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Door Thermostats With PLC

Etowah
B

Buzzie8

Member
I need to replace my automatic door thermostats because their margin of error is much greater than the election polls (possibly as high as 10 degrees). They are mechanical thermostats and I want to replace with digital but also want the ability to monitor from security camera system from home and open and close from home. Anybody done this?
 
Buzzie8 said:
I need to replace my automatic door thermostats because their margin of error is much greater than the election polls (possibly as high as 10 degrees). They are mechanical thermostats and I want to replace with digital but also want the ability to monitor from security camera system from home and open and close from home. Anybody done this?
Click to expand...

I think you will be really happy with some of the solutions that Control By Web has. I know BigLeo is using a few of them. Should work just like you need them to.
 
Buzzie8 said:
I need to replace my automatic door thermostats because their margin of error is much greater than the election polls (possibly as high as 10 degrees). They are mechanical thermostats and I want to replace with digital but also want the ability to monitor from security camera system from home and open and close from home. Anybody done this?
Click to expand...

Buzzie,

I don't think there is one solution for within a camera control system but a separate program from an ethernet ported PLC would allow a separate window & program to be running simultaneously.

Bubbles Galore said:
I think you will be really happy with some of the solutions that Control By Web has. I know BigLeo is using a few of them. Should work just like you need them to.
Click to expand...

Bubbles, BigLeo & others,

I had a guy recently ask me if there was an easy way to also control an overhead door over the internet. Has anyone explored the switching mechanism within some overhead door brands that would allow a relay solution such as "Control by Web" ?

mike
 
Logmein, and remote control will allow you to "talk to your computer" so you could control whatever you wanted that way. Pluse there a lot of "things" that you can control with your phone.
 
mjwalsh said:
Bubbles, BigLeo & others,

I had a guy recently ask me if there was an easy way to also control an overhead door over the internet. Has anyone explored the switching mechanism within some overhead door brands that would allow a relay solution such as "Control by Web" ?
Click to expand...

Mike,

You can do it so many different ways. I control mine through PDQ M5, but I could also use "Control by Web" stuff or even my DVR as i have the I/O board option. I can use my smartphone on all three.

To me, simply controlling them is not enough. I don't want to manage them, so I have them on a schedule and in the winter if a door doesn't close and the bay gets close to freezing, I get an SMS to my phone alerting me of the problem.
 
bigleo48 said:
Mike,

You can do it so many different ways. I control mine through PDQ M5, but I could also use "Control by Web" stuff or even my DVR as i have the I/O board option. I can use my smartphone on all three.

To me, simply controlling them is not enough. I don't want to manage them, so I have them on a schedule and in the winter if a door doesn't close and the bay gets close to freezing, I get an SMS to my phone alerting me of the problem.
Click to expand...

Bigleo & Washvac,

The guy was asking about adapting common garage door openers such as Genie, Liftmaster, Stanley, Multicode, Allstar, Carper, Skylink, and Sears Craftsman. What specific wires would a person tap into on these types of door openers?

mike
 
On house/all garage door openers there is two "tabs/screws" where you can attach a push button switch to open it, just add relay contacts there, figure out how to activate the relay, that it.
 
Thanks all for your responses. I had this digital thermostat laying around so I decided replacing my mechanical thermostat with it woud be a good start.
http://www.johnsoncontrols.com/cont.../temperature/electronic2/a419singlestage.html
I can monitor the doors with my existing camera system and I do not need the security to be integrated with the remote open/close feature.

I need to find out if my existing mechanical thermostat is using a 24V or 120V signal to my doors. I also need to know if I should wire my digital thermostat as NO or NC. After I get this wired I am going to see if I can use some X10 technology or something from controlfromweb.com to see if I can also open and close from home.
 
Just ordered this from controlbyweb.com:

http://www.controlbyweb.com/temperature/

Also, ordered an extra temp probe for my second bay. After talking to tech, I think it will do everything I need including emailing me if the temp falls below freezing (or whatever I set it to). Hopefully the wiring will be easy. On the outputs I am assuming I take the three wires from my mechanical thermostat and one will be a common and the two others will be for open and close. This was the only question the tech could not answer at controlbyweb. He said that some manipulating might be necessary and that his module is only a switch. Isn't a thermostat only a switch? Anyway, I feel confident I can figure it out.
 
Just got the controlbyweb.com thermostat controller today. It is awesome so far. Need to wire the relay tomorrow got it networked today. I'm not sure if the mechanical thermostat pulses or just closes the switch for my Ultimate Doors to go up and down. Also, I think it just sends a signal to my Jim Coleman water wizard and then that signals doors. Any input on how a old mechanical Honeywell thermostat works would be helpful. The relay can be set to to off, on, pulse, on both high temp and low temp alarms/signals.
 
Buzzie8 said:
Any input on how a old mechanical Honeywell thermostat works would be helpful..
Click to expand...

Buzzie,

I see a potential weakness in those old style thermostats & that is the inability to set the differential range more precisely.

mike
 
mjwalsh said:
I see a potential weakness in those old style thermostats & that is the inability to set the differential range more precisely.
Click to expand...
They do have a mechanical thermostat that will adjust accurately to a temperature differential of only two degrees.
 
I have the T-Stat (I linked to) attached to the heat tape in my trough. I don't like it because it has a +/-3° sensitivity which I thought would be close enough. When my truck bay froze two nights ago, the heat tape hadn't kicked @ 26° out and the set point was 32°. Manually checking cutin and cutout has about a 6-8° swing...Not close enough...I'm switching it over this weekend to run off a relay attached to the secondary output of my weepmizer...Much more accurate.

Maybe you could do the same?
 
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