evaporative coolers / Slave unit

[garryf4]

Support for evaporative coolers, and to be setup as a slave unit to a master.
Prepared to help, are your boards ready for production?

[Damien0505]

I would be willing to assist with this too. Currently have a NC-6 controlling both ducted gas heater and evaporative cooler.

[Makin-Things]

I have some extra boards and maybe the parts to populate them, not sure I have everything. I am extremely limited for time for the next 4-6 weeks though.
I only have an NC-2 so there is no option for master/slave for me, so unable to test or write code for that. My understanding is that slaves just use a different address in the messages.
I also don't have cooling so I also have no idea what that sends.
The code I wrote has a mode where the software only listens on the bus (to allow logging of the data).

[NckChrst]

Hi. Great project. I came across this yesterday when contemplating an improvement to the unreadable (to ageing eyes) NC-6 . i had been considering using a heltec ESP32 and opentherm adapter from ihormelnyk.com which i bought a while back. im in melbourne and work as a dev (but very little on esp32 yet). My house has 4 NC-6 zones with heating and cooling

[linkedupbits]

I have some extra boards and maybe the parts to populate them, not sure I have everything. I am extremely limited for time for the next 4-6 weeks though.

Hi,
I would be keen to buy one of your boards (if you still have any left over)?
Any idea what would they cost - plus postage to New Zealand...
I am in no rush if you are busy.

[kaza007]

Great work on this project Simon.
You have the gerber files available, any chance on supplying the parts list and layout diagram? Possibly a circuit diagram?
Otherwise happy to purchase a fully built pcb if that is easier.
Cheers,
Arthur (Melbourne)

[Makin-Things]

Under Doc/PCB I have added a BOM and a PCB layout image. The PCB has the same silkscreen. In the BOM parts prefixed with E are Element14 part numbers, while those with D are Digikey part numbers. None of the parts are particularly critical so substitions would probably be fine. The PCB was designed to mount in a Hammond case, but I can't find the part number right now.
The controller worked flawlessly again over winter. I have 9 bare PCB's still and am happy to post one out for a small fee (cover postage).

[linkedupbits]

Do you need to reflow solder to assemble?
I am looking at using pcbway / jlcbcp to manufacture and assemble the boards since I suspect I couldn’t adaquately actually make it.

Would it be possible to extract the BOM and the pick and place files out of the dip trace files?
https://jlcpcb.com/help/article/70-How-to-Generate-BOM-and-Pick-and-Place-File-in-DipTrace

Or would you be interested in selling assembled versions via Tindie or similar - what would this need to cost to be worth your while?

[Makin-Things]

I have a hatred of TH components these days so all parts other than connectors are SMD. That said surface mount isn't as scary as most people think. You can hand assemble, but I use a modified toaster oven to do the reflow.
I can export the data if needed and have no problem doing so.
Note that I have a day job that keeps me very busy so providing support will probably not be possible, other than proving the data I have.

[kaza007]

Thanks for the reply Simon and all the extra info you have added to the github.
I would love to purchase a pcb. Send me an email to [email protected] and let me know the best way to contact you so I can send you some money either paypal or direct deposit or whatever. Please add some costs in for the manufacture of the pcb's even though I know they will be cheap.

Some background on my use,
I have a central heating system as well as an evap cooling system connected to an NC-1 (old controller).
I am happy with the heating but I would like more control of the cooling. With the NC-1 there is not much control.

Your project looks like it will serve me well, even though your commands are more focused towards the heating. Hopefully I can extract cooling commands for you so you can incorporate in the project at some stage. The focus is to integrate it with Home Assistant and let it control things during the summer.

All the best. Happy New Year to all!

[Makin-Things]

The case that I designed the board to fit in to is this one.
https://www.digikey.com.au/en/products/detail/hammond-manufacturing/1591XXMSFLBK/2354700
I think any Hammond 1591 series boxes will work. I just cut out a section add one end for the cables to exit.

[Makin-Things]

Also note that I had to do a bodge on my board to change it to use an external power supply as the ESP draws to much power while using wifi to use the available power from the heater network. I will document this later today, as well as do a quick update to the schematic and board layout in case anyone wants to have there own boards made.

[Makin-Things]

@kaza007 I will email you soon, but have just annotated the layout for the v1.0 board with the bodge to use a separate power supply rather than trying to draw the power from the heater unit, which doesn't work.
@linkedupbits I have created a v1.1 board that adds an extra connector to the board to avoid having to do the bodge.
Under the PCB folder there are now folders for each version of the board.

[kaza007]

Simon, don't feel pressured to get this done urgently. Please do it at your leisure. I am in no hurry :)