What can a domestic electrician fix, with all the new technology?

[ericmark]

With all the "Smart" devices, what happens when they go wrong? Who can fix them? I remember at the turn of the century industrially it was starting to become a problem finding electricians able to work on PLC's, but in real terms new electricians were not trained how to service dash pots, but had some electronic training instead. I know I did a collage and for that matter also in university what taught how to work with PLC's and even PIC's although I was rubbish at the latter.

But I was industrial, what about domestic, if alexa fails to turn on the lights, who do you call, ghost buster?

 

[bernardgreen]

What is a "domestic electrician" ?

With all the "Smart" devices, what happens when they go wrong? Who can fix them?

It comes down to fault finding on the whole system, and that includes taking into account the possibility that interference from equipment in nearby houses is affecting the "smart" device.

How many domestic electricians have the ability and/or the equipment necessary to monitor activity on the radio channels that the suspect "smart" device is using.

 

[ericmark]

What is a "domestic electrician" ?

We use to call them house bashers, and when I trained one could do commercial, industrial or domestic and I would revert to domestic when I could not get a well paid job in the other options.

But in I think 2004 the Part P came out, so I stopped doing domestic, it was not worth it for the few jobs I did to pay the scheme providers their fees.

Since then we have had the "Smart" devices move into the domestic market, and I know with the industrial we had problems with mobile phones messing up machines, the workers thought we were being unreasonable to ban mobile phones in the work place, but a PLC controlled machine going berserk is not funny.

I had problems finding an expert in ASii control, and I had to learn how to do it myself, things have moved on, my son gets a phone call from work, and he can view the system from home on his PC, and either fix it from home, or give detailed instructions on how to fix it to a man on site, rare does he have to actually drive in, SCARDA has really transformed the control of machines, and now we do have people trained in its maintenance.

But what happens when my central heating starts to auto switch to Eco settings, who can fix it? This happened, and I did work out why, the EE mast had been taken out in the high winds, so my geofencing thought I was not home. But it took me some time to find this out, as every time I approached the thermostat the built in PIR turned heating back to comfort mode. Cure was turn of geofencing.

However had I been called to some one else's home, would I find out what was the problem? And that one was simple. Also with central heating, had a wireless thermostat loose sensitivity, and fail to turn the heating off in mothers house. Even as a radio amateur I had little which could be used to work out was it interference, and if so from what. The thermostat it seems is now well known for the problem, and better quality like these,

auto turn off with loss of coms within ½ an hour. But compared to what we are not getting in the home, these are rather simple problems.

I watch the TV advert of the Freddy Boswell look alike clapping hands and turning lights on and off, after having a smart meter fitted, and wonder what those not in the trade actually expect a smart meter to do? I was conned as to what Nest Gen 3 could do, this guide from the heating hub says to question "Works with Smart TRVs" "Yes - Energenie" this is not really true since Google took over Nest, the Energenie app can control the Nest wall thermostat, but there is no integration between the TRV and the wall thermostat.

So some electrician is faced with this problem, he has like me read the instructions, and tried to set it up, and like me failed, the cure is to rip out and fit some thing like Drayton Wiser, but like me that is rather an expensive option. And it took some time before I got the reply from Energenie to say support from Nest has been withdrawn.

So the domestic electrician has got his work cut out today, no longer deserves the name house basher, but can he actually work on this stuff?

The Plumbers seem to have raised a new trade, the heating and ventilation engineer, ups sorry over level 3 to be an engineer so a profession not trade. Will we get the "Smart Electrician" some one trained in how to maintain so called smart devices, it does seem a new name for telemetry is smart, nothing to do with working things out.

But back to the real question, who are you going to call, clearly not ghost busters, but when my lights start to flash like a cars indicators, who can find the problem? I assume due to too many smart devices and them interfering with one another, so reverted to a manual switch, easy for me, but if as an electrician I had fitted that switch to some ones home, then I need to fix it, just replacing with manual switch is not really an option, and turning power off then back on it would work OK for a week, so how would that electrician know if he had fixed the problem?

The switch cost £20 approx, the hub cost £50 for an electrician to loose £70 by fitting an alternative when it goes wrong is a lot to absorb for such a small job.

 

[JohnW2]

With all the "Smart" devices, what happens when they go wrong? Who can fix them? I remember at the turn of the century industrially it was starting to become a problem finding electricians able to work on PLC's, but in real terms new electricians were not trained how to service dash pots, but had some electronic training instead.

It's not just the things we call 'smart'. Everything from toasters to cars etc. now contain 'technological' things probably beyond the ability of most people to repair them, hence so-called 'repair' is now so commonly a matter of simply 'replacing' whole 'modules' (sometimes most of the 'works'!

In my youth, I was very happy dismantling, repairing and re-assembling most things - from domestic appliances to car engines. Today, I'm so often just faced with 'black boxes' I can do nothing with/about. I terms of cars, I can't even identify most of the things I see when I open the bonnet of a modern car!

I gather it's all called 'progress'

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

I remember a fork lift hit a machine and smashed a box with Mitsubishi FX1s-20MT-ESS/UL marked on it, so the electrician ordered a new one and fitted it.

But nothing worked.

When I explained the box was a PLC and it needed the program uploading into it, he asked what the part number was.

Lucky there was another machine the same, and I was able to upload program to my PC and then down load to new PLC, and with a few tweaks got it working.

He was lucky I had the program and lead. But if I look at machines to do same job before the PLC they were far more complex.

If without wifi I wanted to arrange switches for my landing lights it would have involved a lot of replastering. It was far simpler with wifi. Until it goes wrong.

 

[bernardgreen]

If without wifi I wanted to arrange switches for my landing lights it would have involved a lot of replastering. It was far simpler with wifi. Until it goes wrong.

Fragile lath and plaster walls do not allow for cables to switches to be buried in the wall and surface mounted trunking is an eyesore.

A system of WiFi and "smart" lights was considered and quickly rejected.

Instead I used 12 core alarm cable and a few 12 volt relays to control the lights in my cottage

Five ON - OFF switches ( one on the other side of the wall ) and three buttons for dimming.

 

[JohnW2]

.... When I explained the box was a PLC and it needed the program uploading into it, he asked what the part number was.

Yes, that is illustrative of the problem. One cannot really blame them, but so many people now have no choice but to 'repair' by replacing with off-the shelf 'things'.

If without wifi I wanted to arrange switches for my landing lights it would have involved a lot of replastering. It was far simpler with wifi.

Indeed, and I certainly sympathise with your approach. The concerns of myself (and a good few others) relate to the ever-increasing about of RF control signals flying around - apart from anything else, that will presumably gradually 'slow things down', if not impact on reliability.

Until it goes wrong.

Indeed. As above, if things do 'go wrong' you'll probably have no alternative but to 'replace everything'.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

I have four systems using wireless, Direct, Energenie hub, ZigBee hub, and all seem to connect to Google Home which reasonably integrates them.

However last night I said "Hey Google turn on outer switch" which should have turned on outer landing lights, and I got the answer "Turning on six switches" landing light did come on, god knows what else it switched on, so standing by my bedroom light switch I said "Hey Google turn off six switches" and it did turn off bedroom light, likely my fault as did not have my teeth in.

The Energenie units will work from remote controls, without any internet connection, and I really do like being able to turn bedroom lights on/off from my bed, I suppose I could use a table lamp at my bed head, but the multi ways function of switch, remote and other wireless controls does what I want.

It is not perfect, but near enough, I no longer transmit with any high power, and there is only one other ham in the village, well officially a town, but to me it's a village. How the systems would work if I used 100 watt on 70 cm not so sure, but I don't.

But the question is more about non DIY, if I was to employ a heating and ventilation engineer to set up my home, and he made the same error as myself, what would he need to do?

When I came to this house the central heating was a mess, there was one boiler, a mechanical wall thermostat in the flat under the house, a receiver for another thermostat, but never found the thermostat it should have connected to, two pumps, one on a plug and socket arrangement, and a programmer in main house, and wires sticking out the wall in the hall. It was fed from two independent distribution units, using 3 FCU's plus that plug and socket.

Investigation found the three core and earth cable main house to flat changed colour and one core was open, and the pumps if not used together cause the water to flow in reverse in the other system, the main problem was only two wires main house to flat, so I wanted a control which could do all with two wires.

I already had 4 Energenie electronic TRV heads, which claimed to work with Nest, and the Nest Gen 3 would allow me to use just two wires to keep it charged and control both CH and DHW so I fitted Nest Gen 3. Also fitted two motorised valves to stop back flow, and powered all from one FCU.

But it transpired Nest does not work with Energenie, support was withdrawn when Google took over Nest, and even when they did, it worked back to front, Nest controlled Energenie not Energenie controlling Nest as with any other system.

It seems Nest USA has released temperature sensors, so it can work like most UK systems where the TRV sends info to the wall thermostat/hub, but the sensor is not built into the TRV but independent wall mounted unit, I am crossing fingers and hope they are released for UK use.

However as it stands my central heating control is not very good, I can live with it, at least now I don't need to walk outside and down a set of steps to turn heating on, but it is not automated as I would like. If I had a modulating boiler it would work, but it is an on/off type.

I am living with it, was my error for not doing more research first, my son had Nest and sung it's praises, and I did not look into it enough. But had a heating and ventilation engineer fitted it, then I would want it fixed, which would clearly cost him money. Even the geofencing is rubbish, it switches from Comfort to Eco at some unknown distance from home, and back again on return, but with not enough time to reheat the house. And what could the guy do about that? Well the Energenie does have IFTTT so could set up geofencing using the Energenie, but that is not an easy option.

So had I made the same errors on some one else's house, I would be loosing a lot of money trying to correct it. And I did try help lines, and Energenie blames Nest, and Nest blames Energenie, so no help there.