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scs and keypad comms failures
 Moderated by: slychiu Page:  First Page Previous Page  1  2  3  4  5   
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 Posted: Tuesday Jan 6th, 2015 06:15 pm
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wexfordman
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slychiu wrote: wexfordman wrote: Thanks all, will do a bit more digging. I would be in agreement to the ibterfer nxe issue, but the regularity of it has mendkubting. 5pm start, 9am finish, pretty much gauranteed.
you seem a bit stressed


:-)
Sorry, bloody phone auto spell. I would agree with the interference issue, I just can't get my head around why it is so regular with a 5pm start and 9am finish. I have no timers or schedules outside of comfort, and no programs or macros in comfort for these times.
The regularity has me dumbfounded



 Posted: Friday Jan 9th, 2015 04:30 pm
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Vangelis
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Install a Ferrite Bead on the Comms Bus?? Did you try running Comfort on its backup battery to rule out a mains spike?

Vangelis



 Posted: Friday Jan 9th, 2015 04:55 pm
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wexfordman
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Vangelis wrote: Install a Ferrite Bead on the Comms Bus?? Did you try running Comfort on its backup battery to rule out a mains spike?

Vangelis


That's interesting, the oil burner and comfort are actually on the same mcb !

Will try and move it later and see what happens.
Regards
Eamon



 Posted: Friday Jan 9th, 2015 09:22 pm
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wexfordman
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Vangelis,

Moved comfort mains onto a different power supply, and I'm almost afraid to say it in case I jinx myself, but all clear so far, I would expect it to have acted up by now.

Please God let that be the cause, although will still need to figure out why it became a problem after all these years.

The rest of tonight and tomorrow morning will reveal if it has solved the problem.



 Posted: Friday Jan 9th, 2015 11:29 pm
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Ingo
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Check the Bus Monitor again to see if you still get any of those earlier NAK errors you posted.



 Posted: Friday Jan 9th, 2015 11:32 pm
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wexfordman
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Ingo wrote: Check the Bus Monitor again to see if you still get any of those earlier NAK errors you posted.

Will do, not home at the moment though. Everything still working, it's looking the most positive yet.

If that's what it is, will be mad keen to find out what was the cause of it, and why it was so regular



 Posted: Saturday Jan 10th, 2015 11:25 am
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wexfordman
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All still working, I think you've done it Vangelis



 Posted: Saturday Jan 10th, 2015 11:50 am
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slychiu
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another hit by Vangelis



 Posted: Sunday Jan 11th, 2015 06:39 am
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wexfordman
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slychiu wrote: another hit by Vangelis


Ok, I think all still looks good, this may well have been the problem, thanks again vengalis and all for help with it.[size=
][size=
] Still curious about how it was so consistent. Is it possible that an external source outside of my local supply might be causing spikes or interference in the mains ? 
I live in a rural area, can't think what it could be.

Last edited on Sunday Jan 11th, 2015 11:08 am by wexfordman



 Posted: Sunday Jan 11th, 2015 12:01 pm
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juwi_uk
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And it is not related to your boiler schedule somehow. It is not spiking somehow when the boiler lights?



 Posted: Sunday Jan 11th, 2015 01:30 pm
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wexfordman
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juwi_uk wrote: And it is not related to your boiler schedule somehow. It is not spiking somehow when the boiler lights?

I have absolutely no timers or schedules outside of comfort, and the heating control within comfort does not run in a schedule, it's simply turned on by scs input and off after a 1 hr timer within comfort.
But yes, the comms failure only ever happened when the heating was turned on between the hours of 5pm and 9am. If you turned it on between 9am and 5pm, everything was fine.



 Posted: Sunday Jan 11th, 2015 02:24 pm
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slychiu
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one of these is hiding in the boiler perhaps




 Posted: Sunday Jan 11th, 2015 02:39 pm
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wexfordman
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slychiu wrote: one of these is hiding in the boiler perhaps




Hah, I think I have more than one poking about my house at the moment, trouble with my sky box and our cold room too.
These things always come in threes



 Posted: Sunday Jan 11th, 2015 08:32 pm
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Vangelis
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Glad to help.

As for the 'why it happens' do you know what Comfort is running between the hours of 5pm-9am as opposed to 9am-5pm

I only say this as we've kind of narrowed in on the cause being related to noise on the mains, but if the load on Comfort is more later on in the day, it might be more susceptible - that is electrical load as opposed to CPU

Do you use screened cable between Comfort and the Velbus module?

Vangelis



 Posted: Sunday Jan 11th, 2015 10:35 pm
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wexfordman
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Vangelis wrote: Glad to help.

As for the 'why it happens' do you know what Comfort is running between the hours of 5pm-9am as opposed to 9am-5pm

I only say this as we've kind of narrowed in on the cause being related to noise on the mains, but if the load on Comfort is more later on in the day, it might be more susceptible - that is electrical load as opposed to CPU

Do you use screened cable between Comfort and the Velbus module?

Vangelis


Comfort just runs lights as well as the heating, nothing if heavy load. As well as that, at one point I disconnected velbus conoltelty from comfort and it still happened, so it was not really vekbus specific.
Was thinking that perhaps someone in my area was running some very noisy plant that along with the heating just caused an excess at those hours ? Clutching at straws I know.



 Posted: Sunday Jan 11th, 2015 11:39 pm
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Vangelis
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Agree - Like you say, there could be a number of possible causes, most of which would not be identified unless we could put Comfort on 'Life Support Monitoring' for a period of time.

Comfort is not at fault in this case, just that it is highlighting a problem unique to it's operational environment.

Short of swapping your wallpaper for tin-foil, you could add some main suppression at key points in your house to mitigate?

Vangelis



 Posted: Sunday Jan 11th, 2015 11:47 pm
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wexfordman
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Vangelis wrote: Agree - Like you say, there could be a number of possible causes, most of which would not be identified unless we could put Comfort on 'Life Support Monitoring' for a period of time.

Comfort is not at fault in this case, just that it is highlighting a problem unique to it's operational environment.

Short of swapping your wallpaper for tin-foil, you could add some main suppression at key points in your house to mitigate?

Vangelis


Absolutely, comfort hasnt been the fault at all, although I think t one stage or another I was leaning towards pretty much every part of the system, I even had convinced myself it was a velbus module, and purchased a spare to replace. 
Gas to think the solution was so quick to find once you pointed towards the mains interference.
The life support you speak of, is that a specific mode within comfort or is it more alng a long term bus monitor.



 Posted: Monday Jan 12th, 2015 12:14 am
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Vangelis
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I hate to say it but I did post on page 3 of this thread, but it must of been missed with all the investigation work going on.....

As for Life Support, this would be a combination Oscilloscopes / Logic Probes / Mains Noise Monitoring that would need to be connected to and around the main Comfort system - Something that is just not viable

Now that we hopefully understand the cause you can continue to enjoy and evolve your Comfort setup, whilst being mindful you might need additional noise suppression due to the problems seen in this thread

Vangelis



 Posted: Monday Jan 12th, 2015 12:18 am
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Ingo
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If you have the opportunity then switch off all your electrical equipment on your feed. Comfort and the boiler should be the only devices with power. The best place is the distribution board and then individual units that are on the same circuits as Comfort and the boiler. This might indicate if interference comes from something local or external to your house.



 Posted: Monday Jan 12th, 2015 12:54 am
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wexfordman
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Vangelis wrote: I hate to say it but I did post on page 3 of this thread, but it must of been missed with all the investigation work going on.....

As for Life Support, this would be a combination Oscilloscopes / Logic Probes / Mains Noise Monitoring that would need to be connected to and around the main Comfort system - Something that is just not viable

Now that we hopefully understand the cause you can continue to enjoy and evolve your Comfort setup, whilst being mindful you might need additional noise suppression due to the problems seen in this thread

Vangelis


Oops, didnt spot that, sorry, would have saved  week or two of grief :-)
Well, one good thing is, I now have a spare velbus  chan relay, so can add a few more bits on the end of that too.
Im going to do a general tidyup of the wiring over the summer, Ive ordered some velbus power and data bus connections to easier daisychain the power and bus without having to use cable, it will be more reliable I reckon, although I dont think Ive had any problems within velbus to date.
I want to tidy up the ka/kb connections within comfort also, I have 6 devices around the house, within comort Ive used a connecting block to ie them all together, I think I could do this a bit neater as well.
Overall, spring clean time on the automation front:-)
On a related note, I've noticed a good few weeks ago that my camera system seems to have some noise on it too..... will check that out a bit further (its on the same circuit as the oil heating too)
Might get the boiler serviced too :-)

Last edited on Monday Jan 12th, 2015 12:56 am by wexfordman



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