Zwave module recommendation

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Zwave module recommendation

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chimera

506 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1577705 21-Jun-2016 15:31

SumnerBoy:

Nah the Fibaro 2x1.5kW relay is the most you will get in a single module.

The Fibaro Rollershutter 2 has built-in support for UP/DOWN control (no STOP). Have you looked at those as another potential solution?

They look pretty quiet/good from your video - nice work!

Cheers. No haven't looked into the Rollershutter. I am really digging Fibaro gear, while on the expensive side, you can see why - its top quality kit, well built and mega flexible. Very tempted to go to the Home Center 2 and ditching OpenHAB

Anyways maybe an ESP8266 with MQTT could be the go, would be mega cheap and easy as to build. I only have a 2 block relay and Arduino sitting on my desk at the moment, but that should make for a good start - if I have time I'll just mash something up quick tonight and see how it goes. The Rollertrol group controller is pretty small (about the size of 2 matchboxes next to each other) photo below with the cover ripped off. Could quite easily integrate this with an ESP and relay then tuck this away in the cupboard somewhere. Just wish my 3D printer would *#$% turn up!

Blanch

254 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1577730 21-Jun-2016 15:45

Looks great

Do you need a stop button if using Zwave? it looks to stop the Zwave shutter controller you just press the opposite direction.

chimera

506 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1577737 21-Jun-2016 16:00

Blanch:

Looks great

Do you need a stop button if using Zwave? it looks to stop the Zwave shutter controller you just press the opposite direction.

Problem is that the Rollertrol group controller is expecting a different input for "STOP". It really needs to be a one to one mapping, coz can't differentiate between the zwave shutter controller having the opposite direction pressed to equal a STOP command. I just tested that anyways on the remote, I pressed UP to open then pressed DOWN - it immediately stopped then started closing.

However, there is no real need for a STOP command for "automation" - just UP and DOWN could work fine. Most of what I want to do is just automating the opening / closing of the blinds in OpenHAB based on +/- 30 minutes of sunrise/sunset using the Astro binding. Its fairly rare to have ones blinds partially open or closed I'm just being fussy!

Blanch

254 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1577774 21-Jun-2016 16:47

Can I get you to measure the black rubber crown or drive adapter (red dimensions) in photo to see if they will fit in my tubes?

chimera

506 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1577786 21-Jun-2016 17:07

Blanch:

Can I get you to measure the black rubber crown or drive adapter (red dimensions) in photo to see if they will fit in my tubes?

The distance between red lines as above looks to be 29.5mm (right in between 29 and 30mm!)

The end adapter is rubber so has flex. The motor end adapter is plastic.

Blanch

254 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1577793 21-Jun-2016 17:16

The distance between red lines as above looks to be 29.5mm (right in between 29 and 30mm!)

The end adapter is rubber so has flex. The motor end adapter is plastic.

Sweet they will fit my tubes, now to show my wife your youtube clip

chimera

506 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1577803 21-Jun-2016 17:39

Blanch:

Sweet they will fit my tubes, now to show my wife your youtube clip

I found another DC power supply from an old Fortigate Firewall I had so hooked it up temporarily to the 2nd blind.

So here's another video showing group control from the remote, closing both blinds!

Gotta sharpen my auger bit to drill up through the lintel into the ceiling cavity now!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xVcHD6oSRI

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mclean

581 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#1578106 22-Jun-2016 10:08

chimera:...although, the Fibaro Zwave relay that I have used so far for my lights only has 2 x switched outputs. Anyone know if Fibaro do 3 x output relay? Coz I need one for UP, one for DOWN and one for STOP.

I have no experience with these at all, but reading the instructions for the RollerTrol Z-wave interface it seems you can do UP, DOWN and STOP with just two momentary switches. So STOP must re-pulse the UP or DOWN inputs or both or something similar. I would have guessed that if the blind is going up and you pulse the UP input again it would stop, but I'm sure you've tried that.

chimera

506 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1578112 22-Jun-2016 10:17

I don't have the Rollertrol Zwave controller - as they only support US and EU frequencies. I have the Rollertrol group controller which takes 3 x inputs (UP, DOWN, STOP) and sends the equivalent signal out at 433Mhz to all blinds associated wth the group.

chimera

506 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1578228 22-Jun-2016 11:57

The example given on their site is for use with a zwave module, it does make reference that the relay needs to be held on between 1-255 seconds to get travel limit - so programmatically if that's the case it could be possible to just open the same relay to stop the motor. But it doesn't really make much sense from 1 to 255 seconds because the blinds would open or close a lot sooner than that. Unless I'm reading it wrong and they mean msecs. I'll program up something and test it out anyhow.

chimera

506 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1578674 22-Jun-2016 21:31

Tested the group controller, confirmed that switching the UP relay again while the blinds are going UP does not stop the motor, visa versa with down. However, I only really need the group controller to automate the opening and closing of the blinds in morning and night so will convert the quick test I did with Arduino below to an ESP8266 and just use MQTT messaging to trigger wirelessly.

mclean

581 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#1578877 23-Jun-2016 10:42

Yes, it seems you need 3 relays and 3 Z-wave inputs to get the STOP function. The instructions seem to imply that the UP and DOWN relays need to be set to hold closed for a period that's longer than the open/close time, and presumably the STOP relay is pulsed open to reset everything. Also the UP and DOWN relays need a make-before-break interlock.

break-before-make....duh!

chimera

506 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1580353 25-Jun-2016 22:26

I drilled with an auger up through both lintels into ceiling space then ran 2 x 1mm gauge two core wires back to my office closet (basically where all my comms gear is) then coded up a NodeMCU (ESP8266 12E with development board) and connected to relay (just controlling UP/DOWN) then to group controller, then added rules for blinds to auto open/close at morning and night. Works a treat.

Blinds also look a lot nicer once wires are all hidden. Only problem I have now is I've run out of power points in my cupboard! I figured better to run wires back to my office and put 12V DC power packs in there rather than in the ceiling space as worried about the safety aspect with packs getting warm plus allows turning on/off easily.

The $20 for nodemcu and relay is a lot cheaper than the $140 odd for fibaro relay, trade off of control via wifi vs zwave - but - it works, so job done.

chimera

506 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1586079 5-Jul-2016 08:36

Finally got another ESP8266-01 to control the group controller (which in turn, controls my blinds via a relay)

I've breadboarded it up and it works fine under normal use. I wanted to use the single 12V power supply to run the whole circuit though (as 12V VIN is what the group controller needs, although I suspect this is well more than it uses) so I've used the same 12V feed to provide both 5V power to the relay (via an L7805CV voltage regulator) and 3.3V to the ESP8266 (output from L7805CV through an AMS1117 regulator and decoupling capacitor) GPIO pins 0 and 2 are used to trigger the relay which triggers the group controller to open or close the blinds.

Issue though, is when powering on the circuit for the first time it immediately kicks the relay. The relay needs to be set HIGH by default and takes between 3.3V to 5V LOW to activate and its this I think is causing me an issue, because when the ESP powers on the GPIO outputs I assume will be set low already (in code when the ESP starts up, I set the pins as outputs and write them high, suspect by this stage its too late anyway)

Would I be better to swap this out with a relay that gets triggered when pins are set HIGH (would make more sense, so no voltage is applied whilst "idle") or is there another solution to this??? I am feeding the GPIO pins to the relay direct, would using a transistor setup help alleviate this?

chimera

506 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1596588 22-Jul-2016 00:01

Finally managed to sort this with transistors rather than the relay so smaller footprint. I'm sure it's not the only way to achieve it, but am switching using NPN then PNP transistors. The GPIO pins 0 and 2 need to be held high on ESP boot up so it has a couple of 3.3k pull-up resistors to achieve this, problem with that is it still kicks the relay (or transistor setup) on first power up. I trialed it with a PNP only setup (eg pull down to 0V at base to turn on) but ended up with other issues (switching using ground which won't work with 2 inputs on group controller) So I ended up putting a capacitor at the base of the transistor to suck up a bit of the load on power up which is a workaround but has done the trick. The whole board uses a mix from 12V, to 5V to 3.3V conversions to feed the various components. If anyone has a better solution I'd like to know as it seems a bit convoluted!

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