AEC 5CG Air Source Heat Pump

[ProDave]

I have just bought myself one of these AEC heat pumps, so I am making this thread to discuss it, and in due course (will be some time) report how well it works.

 

First off, AEC seems to stand for Ambient Energy Collector.  It claims to be UK made, but the only references I can find about it on the internet, are the website of the dealer I bought it from.

 

Why did I choose this one?  Because it was going cheap on ebay. I only had a couple of hours notice of the end of the auction, not enough time to do any research to find out much about it so I put in a silly cheeky cheap bid and blow me down I won it.  It arrived this morning.

 

It's model number is AEC-5CG.  It came without a printed instruction manual, but this page gives the units specifications and a link to download the installation manual. http://www.webportal-solfex.co.uk/Catalogue/Heat-Pumps-HP/Heat-Pumps/AEC/AMBIENT-ENERGY-COLLECTOR-5kW-WHITE-AEC-5WH

 

One of it's features is an inside termination box to connect all the heating controls and a couple of sensors. This connects to the heat pump with a 4 core cable, which I suspect is using CAN bus. This means to connect the outside unit, all that's needed is power, this 4 core cable, and an ethernet cable.

 

I have taken the covers off and taken some photo's. It will be interesting to see if anyone recognises any of the internal parts from other makes of heat pump.

 

A few observations.

 

Inside is a label that states the manufacturer is EBAC Ltd from Newton Ayrcliffe and gives a model number  H10A5-1BGR-SF but googling that revealed nothing of relevance.

 

At the heart to control it is a standard looking Raspbery Pi  There is a wifi interface built in and you can log in directly to the controller.  All setup is done from a web interface including things like setting heat compensation curves.  It can also be hard wired to your network and even accessed remotely if you want to.

 

The standard wiring schematics show connection for heating up to 3 zones, and a hot water heating circuit, each one controlled by it's own 2 port valve.

 

The unit also wants to be wired to the immersion heater in the hot water tank. They say this is to once per week heat the tank to 65 degrees (the heat pump only heats the HW to a max of 48 degrees) That might complicate using a solar PV divertor for the immersion.

 

One last observation, the compressor appears to be driven from a variable speed drive, but the fan seems to be direct via a relay, meaning the fan will run full speed all the time, which is a bit disappointing from a noise point of view.

 

I will add to this thread as I find out more, but it will be some time before it is connected and commissioned.

[Stones]

One of their older brochures online

 

http://www.solfex.co.uk/uploads/downloads/Heat_Pump_Brochure_2.pdf

 

pages 22 & 23, suggests they give a 7 year warranty on parts and labour.  

 

Have they given you any warranty at all?  If you don't mind me asking, how cheeky a bid? 

[PeterW]

Watching this one - nearly bought one of those a while back, the company in Grimsby that sells them has had a number of names but does seem to do clearance of other people's goods. 

 

EBAC have been around for a long time - they ventured into the ASHP market a while back but no longer do them according to their website. 

 

http://www.installeronline.co.uk/ebac-launch-a-new-range-of-air-source-heat-pumps/

[ProDave]

Yes the item is new (it has one small scratch to the paintwork) And the ebay listing says 7 year warranty, so I must print that listing as proof it was offered with a warranty.

 

Perhaps if EBAC have ceased manufacturing them, it's an end of line item. I won it for £375 and it cost £80 to get it shipped here on its pallet.

 

Interesting that article mentions a "quiet mode" so perhaps there is some mechanism to vary the fan speed.  I will power it up shortly and have a look at the user interface via wifi.

[Stones]

At that sort of money, even if you only get a few years out of it, looks like a bargain. Whether the 7 year warranty will be worth the paper you print it out on....if they are not making them anymore, I suppose sourcing spares may be the only issue?

[ProDave]

I have powered it up this evening, trying to log into its settings.

 

I can get the Ubuntu laptop to connect to its wifi network, but when I try to go to 192.168.10.1 which is where it says the user interface is, I get address not found.  I will have to contact them and see if someone has powered it up and changed the address.  In the mean time does anyone know a tool for linux that will scan your network and find anything connected?

 

The windoze 10 laptop won't even connect and the inbuilt diagnostics in W10 are useless. In fact I find W10 useless often refusing to connect to a plain ordinary BT hub, then half an hour later deciding it will connect after all without you changing anything.

[PeterW]

Go onto the BT hub and look for connected devices in the Device Table. Should give you its IP address 

 

 

[dogman]

3 minutes ago, PeterW said:

Go onto the BT hub and look for connected devices in the Device Table. Should give you its IP address 

 

 

Assuming it has actually connected to the hub.

you could try a pentest tool such as wifilite that may even pick up clients

 

[dpmiller]

ipscan24 for the laptop.

[PeterW]

Other choice is to use a Cat5 cable to connect it and see if you get a different address etc 

[PeterW]

9 hours ago, ProDave said:

I have powered it up this evening, trying to log into it's settings.

 

I can get the Ubuntu laptop to connect to it's wifi network, but when I try to go to 192.168.10.1 which is where it says the user interface is, I get address not found.  I will have to contact them and see if someone has powered it up and changed the address.  In the mean time does anyone know a tool for linux that will scan your network and find anything connected?

 

The windoze 10 laptop won't even connect and the inbuilt diagnostics in W10 are useless. In fact I find W10 useless often refusing to connect to a plain ordinary BT hub, then half an hour later deciding it will connect after all without you changing anything.

 

 

@ProDave I've just flicked through the manual - it has its own wifi network and SSID ..! If you connect via Ubuntu it should assign you an IP and identify the gateway it is using. The IP may give away what range someone has set for the DHCP server within  the unit. 

 

With this sort of stuff I usually use a fixed cable as it's more reliable. 

[Jeremy Harris]

So the unit acts as an AP, rather than a client? 

 

There may well be a way to change that somewhere, as the WiFi IP cameras I've been playing with seem to work the same way.  By default they start off as an AP, with their own SSID, but once you connect to the web interface via that AP there is an option to have the camera operate as a client on an existing WiFi network.  You use the direct connection to set the WiFi SSID and password up for the camera to connect to the main house WiFi LAN, then reboot it to get it to connect.

[ProDave]

Yes it acts as its own wi fi access point, at least to start with. So I disconnect the laptop from the BT bub (even tried turning off the BT hub to be sure) and you find and connect to the heat pump's AP (called heatpumpdash)

 

I downloaded and tried nmap on the ubuntu PC. Then I scanned the IP range 192.128.10.^ instead of saying no device or no response, for each address it tried it said "cannot find route" or something similar. which seems to imply it cannot find a DNS server?

 

As I said before the ubuntu pc claims it has connected to the AP, but the W10 pc tries and fails to connect to it.

 

I have to go out to work today so no more playing until this evening.

 

[ProDave]

48 minutes ago, PeterW said:

 

 

@ProDave I've just flicked through the manual - it has its own wifi network and SSID ..! If you connect via Ubuntu it should assign you an IP and identify the gateway it is using. The IP may give away what range someone has set for the DHCP server within  the unit. 

 

With this sort of stuff I usually use a fixed cable as it's more reliable. 

And how would I find that information in ubuntu when it's connected?

 

I have tried a network cable and it made no difference.

[PeterW]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

And how would I find that information in ubuntu when it's connected?

 

I have tried a network cable and it made no difference.

 

Either network manager from the GUI or iwconfig from the shell if you are on wireless. Use ifconfig if it's wired.  

[ProDave]

I found a linux network problem solving page and it prompted me to try "nm-tool" which reports

IPV4

Address 10.42.0.1

Prefix 24(255.255.255.0)

Gateway 0.0.0.0

 

I then tried nmap again, this time searching for all ports starting 10.42.0.0  It reports the only "host up" is 10.42.0.1 all the rest are "host down"

 

I can ping 10.42.0.1 but trying to open in with a browser says "refused to connect"

 

iwconfig tells me it is connected to "heatpumpdash"  Frequency 2.412GHz Cell:FA:BA:82:9B:57:D6

tx power = 20dbm

retry long limits:7

RTS thr:off

Fragment thr:off

Power managment:off

irda0 No wireless extensions

lo No wireless extensions

eth0 No wireless extensions

[PeterW]

So 10.42.0.1 is your IP address hence why you can't connect to it

 

Gateway is odd at 0.0.0.0 - can you retry with the Ethernet connection ..?

[ProDave]

This is the email I have just received from technical support

 

This could either be one of the following;

 

You may have to temporarily put yourself on the same subnet to connect.

If the heat pump is on 192.168.10.1

Give yourself a static IP of 192.168.10.2

Then try pinging the heat pump and browse to 192.168.10.1 again.

 

Or

 

When you connect via wi-fi there are some settings that you can go into for the connection settings to set a static IP etc... I have attached the connection pages to this email for you to look at.

 

so just how in ubunto do I assign myself a static IP address?

[PeterW]

https://askubuntu.com/questions/314830/how-to-make-ip-address-static-eth0

 

Static may be easier in win10

[ProDave]

Right, after wasting several hours, I have made a startling discovery.  My laptop is connected to thin air.

 

Remember the W10 lappy would not connect, but the Ubuntu one claims to have connected, yet the only address that responds is the assigned DNS server 10.42.0.1

 

Well the startling discovery is the ubuntu lappy still "connects" even when the heat pump is unplugged.

 

The other suspicious thing is in the data listed by the nm-tool command, it gives the "strength" of the heat pumps wi-fi as 100, yet the BT home hub, even right next to the lappy only manages 79.

 

So I have concluded the wifi in the unit is not working, and ubuntu has been playing games with me.

[SteamyTea]

If it really has a RPi as the controller, pull it out and connect a monitor and keyboard to it, power it up and see what IP comes up.

[ProDave]

Okay, I have got to the bottom of the problem.

 

Having had a look at the Raspberry Pi inside it, it's plain to see that there is no memory card plugged into it. No memory card = no software for the Pi to run.  The wifi is (will) be provided by a usb "WiPi" adaptor plugged in.

 

I am now discussing the missing memory card issue with the supplier......

[Jeremy Harris]

Which version of the RPi is it?  The early ones had a "click-click" card slot, and that was a bit notorious for pinging cards out a long way if the card was pressed and let go.  The later models change to "push-pull" card slot, that is a lot less likely to ping the card out. 

 

I think it may be possible to ping the card out of an early RPi just from a bit of shock or vibration, so it could be the card was in there but has been pinged out.

[ProDave]

Here's a picture of the memory card slot

 

I think if it had "pinged out" in transit, I would have found it rattling around in the bottom of the enclosure, but I have had a good look and can't find it.

 

I am discussing the situation with the supplier at the moment but doubt I will get an answer until Monday.

 

[Jeremy Harris]

That's a RPi model A, which commonly had the "click-click" SD card slot, so it's possible that the card has pinged out.  It's ten minutes work to burn a new bootable card, if they can send you the image file.