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Thread: Best way to back up heat with a Ranco involved

  1. #1
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    Best way to back up heat with a Ranco involved

    So like the subject says. I use a Ranco to run a Taco pump which heats my system with a Pex loop off my hot water heater. The Ranco has been rock solid, but I want to add a layer of redundancy. Now that my Apex2016 has been up and stable for a few weeks now, I am ready to start turning more control over to it. So, im thinking plug the Ranco into an outlet on the EB8 and do some programming, but I am totally new to this and haven't written any code. My idea was to make the apex throw alarms giving me the ability to make a change manually through fusion, and then have further set points that would auto shut off the outlet. I have the apex only controlling my ATS light right now. My Ranco is set at 77 right now if that matters. Interested in the communities feedback!

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by Muttley000 View Post
    So like the subject says. I use a Ranco to run a Taco pump which heats my system with a Pex loop off my hot water heater. The Ranco has been rock solid, but I want to add a layer of redundancy. Now that my Apex2016 has been up and stable for a few weeks now, I am ready to start turning more control over to it. So, im thinking plug the Ranco into an outlet on the EB8 and do some programming, but I am totally new to this and haven't written any code. My idea was to make the apex throw alarms giving me the ability to make a change manually through fusion, and then have further set points that would auto shut off the outlet. I have the apex only controlling my ATS light right now. My Ranco is set at 77 right now if that matters. Interested in the communities feedback!
    Like the sayin' goes, "If it ain't broke, then don't fix it!" So like you said, the Apex for backup. Since you are running your Apex at 77 for heat, then I would set the Apex so that at 77.5 (or 78, whatever you want), set the alarm, send you an email and shut off the ranko and pump by plugging them into an energy bar. This will perform the emergency shutoff and let you know via email and audible alarm that your Ranko and/or feed pump has failed on.

    Then, find out what is the normal low temperature for your tank (I'm sure this setup is not holding exactly 77) and I would set another alarm and email at either 0.5 or 1 full degree below this normal low. This will then let you know the Ranko and/or feed pump has failed off.

    So assign an energy bar outlet to the Ranko and name it appropriately, say [Ranko_Cont] and set the program to:

    [Ranko_Cont]
    Fallback On
    Set On
    If Temp > 77.5 Then Off

    Normally you would use Fallback and Set to off for temperature controls, but since the Ranko is your primary and this is serving as an emergency off, you will set them to on. Then for your Alarm and Email:

    [SndAlm_16]
    Set Off
    ...<other alarm settings>
    If Temp > 77.5 Then On
    If Temp < 76.5 Then On
    ...<other alarm settings>

    [EmailAlm_15]
    Set Off
    ...<other email settings>
    If Temp > 77.5 Then On
    If Temp < 76.5 Then On
    ...<other email settings>

    Its up to you what number you want to use and/or what settings you want for the alarm vs the email.

    As a final note, if your circulation pump is quite a distance from your tank, then run some thermostat cable and use a 12v relay that is powered before the Ranko and then signaled via a transformer at the energy bar.

    Good luck.

  3. #3
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    I am not quite sure what the Ranco does but I assume it is controlled by temperature and when it gets cold the pump comes on and moves water through your household water heater and heats up the tank. You can treat the ranco just like a normal heater for backup purposes.

    First thing to do is stick
    If Temp > 77.5 Then ON
    in the alarm outlets so you get an alarm if the temp ever makes it up to 77.5. Make this as close to the 77 as you can without getting false alarms.

    Next set the Ranco for above 77. Not sure how close you can get but we are going to use the Ranco as a backup so it should be on at temperatures up to 77. Now plug it into the Apex and call the outlet heater.

    Heater
    Fallback ON
    If Temp < 76.5 Then ON
    If Temp > 76.9 Then OFF

    What will happen now is the Apex will control the temperature in the tank. You can make the range in Heater as little as .1 degree. The Apex will be turning the outlet on and off to maintain the temperature and the Ranco will be always on. If something goes wrong and the temperature ever gets up to 77.5 you will get an alarm. If the Apex fails the power to the Ranco will be on and it will take over maintaining the tank temperature by itself.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by clsanchez77 View Post
    Like the sayin' goes, "If it ain't broke, then don't fix it!" So like you said, the Apex for backup. Since you are running your Apex at 77 for heat, then I would set the Apex so that at 77.5 (or 78, whatever you want), set the alarm, send you an email and shut off the ranko and pump by plugging them into an energy bar. This will perform the emergency shutoff and let you know via email and audible alarm that your Ranko and/or feed pump has failed on.

    Then, find out what is the normal low temperature for your tank (I'm sure this setup is not holding exactly 77) and I would set another alarm and email at either 0.5 or 1 full degree below this normal low. This will then let you know the Ranko and/or feed pump has failed off.

    So assign an energy bar outlet to the Ranko and name it appropriately, say [Ranko_Cont] and set the program to:

    [Ranko_Cont]
    Fallback On
    Set On
    If Temp > 77.5 Then Off

    Normally you would use Fallback and Set to off for temperature controls, but since the Ranko is your primary and this is serving as an emergency off, you will set them to on. Then for your Alarm and Email:

    [SndAlm_16]
    Set Off
    ...<other alarm settings>
    If Temp > 77.5 Then On
    If Temp < 76.5 Then On
    ...<other alarm settings>

    [EmailAlm_15]
    Set Off
    ...<other email settings>
    If Temp > 77.5 Then On
    If Temp < 76.5 Then On
    ...<other email settings>

    Its up to you what number you want to use and/or what settings you want for the alarm vs the email.

    As a final note, if your circulation pump is quite a distance from your tank, then run some thermostat cable and use a 12v relay that is powered before the Ranko and then signaled via a transformer at the energy bar.

    Good luck.
    Thank you for your detailed reply!

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by p7willm View Post
    I am not quite sure what the Ranco does but I assume it is controlled by temperature and when it gets cold the pump comes on and moves water through your household water heater and heats up the tank. You can treat the ranco just like a normal heater for backup purposes.

    First thing to do is stick
    If Temp > 77.5 Then ON
    in the alarm outlets so you get an alarm if the temp ever makes it up to 77.5. Make this as close to the 77 as you can without getting false alarms.

    Next set the Ranco for above 77. Not sure how close you can get but we are going to use the Ranco as a backup so it should be on at temperatures up to 77. Now plug it into the Apex and call the outlet heater.

    Heater
    Fallback ON
    If Temp < 76.5 Then ON
    If Temp > 76.9 Then OFF

    What will happen now is the Apex will control the temperature in the tank. You can make the range in Heater as little as .1 degree. The Apex will be turning the outlet on and off to maintain the temperature and the Ranco will be always on. If something goes wrong and the temperature ever gets up to 77.5 you will get an alarm. If the Apex fails the power to the Ranco will be on and it will take over maintaining the tank temperature by itself.
    Your assumption on how the Ranco works is correct. I am not sure if the constant cycling of the power to the controller is ok though. That is something I will research further. Thank you for the reply!

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Muttley000 View Post
    Your assumption on how the Ranco works is correct. I am not sure if the constant cycling of the power to the controller is ok though. That is something I will research further. Thank you for the reply!
    I have to agree with your concern. When dealing with a dumb heater or chiller, I think the cycling is ok. Being that you are using an electronic controller as an in between, I would use the Apex as a backup and not a primary.

    Back in the MH days when I ran a chiller and an Aquacontroller Jr, I wired in a relay into my chiller between the controller and the compressor/fan and had my AC Jr run the relay, not the chiller. The chiller controller was always on and always displayed a temperature, but the Apex cycled the compressor and fan.

    And in this sense, if the AC Jr was calling for chill, but controller on the chiller was reading a low temperature, it would also cut the chiller off. So I had redundancy to not drop my tank temp too aggressive.

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