ElkM1G and OmniStat2 Installation

[ddennerline]

I installed a new OmniStat2 tonight and hooked it up to ElkM1G. My HVAC is a traditional 1 stage heat/cool. I am pretty impressed with how focused OmniStat2’s display and configuration. Gone are the days of fumbling in the dark to guess at current temperature or figure out which key is the up or down button. I really like the dial, bright back lighting, the large temperature font, and motion sensor. Another nice feature is wide variety of HVAC configurations that can be supported. I have been considering installing a dual fuel/two-stage cooling system.

I have M1XSP/VRC0P installed. I had originally tried installing a 2Gig Z-Wave thermostat, but I could never get it “included” using ControlThink or Leviton RF Installer.

The setup is not for the faint-of-heart for a few reasons. I started having bad flashbacks to the MS-DoS/Build-Your-Computer days. Futzing around with a large number of settings and praying system would boot-up. If successful, you sort of felt like some artist or guru. If you got one IRQ wrong or some component was not compatible with its partner, the whole thing fell apart.

It’s only a thermostat and shouldn’t be this hard. I know that Elk and HAI are competitors, but it would be nice if HAI (or some other partner) created M1PCSPIM like package. You should be able to plug this into bus. If something went wrong, the LED numeric display would tell you the fault code.

1. If you have any existing M1XSPs installed, you have to move each one to address 5 and beyond
2. There are quite a few jumpers and dip switch settings that must be correctly set. Short of purchasing a RS-232 sniffer, trying to diagnose/troubleshoot this setup would be downright daunting.
3. I could not get the 2400 baud setting to work, so I reverted to OmniStat1 300 baud recommendation. The OmniStat documentation is not clear about the difference between expansion and system baud. I am pretty sure system baud must match Elk M1XSP
4. You need to make Jumper J8 is removed from back of OmniStat2. This is part of Elk directions, but it’s easy to miss. The OmniStat instructions do not explain what this Jumper does.
5. You need to make sure the small communications wire jumper between N/C and Black is removed.
6. You need to make sure the OnmiStat M1XSP firmware is installed.
7. I decided to open up wall, install an orange low voltage box, NM tubing, and new 18g, 7,
   wire. This way I could add remote temperature sensor later on.

Initially the thermostat refused to communicate with Elk. All the steps above are documented, but I had forgotten about OmniStat Jumper J8 and left the default M1XSP firmware installed. Corrected these problems and still no luck. Several reboots later and hum maybe 2400 baud is too fast. Downgraded to 300 and viola the keypad thermostat menu starts showing correct temperature.

I modified the rules Elk rules slightly by adding a “Night mode”. I plan on adding a 1hr fan cycle to help correct upstairs hotter than downstairs condition. Typically, this would run at night-time.

WHENEVER  ENTRY DELAY, ANY AREA STARTS
      AND FamilyRmBackDoor (Zn 3) IS NOT SECURE
            THEN TURN Entering Home [131 (I3)] ON, FADE RATE = 0 FOR 1 HR
            THEN ACTIVATE Comfort Mode (Task 5)

 WHENEVER  EXIT DELAY, ANY AREA ENDS
      AND Home (Area 1) IS ARMED AWAY
            THEN ACTIVATE All Lights Off (Task 1)
            THEN ACTIVATE Economy Mode (Task 4)

 WHENEVER  Economy Mode (Task 4)  IS ACTIVATED
            THEN SET Downstairs (Tstat 1) HEATING DESIRED TEMP TO EcnmyHeat (Cust Set 4)
            THEN SET Downstairs (Tstat 1) COOLING DESIRED TEMP TO EcnmyCool (Cust Set 5)

WHENEVER  Comfort Mode (Task 5)  IS ACTIVATED
            THEN SET Downstairs (Tstat 1) HEATING DESIRED TEMP TO NrmlHeat (Cust Set 2)
            THEN SET Downstairs (Tstat 1) COOLING DESIRED TEMP TO NrmlCool (Cust Set 3)

 WHENEVER  Night Mode (Task 6)  IS ACTIVATED
            THEN SET Downstairs (Tstat 1) HEATING DESIRED TEMP TO NightHeat (Cust Set 6)
            THEN SET Downstairs (Tstat 1) COOLING DESIRED TEMP TO NightCool (Cust Set 7)

 

[Del91574]

I've always thought the exact opposite, with pages 8 and 9 of the XSP book being pretty good. The major points are
· Thermostat Address

· Baud Rate 2400

· Turn OFF Scheduling

· Remove the JP8 jumper if installed

· Remove the jumper wire between N/C and Black


I can't say I've experienced any of the issues you've noted, outside of typical setup of the serial port jumpers and dipswitches. The only thing I can see that wasn't mentioned was which firmware you had the XSP flashed at, which might be part of your issue. Also not sure if you're running a dedicated data line to the stat vs. in the same cabling with the stat's wiring. I have seen/heard of issues of noise and data corruption, which might be the reason why you had to slow your data down.