pimatic-maxcul and max! cube with aculfw acting as CUL

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@fbeek

by pressing the button “auto”, “manu” or “boost” i get an error:

maybe it was a bug?

Oh yep thats a bug.

Can you please open an issue on github ?
I will try to fix this i the next days.

Thanks for your help on finding this.

I have a problem too with my newly added thermostats. The first one worked fine for weeks with no problems but the others did not work. I always get a “Paket… send but did not response” error. The first one is a “Max! Basic Plus” and the others are “Max! Basic”.

Edit: Problem solved, the devices was not paired correctly because of LOVF. Now they work for the moment.

I want to try it out but I get a 404 not found on the wget https://sourceforge.net/code-snapshots/svn/c/cu/culfw/code/culfw-code-553-trunk.zip can anyone help on this?

there has been an update. use this url
https://sourceforge.net/code-snapshots/svn/c/cu/culfw/code/culfw-code-559-trunk.zip

Waaah my bad should read better! now another question; I’m on a Pi Zero with an USB Hub I hooked up an USB WiFi and the arduino nano module. When I try make program it is not able to find the Arduino nano. Is it even possible to do it this way?

I flashed the Arduino nano with the firmware on my production machine with no errors .

Now another question; I have 3 maxthermostat modules and a max cube working on my production machine. I hooked up the Arduino nano with the maxcul firmware on my testmachine and in the log I see it’s connected with the module.

I have added a maxthermostat on my testmachine with the address that I can see on my production machine. Now the values are not automatically refreshing on my testmachine, when I change the temperature on the thermostat itself it does pick up the new values with the maxcul hardware.

When I try to change the temperature with the maxcul it give me an error that he cannot communicate with the maxthermostat module. Now how can I get this working? (maybe a noob question but I have no idea )

Anyone?

So @leader21 does this work at you config/home?

last time a have many trouble with the cube…

• he is not connected
• he is online but puts the thermostats into automode, so pimatic won’t control them(like my schedule)
• i need to reboot the cube an pimatic almost every day to get a stable heating management…

for this reasons i think about make it like yours …

mfg Chris

BUMP
I have tried to solder a CC1101 but these tiny PCB’s are so damn tiny … it’s impossible to solder such device for me
Now I’m thinking of simply ordering a Cub and flash it with the custom firmware. Can anyone tell me how stable this is lately? Last reply is somone complaing about daily reboots.
Who is using such a cube with custom firmware? @leader21 what is your experience?

I am using this fork on a Nano atm and I don’t have problems with the LOVF anymore

https://blog.mjwconsult.co.uk/modifying-cul-firmware-to-increase-send-limit-for-eq3-max-heating-thermostats/

https://github.com/mattwire/culfw

Soldering these tiny CC1101 PCB’s from China was a nogo for me.
Eventually I found one with pins attached : https://www.tme.eu/nl/details/rc-cc1101-spi-868/rf-communicatiemodules/radiocontrolli/
Not the most cheap ones, and shipping costs are quite high … but for me it was a solution. Confirmed working with NanoCUL firmware

@incmve thx for that mate!!
i was always having trouble with LOVF and tried to get rid of it.
googled some forums and blogs but did not find a solution.
will try this when i find some spare time!

@koffienl i was using the flashed cube and the selfmade cul but actually i went back to a basic installation with the max cube and the max plugin since i always had trouble with the above mentioned restriction.

need to test what is best now. but i realised that the selfmade cul was way more easier to flash then the cube.
another thing that needs to be supported by the maxcul plugin is the wall-thermostat. i am having these in every room and it is important for me to control the theradiator thermostats with them. maybe @fbeek has some spare time to check that nice feature soon then i would be able to completely switch to maxcul

I have 2 “eQ-3 MAX! Radiatorthermostat+” knobs installed now.
It works fine, but what’s really puzzling me is the temperature update from the device to Pimatic. Last night I turned both thermostats to OFF. No temperature update at all from the devices. I turned both to ECO this morning and a few seconds after that the temperature got updated.
Now, more then 1.5 hour later it still hasn’t updated its temperature.

• When is the temperature send to the ‘cube’ ?
• Is it possible to request temperature?
• Is it possible to trick the device into updating it’s temperature by changing some mode/setting?

I know @incmve has the same weird issues with not getting temperature updates, allthough he has the normale thermostats, not the plus version like I do.

Other question : one of the thermostat shows a halve opened valve, even when the roomtemperature is higher then the setpoint. Is this normal behavior ?

Hello,

the problem with the temperature is normal. As I has described on Github, the devices only send the data when they where updatet by the cube or cul or where paired with the Wallthermostat.

The LOVF commes from the ISM Band 1% Rule that the cul firmware is using.

On the pimatic-maxcul repository where additional informations to that under the closed issues, but i whil add these infos to the readme.

@leader21 This is the next thing on my todo list 😅

@fbeek thanks for explaining. It really sucks the EQ3 devices can’t send a simplle update of the temperature.

Could anyone confirm / explain why the radiator knob is so extremely aggressive opening the valve? I have a room where the eq3 thermostat is set to 21 and even with a measured temperature of 25 it still doesn’t fully close the valve.

I noticed it to.

http://www.domoticz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=841&start=480

I noticed that the VALVE temperature has to be more than 2 degrees higher than its setpoint for the valve to be fully closed (0% open).

In my case I ADD 0.5 degrees to the valve setpoint when it is warming, because that is what my wife will see...

@incmve said in pimatic-maxcul and max! cube with aculfw acting as CUL:

…because that is what my wife will see…

female-offset for saving huge amount of energy… hahaha

@leader21 said in pimatic-maxcul and max! cube with aculfw acting as CUL:

if you do that, there is no way back there is no cube software to reflash

Very useful article, one note:
Browsing the Max! installation package for windows software, version 1.4.6, you can find a file called firmware.enc of about 338 KB … Could it be useful?

Ehm, addendum, can’t find 121b77.zip