Friday 20 November 2020

70's Sci-Fi Heating Controller

The heating system being developed at the castle was, until a few days ago, controlled by a small off-the-shelf heating controller. This had small fiddly controls; required multiple presses of buttons to switch between incomprehensible modes; and generally confused operators, including myself, to the point of mis-operation.

I used to fantasise to my friend Andrew about big knobs with decisive clicks, large multi-coloured lights to indicate status, and Internet control so the heating system could be operated off-site.

It was obvious with such a large building that we would eventually have to move to a zoned-heating system i.e. it would be insane to try to heat the whole building at any one time even if we had a boiler that was capable of it. A few manual pipe valves were installed to bring different areas online/offline, but it was clear this was just a short term solution and that ultimately fool-proof electronic control was required.

In short, the existing controller was no longer adequate, and a bespoke upgrade was required. I asked my friend Andrew to get on the case. My only specification, aside from function, was that the new unit should look like a prop from a low budget 1970's Sci-Fi film. A brief that Andrew was delighted, and just a little too keen :-), to comply with. 

The marvellous result, shown below, was installed last Wednesday. All 4 switches (3 heating zones and hot water) are under Internet control. There are not quite 3 zones as yet but the controller is ready and waiting! Andrew and I looked into the Internet controllers out there. I would have expected units with 32 switches, but the typical numbers of switches were 1, 2 and 4, so we went for a unit with 4.

Working in IT, I am aware that systems must still work when there is total IT failure, and Andrew is very thorough by nature. There is full manual override, and full mechanical timers - in addition to the software timers available in the App

At some stage, the castle may need more boilers and more controllers, but the current system is now balanced, easy to control, and running 3 zones would take the boiler to roughly maximum capacity in any case.

70's Sci-Fi Heating Controller

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11 comments:

  1. i have seen the same on cold war submarines space 2001 space odyssey and Logan's run just make sure it doesn't go awol and offline and start trying to kill your with its thermal rays or super heated temperatures .

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  2. Comment about 2001 safety issued by Andrew

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    1. I am ever vigilant for the technology becoming sentient! :-)

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  3. Watching Star Trek at the moment, nice work !! Beam me up Scotty !

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    1. The original Star Trek series was indeed my major inspiration!

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  4. Looks sturdy. I so want to push those buttons.

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    1. They are just lights, but the temptation to push them as buttons is over-whelming. There are versions of these lights which also work as buttons.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. OK then swap them out for buttons. Add a display that is activated when a button is pressed, saying "do not press this button".

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    4. This blog comment system needs a way to edit a post, I had to delete my original and replace it, just to correct a minor spelling mistake!

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    5. Titter! :-) Yes, the blogspot messaging is exceptionally primitive. It's definitely not current gen social media. On the other hand, I have made some brilliant contacts through it.

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