Hi I was lucky enough to get the boiler control that was briefly available for the eq3 max system.
I am wondering if anyone knows how I can use homegear with it so I can do away with the cube and use a nanoCUL USB stick. I can get all of the other components working with homegear but can’t see the boiler control.
Thanks any info would be great
Hi nabby,
I’m not a Homegear guru, but I guess that you have to build an xml configuration file by yourself.
As you mentioned before there ist no definition for your BC-TS-Sw2-WM boiler controller.
root@HomeGear:/etc/homegear/devices/4# vdir
total 892
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6314 Nov 27 17:30 BC-PB-2-WM.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 87215 Nov 27 17:30 BC-RT-TRX-CyG-2.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 137099 Nov 27 17:30 BC-RT-TRX-CyG-3.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 137277 Nov 27 17:30 BC-RT-TRX-CyG.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 137103 Nov 27 17:30 BC-RT-TRX-CyN.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5566 Nov 27 17:30 BC-SC-Rd-WM-2.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5738 Nov 27 17:30 BC-SC-Rd-WM.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 134033 Nov 27 17:30 BC-TC-C-WM-2.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 134033 Nov 27 17:30 BC-TC-C-WM-4.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 108547 Nov 27 17:30 BC-TS-Sw-Pl.xml
Maybe you can use BC-TS-Sw-Pl.xml as a starting point …
Thanks so so much I’ll have to do a bit of learning but it’s a push in the right direction.
Thanks also Henning
To be honest I’d do away with the MAX! software on the Cube anyway.
I have flashed my Cube with CUL firmware so it behaves like a CUL and I run it through Homegear via OpenHAB (which runs on a separate RPi) using the Homematic binding. That all runs fine and I can control setpoints and modes through a nice UI.
One thing the OpenHAB system won’t do is allow me to change the schedules directly but that is easy to send a schedule to Homegear via RPC over MQTT. Th message format is all in the docs.That can also be done through OpenAHB although I use Node-Red for that as it’s easier.
Boiler control is simply done in OpenHAB by setting up a group of radiators. If the sum of the percentage valve opening is greater than 90% (i.e. one radiator is more than 90% open or perhaps one is 30% open and another couple are 40% open) then that triggers a rule that switches on the boiler (and it goes off again if the sum falls below that threshold). There are a number of ways you could control a switch in OpenHAB. I use Z-Wave but there are others. The reason I have the threshold at 90% is I don’t want my boiler pump trying to force water through the whole system if only one valve is open by say 10%.
I realise having written this that you could do the whole thing in Homegear. I had an OpenHAB setup before I had the MAX! system so it made sense to keep using OpenHAB for all my controller interfacing (plus I get the UI) but Homegear is quite capable of controlling Z-Wave, Zigbee, Philips and EnOcean devices. It also has a version of Node Red built in so I presume there would be a way to gather the state of each valve in your system and then control a switch using your protocol of choice to operate the boiler based on the overall state of the valves.
That might be simpler than writing your own configuration for the MAX! boiler controller.
Hi I already have a complete working system including boiler control in openhab using the MAX addon. The reason for this request was to enable me to move away from the cube and use a nanoCUL USB.
As anyone who has the max system will tell you it’s the only real issue with the system loosing it’s memory once a year atleast. Other than that I find it to be a good basic solid system.
I’d agree; it is. I had similar problems with the system losing its memory, which may partly be due to the fact that I have 14 “rooms”, when the system recommends no more than 10.
Sorry, I’d understood that you didn’t have boiler control at all. Sounds like you’ve gone down a very similar route to me and it works well. I did though as I said above abandon the MAX! software and flash my Cube with CUL software, build Homegear into a separate RPi and use the Homematic binding in OpenHAB to control my devices. I also use MQTT from Node-Red in OpenHAB to send schedules to the devices via Homegear. That solved my reliability issues and it’s been rock solid since.
What do you use for a UI to control things?
I am now casting around for what to do when ultimately either one of my MAX! valves breaks down or my Cube-CUL stops working. The CUL I can replace but you can’t get MAX! valves anymore except for exhorbitant prices on eBay, so, if one goes, that room is out of action. Some sort of falure will happen one day and I don’t want it to happen in the winter and have my wife complaining about being cold while I find a solution. I’m currently looking at running Raspberrymatic/Homematic IP devices and Homegear/MAX! devices in parallel. Both use the Homematic binding so I could just replace one room at a time with a Homematic IP valve if anything fails.
I’m close to working out how to connect Homegear to my Raspberrymatic and have everything controllable through one Homegear instance. That’s a project for this weekend.