How to control Vaillant heating

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@mr-smith
I have buid the adaper by my self 1 year ago. For me it was fun to solder all the parts to the circuit board. The Adapteris is connected via USB to the Pi and with 2 Wires (7m) to the EBUS.
I love it to have the possibility to control my heating by pimatic.

@mr.smith As long as you use eBus controls, yes it is modulating because it is talking intelligently to the eBus instead of just a on and off switch like the AC power timers (those aren’t really controllers!) I am also using a VRT350. There are different software versions and mine is newer so I had to hack mine to use some of the VRT370 commands with mine but yours might be ok.

Just install ebusd via the deb package then the ebusd configuration via the deb package (it’s all in john30’s github). Then you just start the service and do a tail -f /var/log/ebusd.log with the eService USB coupler and you will start to see the devices talking! The daemon picks the right files for you, provided you devices are all there. What I would do is after running ebusd and keeping the tail on the log file running on a separate ssh session and then running “ebusctl scan full”, it will scan the entire bus and identify which devices it found. After 2 mins just run ebusctl scan result and it will list your devices so you don’t have to dig into the log file to get them.

I am having quite a bit of run with Pimatic. I’ve tried openhab (urghh Java, urghhhhh!) and it wasn’t that good. Pimatic uses the native ebusd daemon that is written in C/C# and is fantastic and fast.

Thanks you for your reply guys!
I am convinced, just bought my self a ready2use USB adapter. Wil keep you posted on my eBUSd adventures!

@mr.smith Keep us updated

Received the coupler last week and installed it without any serious problems.
Installed the ebusd-configuration-2.1.*.deb and run ebusd --scanconfig, witch loads the 15.350.csv and 08.bai.csv.
I can now read the flame, system pressure and a lot of other things.
ebusd info:
address 03: master #11 address 08: slave #11, scanned "MF=Vaillant;ID=BAI00;SW=0604;HW=5502", loaded "bai.308523.inc", "vaillant/08.bai.csv" address 10: master #2 address 15: slave #2, scanned "MF=Vaillant;ID=35000;SW=0109;HW=7102", loaded "vaillant/15.350.csv" address 31: master #8, ebusd address 36: slave #8

Everything seems to work great, only thing is that I can’t seem the actual room temperature displayed or set the desired temperature. DisplayedRoomTemp and DisplayedHwcStorageTemp doesn’t seem to work.

@Hairpinder Sangehera, you said you are also using the an 350 controller, do you use the same *.CSV as I am?
And which commands do you use to show the desired temperature and the actual room temperature?
Also could you perhaps show me your config.json?

Thanx in advance!

Grt. Marcel

@mr.smith Looks like your VRT350 has the newer software like mine does!

Have you tried RoomTemp instead of DisplayedRoomTemp? It says it’s for a lower SW version but it seemed to work for me.

The VRT370 has the same software as our VRT350’s so what you need to do is copy the 15.370.csv contents beginning from Line 6 which says “# ##### general #####”, and replace the messages only, don’t replace the whole CSV! I.e replace line 8 onwards in your 15.350.csv)

Then replace the commands in your 15.350.csv with those! I talk to John once in a while so I will suggest some changes to the file in order to support the newer software (I think you define it like this [sw=(version)] in front of the newer commands!

@Harpinder-Sanghera
You are The man, that’s what did the trick!

I replaced everything downward from line 6 of 15.370.CSV to below line 8 of 15.350.CSV, started the deamon with:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo ebusd --scanconfig
And now it shows:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ebusctl r DisplayedRoomTemp 19.88
And:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ebusctl read ActualRoomTempDesiredHc1 20.50

Again thank you very much, you have been a great help!

But can you explain why this command:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ebusctl read sdflame
gives this result:
on
While i can’t find the command “sdflame” in the 15.350.CSV?
The same with:
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ebusctl read SDTRT
Also no trace of STDTR in the .CSV.

@mr.smith SDFLAME and SDTRT are actually from your Boiler, not the Controls. So in your ebusd log file you should see it detects your boiler which should be device id 08 and labelled BAI.

so mine is 08.bai.csv or something like that. But you will also see in the configuration files there are lots of bai*****.inc files. These are files that list commands for different variants for the Vaillant Boilers/Burner units.

sdflame is basically the indicator when the Burner in the boiler is fired and the gas flame signal is on the front of the boiler to indicate it is heating water.

SDTRT is usually the return flow temperature.

If you look at the CSV files that are loaded you will understand. If you also tail the ebusd log file you can see two Scan01 and Scan02 updates that regularly broadcast by the Boiler via the ebus.

Have a read of the github wiki pages for ebusd and ebusd configuration to get more familiar with how it works.

I see several of you guys have the later version of the VRT350 and have got it working. I have the wireless version (VRT350F) and an ecoTEC Plus 831 and I am interested to know if this will work ?

Presumably, the data exchanged is the same, it’s just that the transport method is different…

Also, am I right in thinking that the tap into the ebus can be made at the boiler directly onto the connector block, in parallel with the receiver module ?

Any help/comments is much appreciated

@Gadger1
I dont know how the wireles one works. I think there is a modul in the boiler, which is connected to the ebus?
And yes you are right. You have to connect the adapter to the ebus on the mainboard of the boiler.

@Gadger1 Besides having no wires it is literally the same thing. It’s not in the boiler. You’ll have a white surface mounted box with just Vaillant written on it where the wired one would normally be on the wall. That’s the transmitter. It’ll have power and ebus going to it. You can tap off the wire anywhere you want, anywhere the wire comes out of the boiler, vr65/vr66 or controller.

@magic-tune and @Harpinder-Sanghera Many thanks for your replies. I thought that was the case but I wanted to make sure.

Hey guys,

I’m trying to establish a Connection with my fathers vaillant heating system. But I didn’t got any Feedback from the ebusd. Maybe you anyone can help.
I have it installed (hopefully corectly) and tried to us ebusd -s to scan for config, but didn’t got any return value. Is that normal? I also tried to start with sudo ebusd -c /etc/ebusd -d /dev/ttyUSB0, but didn’t got anything back…
pgrep ebusd >/dev/null && echo 1 || echo 0 echos 1, does this mean it’s running fine?
Hope someone can help…

Regards

Does the command
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ebusctl info
produce anything?

I think the “1” means it runs fine.

this doesn’t produce anything and does not finish (no new line pi@reaspberrypi: ~ $).

edit:
just to show it is installed correctly:

~ $ ebusctl --version
ebusctl of ebusd 2.4

First things first, did you check the log? The log tells you everything you need to know. How did you install ebusd? The instructions recommend installing the latest deb package as it sets the environment. The log file is /var/log/ebusd.log.

Secondly, Are you sure your device is on /dev/ttyUSB0? Are you using the eService adapter or a homemade one? That would determine exactly what device it’s supposed to listen on.

Third, Did you install the configuration files, not just the daemon? All explained in the ebusd wiki on the author’s gibhub page.

I suggest first checking on the ebusd github page for troubleshooting to make sure you have set it up correctly by following the documentation.

Because it’s my fathers heating I have to ask him for the type of eService adapter, but I think its a bought one. I will also ask him to send me the /var/log/ebusd.log and look at it.
I tried to install it this weekend, pulled the source and compiled it (as written in ‘1. Build and install’). Then I downloaded ebusd 2.1 config 2016/06/05 from the config github repo (and installed) and tried to start the daemon as written above.
Is that correct or is there something I missed? I will report back when I get the logs and type of adapter.

Install via the deb package, not the source. Have a thorough read of the github page, and I don’t just mean the outdated wiki page.
Pretty sure 2.1 is the old one, there is a 2.X that is newer, I know that because I have contributed to changes a month ago.
You need to know first how it works before you attempt to use Pimatic, as Pimatic just runs ebusctl commands. If you know how to make it work manually, then pimatic will work.

Contact John to get it to work first as it’s not a Pimatic issue

Anyone with VRT350 can confirm if I can set flowtempdesired using ebusd ?

I want to change temperature for heating from the script.

@piotr-solarczyk

Yup. Thats what I did. Don’t really use it much these days. If it works via ebusd from the command line, then it’ll work via pimatic