Third Controller Iteration

[Nofossil]

First fire of the year, first post of the year - must be Fall. This year, the first fire was also the first since I upgraded my controls to our latest controller - wireless sensors and all. Aside from a few typos everything worked, though I'm sure that someone will be quick to point out that the link in my sig is still messed up.

Still plenty of projects, wood to stack, and posts to catch up on. Happy wood burning season to all!

Thought I'd also do a little historical retrospective. Way back in the beginning, I built a home-brew control system that consisted of a bunch of relays and a little embedded computer. It didn't look like much, but it managed the heat sources and heat loads between my wood boiler, oil boiler, and heat storage.

Eventually I started making a semi-commercial version called the 'NoFossil Control System (NFCS). Several folks here have one. After several years I upgraded my own system to use the NFCS:

A couple years ago, a friend and I started an actual business making a commercial/industrial version. Last week I finally upgraded my home system to use our latest product:


The little round black unit toward the right is an alarm buzzer. The 4" utility boxes along the bottom hold the variable speed drive electronics for the wood boiler circ, the wood boiler recirc, and the wood boiler blower.

 

[TCaldwell]

welcome back, the current version sure looks alot cleaner. Are the speed controls nimbus based?

 

[Nofossil]

welcome back, the current version sure looks alot cleaner. Are the speed controls nimbus based?

Thanks. Those are in fact Nimbus controls. We drive them with 4-20mA using our own PID algorithm. The newer ones (not in this picture) are packaged in our own aluminum enclosure, and we use the version with terminal strips.

 

[jebatty]

Very nice, and good to see your post again. I'm currently on the building committee for a new hospital-like structure which is intended to an advanced hvac system, including the integration of a wood gasification boiler system. I am waiting to see the design for the control system, particularly the variable speed control for circulators and air handlers. Deep Portage is considering circulator/control upgrades to reduce electrical power usage, and I'm hoping to see something in action which would help DP meet its energy conservation goals.

 

[TCaldwell]

Nofo, Nimbus makes 2 different speed controllers, my experience was not so good. They both say they are 0/10vdc, but in reality they rob the first 2 vdc making the range on paper 20/100 pct. The taco circ i tried would not rotate til 3.5 vdc when power up, reducing the operating range to 35/100 pct. I ended up with a motorized 3 way mix valve instead of trying to vari the circ speed. Are you able to extend the range?

 

[Nofossil]

Nofo, Nimbus makes 2 different speed controllers, my experience was not so good. They both say they are 0/10vdc, but in reality they rob the first 2 vdc making the range on paper 20/100 pct. The taco circ i tried would not rotate til 3.5 vdc when power up, reducing the operating range to 35/100 pct. I ended up with a motorized 3 way mix valve instead of trying to vari the circ speed. Are you able to extend the range?

We use the 4-20mA input instead, and we saw that the first 30% of the range is actually 'off'. We compensate for their 'dead zone' in our configuration file. For that reason, in our system '4-20mA' is a different output configuration than '4-20mA Nimbus'. We set it up so that it's 0-100% of full speed, with anything below about 5% being potentially stopped depending on the fan / circulator.

We also can do linearization, so we could even set up a custom configuration that would let you specify GPM and it would choose the appropriate power level. No one has wanted to get that fancy yet.

 

[Buzz Saw]

Does this system work with a normal 60hz 120v motor or does it require a special 'variable speed" motor?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[Nofossil]

Does this system work with a normal 60hz 120v motor or does it require a special 'variable speed" motor?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Works with standard motors - I'm doing variable speed with Grundfos 15-58, Taco 007, and the blower that came on my EKO. Can also drive industrial three-phase VFDs if you want to get really fancy ;-)

Doesn't work with all types of motors, but seems to be fine with common circulators, fans, blowers, etc.