Thermostat Connection (TZ16)

[BrettS]

I just got an RCS TZ16 thermostat and I'm going to be connecting it tonight. I understand the general principle of connecting the RCS thermostats and I don't anticipate having any problems connecting the wall unit to the controller, but I am a bit nervous about connecting the controller to the HVAC system. I've replaced thermostats before, but they were simple 4 wire systems. The system I have now is a 6 wire heat pump system with two cooling stages and three heating stages. I plan to take a picture of the connections on the existing thermostat before I disconnect it, but will it be as simple as connecting the same color wires to the same terminals on the RCS unit? Do I need to do anything special for power? The RCS manual mentions a 24V common and I'm not sure if I have that available.

Any suggestions before I start this tonight?

Thanks much,
Brett

 

[twilo123]

i have a tz40 and i had 24v common coming straight off my existing board. be careful on this one 'cause if it doesn't work you may be out of heat/central air until you get it fixed. i tried this in august and had no a/c for 2 days until i got a hvac guy from work come over. he wound up fixing it in 10 minutes. lol.

the 24v common is power i believe. you'll know when you have power because some of the relays will start lighting/blinking green inside the box (on the circuit board) as you connect them.

also you have to connect the z-wave bridge seperately and i had problems with my 1st bridge. wound up with numerous calls over a couple of months until rcs returned it and gave me a new one. my bridge was on version 6 i believe at the time. it added into the network initially but started failing over time and would not exclude. seems the red button stopped functioning. you'll need something small to push the button too like a pen tip.

what are you going to control it with?

also be prepared to wait and hour or so after calling rcs for tech help. they have an automated system only last time i called. you leave your name/# and they call you back. doesn't matter what time a day i called you had to wait an hour. also, if i remember correctly they are pacific time. once they are on though, they are very helpful and knowledgable. i believe bruce is the main person to speak with if you wind up calling.

 

[BrettS]

Thanks Twilo. I managed to get it installed last night and things went pretty well. It turned out that I already had the 24V common wire as the thermostat that was installed needed it. I also discovered that despite what I was told, and despite what it says on the air handler, that this is only connected as a single stage unit. At this point, I'm not sure if it really is a two stage unit and the guy who installed it only connected one stage, or if it's really just a single stage unit. I may get an HVAC guy in sometime to see what he can tell me.

I'm controlling it through Homeseer and I added it to the network with my Intermatic HA07 remote. I didn't have too much trouble there, but I am having a bit of an odd problem in that I can't get homeseer to set the heat setpoint. I tell it to change it and the log shows the command going out, but I don't get a response on the thermostat and it doesn't seem to change anything. Setting the cool setpoint or the operating mode or fan mode of the thermostat works without a problem. Given that I'm in central Florida and it's been getting up in the 80's during the day I don't really need the heat right now so I'm not too concerned about it. I'll probably play with it a bit more and see what I can figure out.

Thanks,
Brett

 

[twilo123]

i initially had similar issues with the setpoints on a hawking box using a ha09. i wound up getting an act zth100 since i know it supports the thermostat class for sure and excluded/re-included the tz40. had better luck that way.