Wireless floor heating thermostat

by wbk | 26 December 2019 22:53

We installed infrared floor heating film. It has not yet been connected, lacking a thermostat. My idea from the start was to use Arduino or compatible to build the thermostat myself. There were some reasons for that: it was cheaper than a ready built device, more flexible and an excellent reason to get started with Arduino.

So, to prevent any misunderstandings: although the floor is not wired yet, it is not wireless. The thermostat will be wireless on one end, the end to the user interface. From the thermostat to the floor it wires all the way down.

In the mean time the parts have arrived:

The separate functions I need/want to integrate are easily found, and integrating them went quite quickly at first. The result was almost what I needed, lacking only the sensor for ambient temperature. And it only would work in the wrong order. Which functions are they and what went wrong in the first iteration?

As stated, each separate function got its examples for Arduino as well as, fewer, for ESP32. I ended up with a loop that:

So the thermostat would not interfere with the relay until a button was pressed. The loop should work in reverse order:

The next step is to have a domotica server serving the thermostat interface, and the ESP querying the domotica server every now and again for changes. That way, less time is spent broadcasting a web interface via WiFi, improving power efficiency and security. At first it will be a stand alone setup though.

Pins

What connections/pins do I need? Which pins are they on the board?

I have some trouble converting the pin-examples I find on the Net to the actual pins on my ESP32. The names of the pins in those pictures are just a few letters different from the names of the pins silkscreened on the PCB. The pins that are supposed to be called ‘sensor VP’ and ‘sensor VN’, are called ‘SP’ and ‘SN’, and are moved one pin because I got an extra 3.3V pin on one side and extra GND pin on the other side.

Most of the pins are called Gnn, with nn being a number ranging from 0 to 36, in seemingly random order. G0 is between G2 and G4, and then G17 and G16 come before G5. G could stand for GPIO, and sometimes they match the notation on the images I find online. Of course not all options for each pin can be silkscreened on the tiny PCB. With my currently limited knowledge of Arduino programming, it does not help understanding the code I find in the wild. How should I assign a name to an input or output? Lets just try it with simple programs, building and understanding from there instead of hacking something together and hoping for the best: there is no lack of basic tutorials, it just takes some time to apply them to my ESP32-board, test its behaviour and measure electric properties of pins.

Test with ‘touch’ pin

While reading up on the pins and how to interact with them, I come across an explanation of ‘touch’ pins. They presumably can be used as input by just touching them. I’ll make sure to test that and keep it in mind as another way of setting the temperature.

Actually writing a simple program myself has taught me more than reading five of them and then flinging together something complicated to see what sticks. Namely:

For future reference, the file with the code is attached.

test01_touch0_gpio4[1]Download[2]

Endnotes:
  1. test01_touch0_gpio4: https://online.osba.nl/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/test01_touch0_gpio4.txt
  2. Download: https://online.osba.nl/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/test01_touch0_gpio4.txt

Source URL: https://online.osba.nl/blog/en/2019/12/26/draadloze-verwarmingsthermostaat/