RS232 A/C Unit in NSW

Hello all,

After reading through countless threads and doing a bit of research, i have come to realise there is VERY little or now options for ducted A/C units being intalled in NSW with rs232 protocol.

Can anybody please advise ANY ducted A/C units with serial control that is sold within NSW (preferably the illawarra region). Advantage air do the interface with their GENIII unit but there are only based in WA.

Any help would be much appreciated as i am building a new house within the next 6 months and am incorporating Cbus.

- I want to be able to control the temperature in each zone, flow, HVAC. There will be roughly 7-10 zones...

Cheers guys,
Dave

 

Hi Dave

I am in the Illawarra as awell and I have a GENIII system connected to my HA system. Works great.

AdvantageAir have an office in Brisbane as well and I thought they still did NSW. Have you contacted them?

Other than that there is the coolmaster which is an add-on to a few different brands. I have not had a chance to use one yet, but a few here have (do a search).
They work with Daikin, Santo, Toshiba and Mitsubishi.

http://www.xdimax.com/cool/cool.html

Out of curosity, what do you want to connect it to?

Mick

 

Hi Mick,

Thank you for the reply.

I have contacted AdvantageAir in Brisbane and they informed me that they do not do the GENIII system in NSW anymore, only in WA.

Saying this, i have done a bit of shopping around yesterday and have found a company called 'Actron Air' that have a great range of units. Some with full control over rs232 and others with simple ON/OFF control (the more high end units). I spoke to a techo and have organised a meeting with him friday week to view these units in person and their control. Will be very interesting .

Although if all this falls through, the dimax unit you have sent me the link for looks very impressive. Can anybody provide any feedback on this unit? How well it incorporates into Cbus; Any issues setting up/communicating with? I will search the forums and see what i can find...

I'm assuming you mean what units do i want to use to control? I don't actually mind using the supplied control units that they use, i would just like the ability to be able to use it in logic, ie scheduling/scenes etc. Also incorporate it into a colour touch screen. Does the wiser app incorporate A/C control?

Cheers,

Dave

 

Keeping the factory control is very important. Integration is about allowing the systems to work together when required, but they all must work as a single system when something goes wrong.

Which system frm Actron has a serial interface - very interested.

Mick

 

Mick,

I agree totally, having them rely on each other would be impractical. Thats why i was only wanting to integrate them in logic if need be or via scheduling.

If you have a look at the Actron Air website, the classic range does the full serial control. The higher end (i think the ESP range) is only ON/OFF control.

Cheers,
Dave

 

ActronConnect Module (Wifi/IP Intergration)

To anyone thinking of using the Actron Wifi ActronConnect note that there are some very real security issues with the way this system has been implemented. I have been looking at which AC to purchase to integrate into my C-Bus home automation system, preferably by dry contacts or over IP even if it required reverse engineering, but after finding the following post, I'm not sure I'd even purchase the ActronConnect module and maybe just stick to remote on/off.

Anyway some snippets from the below url:

http://blog.mikejmcguire.com/2014/1...onditioner-module-part-2-reverse-engineering/

1) Traffic from the Controller (Unit that connects to the AC) back to the Cloud services is not encrypted
2) The controller sends ?usage? data directly to Actron/Ninja Blocks Including MAC Address, and each setting/action that is performed on the air conditioner. (Think of someone watching your lights from the road..)
3) The controller sends ALL of its diagnostics information to the cloud service repeatedly. That information includes ? and this is the bad part, my wireless SSID and key, plus all other SSIDs that the controller can detect in the area. (You could then be identified by neighboring SSID's (e.g. FlinderStreetStationAP01)

Now, if you want to build your own web server, write custom code, intercept all the http requests you could remove this threat and still have control but after all this effort it may be better to integrate directly to the controller.

This may push me back to a Brivis Add-On cooling unit that I can control with a thermostat RWYG now... at least I can control temp/zone/heat/cool/fan over C-Bus, the only issue is i miss out on that variable fan feature from the Actron ESP line.

 

If the system will work without the cloud then it is trivial to block all requests from it [IP] address from reaching the internet. Alternatively it could be blocked from sending to Actron.

The question is, have they created an API/protocol that will allow HA systems to work with the ActronConnect module.

The IoT is initially going to be a very dangerous time as most companies are in a rush to introduce something and will not spend the time or money in security. Based on the above comment, Actron have fallen victim to this as well (as many other have as well).

Its going to take a big data breach to wake these companies up to the problems they have created.

I will still use something like this as long as it can be done without the cloud because I can then control what its doing/sending out. Its people like Mike (blog link in previous post) that need to be thanked for uncovering the misuse of our trust and for the time and effort tin finding a way around the issues. Everyone here should have a read and then think about what they have installed and what information it may be collecting.

I wonder if Clipsal have made a statement on what information they are collecting from our systems that are connected to the internet?

 

It requires an internet connection to be able to control the AC, unless you have written your own code/web server and intercept the traffic and supply the right responses to the AC unit.

No there is no open API.

I agree companies need to be careful about collecting user data/habits, Samsung is a perfect example of their tv's recording remote control input.

I can comment from my background in network engineering as I deal with security / system communications daily so I understand that it is much easier to have the unit talk to a cloud instance from a remote access point of view as you don't have to deal with nat/firewall access issues. The issue of not using a cloud integration point is further compounded by the diverse range of home use wireless routers, so this would make support for Actron users that access remotely very difficult to support and manage, especially if their wireless router/ssid was changed.

I always believe these systems should allow local direct communications (e.g. not require middle man cloud service) when on the same LAN/WLAN for security reasons, but also to allow control when/if the internet/cloud service goes down. E.g. The ActronConnect now requires that the cloud service is provided for a good 10+ years (e.g. the life of the air conditioner)

If they went down the path similar to the way the Wiser is implemented it would require a static internet IP, or dynamic hostname to access the system and the AC integrators would need to obviously set-up port forwarding to the Actron controller, this is probably an advanced / vastly different skill for a refrigeration plumber.

As a comparison the Daikin SkyFI controller actually accepts HTTP GET requests to the IP of the controller to check current system status and set AC control (Read more here: http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,25829.15.html - you can download the zip file and see how they connect/send commands). Thou I'm not sure how remote access is currently performed as I haven't looked any further. This appears that it would be much much easier to integrate into a C-BUS system and could be written in touchscreen logic.

The short, you will only be able to get an Actron ActronConnect to integrate if you have a strong knowledge of network packet sniffing, understand how to create fake DNS zones locally (usually a linux box required), are able to program in either PHP or ASP, understand JSON syntax and can setup a dedicated web server, you would then need to integrate C-BUS logic to talk over IP to the middle ware system. I'd say the level would be Advance to almost programmer level.

If I get the ESP Unit, I may build up a system based on a Raspberry PI, and C-Bus logic module to communicate to the ActronConnect allow C-Bus integration. (I'd really rather not have a nice eDLT and a ugly looking thermostat controller (Actron) on the wall)

 

Ninjablocks goes bust -

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...blocks-goes-bust/story-e6frgakx-1227350254376

Something else to consider when the cloud provider goes bust.....

 

If you haven't already looked at the CoolMaster see https://coolautomation.com

Support various brands of AC and you can control it via RS232/Cbus or TCP with API... they do have an app... but i've not looked into the security as i'm only using serial.

 

I have used the CoolmasterD attached to 4 Daikin units since 2009.
2 wall mounted splits and 2 ducted units in the one home.
Cabling is there for some extra splits if required in the future.
Daikin add on boards are required for the wall mounted splits and some ducted units.
Wiring for Daikin central control is required to each unit.
If you only have one large Daikin, say a 20kW ducted unit there is a good chance it will have the central control line built in.

Forum member djaggar did the logic which I have running on Homegate but he also has it running on various other devices such as CTC and Wiser.
Since the Coolmaster is RS232 I decided to use an Ethernet device server for the PC to talk to the Coolmaster.
The Ethernet device server is kind of cool since it has 2 RS232 outputs and I use the other one to operate the IAS Smartzone damper system.
Thanks again to djaggar.
Not so cool is that a router failure will affect the communications but that is the same for Homegate.

I read on Coolmaster website that the latest interfaces can support queries for unit operating parameters such as thermistor temps, operating frequency and current.
You would want to check which functions are supported on which units but I think Coolmaster make a great product.

By the time you source and install all the cabling, AC unit interfaces, address the AC units and get the CBus logic sorted it is a big job but I think it is an excellent solution.

Several years ago someone from Clipsal called to ask about the system and told me they were looking to provide an off the shelf PACA logic setup for Coolmaster.
That would be a very good idea to sell more PACA's, Coolmasters and get very good control of AC units connected to CBus.
Until then djaggar is the man to talk to.
For the folks who have no problem with programming Dave has already posted his logic on the forum.

 

FYI, the new CoolMasterNet product has both ethernet and rs232 in the one unit... Also supports multiple brands of AC simultaneously.

djaggar has been a pioneer... I've recently attempted to write new logic to control the Coolmaster from eDLTs to avoid having ugly daikin controllers on the wall.... seems to work on the test bench. Will put in production soon and see if it's a winner.

From my experiments though, the PACA is really lacking grunt to get the job done with 8-9 zones though.

Need a DIN mounted Wiser with rs232 ports!

 

Hi rikaussie
Thankyou for the update.
Sounds like you are doing some good work there.

 

Ha, I feel like a pioneer for sure today, currently reading this from a United Airlines flight back from the Austin Formula 1 ... The net connection from the plane is fast enough to stream SD TV from my HTPC in New Zealand ... colour me impressed ...

But, back on topic, I just got my hands on some EDLTs a couple of weeks ago, but didn't have time to do much before I left other than think it will all have to be done with dynamic labels, is that the approach you took?

I'm somewhat surprised the PACA couldn't hack it, I ran my system on one for a good while to test ... Is that the only code it is running?