and US voltage. The Windhager pellet boilers have all the same capabilities in Europe like your Froling. Here..........not so much. We are a decade or two behind them when it comes to biomass systems and even hydronics in general.

I put in batteries, charger and inverter for my Effecta.
bascially simulating 50hz 230v power as it was designed
works great
And i get a solid 8+++ hours of operation on battery power
came in handy last winter during a storm here in interior of Alaska

just my 2 cents

NP ALASKA said:

I put in batteries, charger and inverter for my Effecta.
bascially simulating 50hz 230v power as it was designed
works great

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Is this on wood or pellets? On my pellet boiler, I've measured 1200 watts for the ignition phase for 5 minutes or so, and estimated surge power of 2000+ watts for the pellet vacuum transfer motor.

creepingmoses said:

Dan,,
I apologize,I must have not explained myself properly. I have no issues getting heat to my house immediately. My storage could be at 40 degrees and the house and indirect hot water would be satisfied within minutes of starting the boiler. I use a raspberry pi to control a variable speed pump to injecting mix prior to a modulating belimo valve. This allows me to only move the precise volume of energy needed to increase the water temps to load and displacing return energy (below 80f) to the bottom of my storage .Although this has no relevance on how the Froling was designed to operate with much more grace and efficiency.
Amy

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Ok tell me more about setting up your own controls with variable speed. I would love to have more control over my pump.

gg