Honeywell Visionpro problems

nicholas bonham-carter

Down in the basement doing some washing, I noticed some odd boiler behavior.

The boiler fired for a couple of minutes, and cut off. In spite of my speedy venting, I am sure that the remote sensor in the northeast second floor could not have been satisfied.

Has anyone else noticed odd Visionpro operation?--NBC

MDNLansing

Ditched Mine

I ditched mine because of this. I didn't know it was happening until I installed an engine meter and saw the numbers vary from when I knew the boiler was running. Adjusting the CPH setting will make it behave differently, but I could never figure out what exactly the CPH setting did. So at a setting of 2 it might run that short cycle 2 times and hour or 4 times an hour. Changing the setting to 3 would short cycle 1 time per hour of 5 times per hour. Changing the setting did something, just not what I thought it should do, and nothing as a repeatable pattern. If anyone actually knows what the CPH does, I would appreciate knowing as well. There seems to be some mystery around that setting.

To verify it was the tstat causing the boiler to run I swapped it out for a plain Honeywell 7 day programmable. It has the CPH setting, but this tstat doesn't short cycle any more. The VisionPro had at least 2 short cycles an hour, this one doesn't do it at all. I returned mine under the assumption it was defective but I haven't replaced it. I'm still running the basic digital tstat. Now that it is on I don't want to change it because I have no complaints about the heat. Comfort wise, I much prefer the basic model. I'm not so sure the VisionPro was anymore efficient either. My boiler runtimes are less with he basic tstat and the house temp is just fine.

nicholas bonham-carter

Visionpro features

The reason for choosing it in the beginning was because of the remote sensor. Mine may have been zapped with a static spark last winter, scrambling its little brain.

Maybe I will try the Ecobee next with internet access.--NBC

RJ_4

t-stat

White Rogers has a good line of prog. t-stats with optiomal sensors

conversiontime

low batteries maybe?

My VP recently acted out right before signalling low batteries, e.g. not following schedule temp but firing based on random temp. Might be worth switching them out. I keep CPH = 1 but will often override the scheduled temp at night or weekend since I dont like the swing algorithm of the VP. I have never noticed it fire at 2cph unless prompted by scheduled swing change or override though.

nicholas bonham-carter

Low batteries?

I think in that case the thermostat would fall into a fail safe mode and just maintain some low temperature to protect against freezing but good idea , and I will change them out.--NBC

icesailor

Low batteries:

Check the batteries with a decent digital multi-meter. "AA" batteries when new are usually 1.56 volts or higher. When they get down to 1.3 or lower, they can act up. I always write the date on any batteries I change so I know how old they are.



New quality batteries are cheap. I've bought cheap batteries (CVS) that didn't last and didn't have the same voltage levels when new as Eveready's and  Duracell's.



Mu Bacharach "Insight" gets squirrely when the batteries get low and aren't even close to giving a low battery warning.

Check the voltage.

Jamie Hall

It would be nice...

if these battery powered computer containing whiz-bangs failed to a safe mode on low battery.  Sadly, they don't... indeed, I'm not a bit surprised that a low battery could make a VisionPro -- or for that matter any of a number of other devices -- behave quire oddly.  Simplest just to change the batteries from time to time!

ChrisJ

Nope

I have never seen my VP 8000 series do anything like this and I would've noticed. I always change the batteries when it tells me to. I'm set to 1 CPH but have been tempted to try 2 CPH again due to a lot of added pipe insulation.



I do know the last time I tried 2 cph it shut off before I even got heat which annoyed me. I really wish it started a cycle when steam hit the end of the main rather than when the burner lights. My biggest beef with the VP is it likes to overshoot on my system and forget about using it programmed, then I end up with a 2-4F overshoot depending on how cold it is out.



I do not have a remote sensor connected.