I noticed something today while I was watching the controller. It was cycling the heater almost constantly, on the order of 20 seconds of so.
In more detail: I was running the spa, set at 98°, and the temperature (as measured by the EasyTouch8 sensor) was jumping back and forth between 98° and 97°. Multiple times per minute. While the temperature cannot jump a whole degree up and down every few seconds, if the temperature is in the middle between those two numbers, the sensor might read one or the other randomly. So this is fine so far. The problem is that the controller was commanding the heater on every time the temperature was measured as 97° and then off a few seconds later, when a reading of 98° popped up. I'd expect the EasyTouch8 controller to have some hysteresis, and for example turn on the heater when the water drops to 97° but then don't turn it off until it reaches 99°. Or if not that, then just some time delay, so that the heater does not cycle more often than once in every few minutes.
My questions:
- Is my panel faulty? Or is this how these panels work? (Pretty crappy control design if so...)
- Is this going to hurt my heater? It's a gas heater with an electric igniter. Is that designed for frequent ignition cycles? And the frequent heat/cool cycles of the burner/etc., is that a problem if I leave thing as is?
For today, I just disabled the "remote control" on the heater, and just set the temp on the heater directly, but it's way less convenient to use the system like this.
Thanks,
Balint
In more detail: I was running the spa, set at 98°, and the temperature (as measured by the EasyTouch8 sensor) was jumping back and forth between 98° and 97°. Multiple times per minute. While the temperature cannot jump a whole degree up and down every few seconds, if the temperature is in the middle between those two numbers, the sensor might read one or the other randomly. So this is fine so far. The problem is that the controller was commanding the heater on every time the temperature was measured as 97° and then off a few seconds later, when a reading of 98° popped up. I'd expect the EasyTouch8 controller to have some hysteresis, and for example turn on the heater when the water drops to 97° but then don't turn it off until it reaches 99°. Or if not that, then just some time delay, so that the heater does not cycle more often than once in every few minutes.
My questions:
- Is my panel faulty? Or is this how these panels work? (Pretty crappy control design if so...)
- Is this going to hurt my heater? It's a gas heater with an electric igniter. Is that designed for frequent ignition cycles? And the frequent heat/cool cycles of the burner/etc., is that a problem if I leave thing as is?
For today, I just disabled the "remote control" on the heater, and just set the temp on the heater directly, but it's way less convenient to use the system like this.
Thanks,
Balint
