Choice of AC Systems with Full CBUS Capability

Hey Guys,

I have a customer who is going to be putting CBUS in his new home.. One of the requirements is that he is putting a ducted AC system through the house but wants it fully controlled via the Colour Touch Screen..

He hasnt yet selected a AC System and will select based on my advice, but I am wondering if any of you could suggest any brands/models of AC you have had experience with integrating, method of integrating, difficulty, etc..

Ideally a capable AC System with CBUS Interface would be awesome.. :-D

Please feel free to share...

Cheers,
Nik

 

Is he going to pay whatever you can spend or is he doing this because he believes in high technology?

How many pieces of information do you want to control ?

Are you using a heat exchanger and a HEPA system ?

Blowing air is one thing but how do you plan on controlling for fungus, contamination, waste air ?

I can honestly say there is no limit. Even now you can do the same thing on iPad. The information you gave is about 14 frames out of a 2 hour movie.

 

My apologies for not being up to speed with AC..

His budget is very flexible and basically he wants an AC system which he can control from the cbus touchscreen going into the job, instead of having the standard controller on the wall..

Control required would be unit on/off, temp adjustment, current temp, schedule on/off.. No independant zone control is required.. So pretty straight forward..

I was hoping to get details of a unit that have a cbus sim or module in it which would cater for this instead of having to go through low level interface.. I would have thought this would be a pretty common request..

Cheers,
Nik

 

Hello Roosta
This post shows one method.
http://www.cbusforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7238
Some of the Daikin ducted units have Daikin's central control onboard and others need a board added.
From memory it calls for a 0.75mm 2 core shielded cable for the central control lines to the Coolmaster interface which is the same as the interconnect cabling on these units.
You can see my Coolmaster ended up in the roof but if I was planning it again I would make some more space in a data cabinet.
I'm not sure the exact price but the Coolmaster will cost about $1000-$2000.
The unit or units then need to be addressed with the Daikin remote, or by dip switches on the add in boards and once you connect the 2 wires to the Coolmaster it reports addresses of units connected on it's LCD.
Connect an RS232 to the Coolmaster and you can easily send commands or query status with hyperterminal.
Then you have to get some logic device on CBus such as Wiser, PAC, Homegate or CTC to send the commands and interface it to CBus.
Many thanks to CBus forum member djaggar as he provided much assistance with this and saved it from being my lifelong project.

 

There are two kinds of AC system. A generic heater/blower and a full air control system with external fresh air intake and stale air exhaust via a heat exchanger.

All AC systems get trashed by organic contamination because they are loaded with moisture and have many dark spots for growth. The ducted systems are probably worse.

In Australia we tend to use flexible ducting which is impossible to clean out. In North America they are hard-core solid ducting experts. Solid ducts are excellent for flow control and cleaning.

HEPA systems intersect the returns and intakes so that they dont allow too much contamination into the system.

Wall mounted split systems, or multi-head systems are much more visible but at least the filters can be checked visually.

The problem with 90% of AC systems is that they generally blow dirty stale air in circles. The average bedroom takes about 2 hours to deplete to a very low level of oxygen. The average house takes only a few hours longer if there are 3-4 people inside.

So what is being controlled ? blowers ? or air quality ?

 

I guess technically it is just going to be a blower..

After thinking about it, should be pretty straight forward.. Just cooling no heating (at this stage).. It is only in a residential application..

CBUS Temp Sensor
2 channel of control for 'blower' and 'cool'..
CBUS Touch Screen programmed to have set temp, monitor temp, and to control blower and cool when monitored temp is higher than set temp..

And if he decides to go cooling and heating

CBUS Temp Sensor
3 channel of control for 'blower', 'cool' and 'heat'..
CBUS Touch Screen programmed to have set temp, monitor temp, and to control blower and cool when monitored temp is higher than set temp, and to control blower and heat when monitored temp is lower than set temp..

I just would have thought there would be a few recommended systems out there..

Thanks for the responses and education guys..

Cheers,
Nik

 

At this moment ....you can look at MHI, Daikin, Toshiba.