Archived Forum

Is the case included as per the photo?

Paul

It says so on the Shop page.

Doh! I missed that!
I have one on order, but it hasn't arrived as yet - 'awaiting fulfillment'.

Paul

Paul:
See the relay data sheet for contact life at various load currents. (I'm thinking of Jörg's comment elsewhere.)

Yes, I've seen it. Martin's blog site was offline the other day so I couldn't get the relay model/spec at that time.
Regardless, they are decent quality relays, and having purchased Martin's hardware previously I'm expecting a well constructed product with a lot of potential.

Paul

Shame the relay output are Natural and Switched Live, if they were just the relay contacts this would be a no brainer central heading controller. This is how most of the other "heater controllers work" just replace the thermostat switch with a digiatally controlled relay!

IE Place in next to HW tank (and existing heater controller),

      Connect the tank thermostat cable to relay one.

      Connect the house wall thermostat cable returns (in parallel) to relay 2 (and 3 if a two zone house).

 Turn down wall thermostats to "Frost protect mode" these are now just there to give frost protection!

     Place a DS18B20 on the tank to detect need for hotwater....and posibily others to detect need to heating. Or use a open source home control system.

This is a VERY simple setup, but with the relays switching Live it get a LOT harder, because you need to 100% understand the effect of wiring it in to your existing system! The safest solution is to get the relay to switch on and off a mains relay! 

Hi Paul,

We'll get your rely unit shipped tomorrow. Yes, case is included. 

Martin has done a good job, it's a well designed hardware with impressive software. I've not yet played with ESP8266, seeing the potential and what Martin has done with it makes me want to get involved! 

"Shame the relay output are Natural and Switched Live" Don't you mean neutral and switched line? Both neutral and line are regarded as "live" cables unless safely isolated. And I agree, 'volt-free' contacts are much more flexible, but bringing all three terminals out to give the choice of n/o or n/c (or even changeover) would have been really smart. It looks as if it might be possible to remove the copper between the relays, and between the fuse / incoming line and the first relay, to give 3 sets of volt-free contacts, (and then solder on to the relay pins) but what a shame to risk damaging the board.

This would have been the ideal arrangement:

Robert,

That would be a fantastic improvement and feature!

Is there any way / scope to persuade Martin to adopt it and produce a v2?

[That's what comes from years of experience as a Systems/Project engineer!]

I suppose you could nudge Glyn or Trystan (if they haven't read this thread), or you could try to contact Martin direct, via his website.

Shame the relay output are Natural and Switched Live (or Line)

Yes, it is such a nice board with a perfect user interface and very good features. But the first thing that came to my mind as a massive restriction was the 'hard-coded' usage of the relay contacts. It would be clearly better to have access to all contacts and to be able to use them freely for AC, DC or as dry contact. In a normal household installation loads are often placed 'in series' with the (manual wall) switches and this also makes the board nearly unusable in such a situation. 

But this would just need a small change to the layout.

BR, Jörg.

PS: ( Some weeks ago I tried to write a comment and order a sample at the same time on Martins web page but it was 'unresponsive' for some reason)   

I don't know what restrictions Martin has by way of PCB size or housings, so 5 x 10 A terminals per channel might not be possible in that box. It would still be nice to have three per channel and it might be acceptable to dispense with the separate L & N for each channel, even though sharing the incoming L & N with possibly 3 outgoing connections makes wiring harder and less secure, and is not good practice.