Neuron control units have a wide range of applications. Today, we bring you an example of an economical heat pump system made by the TVK servis, s. r. o. company, which uses the Neuron S103 as a control unit.
The goal of the TVK servis s.r.o. the company was to decrease the buying cost of heat pumps for family houses. For this purpose, a heat pump assembly was designed, consisting off commercially available outdoor inverter unit and other components - plate heat exchanger, circulator pump, expansion tank, backup heat source, water filter, a three-way valve and armatures.
Hardware
As a control unit, the Neuron S103 was used. This model features following I/O configuration:
- 4x digital input
- 4x digital output
- 1x analogue input
- 1x analogue output
- 1x RS485 bus (Modbus protocol)
- 1x 1-Wire bus
Inputs and outputs are utilized in the following way:
- digital inputs: the external thermostat
- digital output:
- heat pump switch
- three-way valve control
- water heater's cartridge heater switch
- bivalent heat source (electric boiler)
- analogue input: flow thermometer
- analogue output: heat pump output regulation
- RS485 bus (Modbus protocol): energy meter measuring heat pump power consumption
- 1-Wire bus: a set of 1-Wire temperature sensors measuring outside temperature, water heater temperature, reversing valve temperature, temperature behind the backup heat source and temperature behind the coolant/water exchanger
Software
From the software point of view, the Mervis software platform is used. In the Mervis runtime, the user can manage regular functions of the heat pump, i.e. equithermal management, heating time schedule, hot water heating priorities, diagnostics etc. The temperature and water flow measurements then allow the heat pump's coefficient of performance (COP). Mervis DB database is used for logging parameters used for example for fine-tuning the equithermal graph. Users have the option to use web interface. Service technicians of the TVK servis company then can access the system regulator remotely through a proxy server for diagnostics, software updates and other maintenance tasks.
Mervis interface
Temperature measurement output graph
Web interface for control and monitoring of the heat pump.
Evaluation
According to the company, the complete system achieved all goals. Currently, two installations are in operation - one with a Sinclair inverter unit and one with a Mitsubishi unit. Both systems are fully functional and compared to en bloc systems offered on the market, TVK servis company solution is more financially accessible for customers. As to further development, the TVK servis is currently performing tests of remote system access through the MS Azure cloud service.
Photodocumentation
Distribution box with Neuron S103 controller
Distribution box with a bivalent electric boiler (on the left)
Flowmeter connected to controller's analogue input
