Control board LED not coming on

JSDNJ

Hello all,
I recently installed some ecobees in my home and I had to replace the transformer in my Argo control board in the process.

As of now the ecobees all have power, they all seem to call for heat and function properly. The only issue I am having is that the red LED for zones 2 and 3 is not coming on when the zone is calling for heat. It comes on for zone 1, is dim on zone 2 and off entirely on zone 3, despite the fact that I can hear the zone valves operating and the system is making the baseboards in those zones hot.
I tested the voltage when all 3 zones are calling for heat, and I am getting ~24 volts at the transformer, and 24 volts between the red and blue wires on the control board for each zone (bottom of pic, those wires come from the valves)

So is this something I need to concern myself with other than being annoyed that the red lights don't come on?

AMG63

I've seen this before with Nest t-stats and Caleffi zone control boxes. Looks like you need to have a control box that can take 3 wires from the Eco-bee. You are missing the common. The Eco-bee is stealing power from the ARGO causing dim lights etc.

JSDNJ

Thing is I tested the voltage coming into the board from the valves and I get 24-25 volts for each zone.

I have the ecobee connected directly to the transformer, not the control board itself.
I have another transformer that I was thinking of connecting to the same 120 and going direct to the board but based on my voltage test it seemed like it was getting the power it needed.

JSDNJ

Another note. As an experiment I connected a second 40VA transformer and went direct to the control board with it effectively making one transformer power JUST the board and the other JUST the ecobees.

Same result. Heat kicks on, but I don't get the red LED from zone 3 and still get dim LED from zone 2.

~25 volts coming into the board at the COM/24VAC terminals.

HVACNUT

Looks like zones 1 and 2 have a third (green) wire you can connect to common on the transformer and Ecobee's. Can you run a 3 wire for zone 3? Call Ecobee. Maybe they can send you a resistor for zone 3.

JSDNJ

Just as an update, the red LEDs are still not coming on, but the heat works just fine so who knows.

M0nica23

Hmm. This is very similar to what my husband has been agonizing over for the past month. Men are so proud, why can't we leave it to a handyman? Why is it so hard to make a smart house...?

Barney31

M0nica23 said:

Hmm. This is very similar to what my husband has been agonizing over for the past month. Men are so proud, why can't we leave it to a handyman? Why is it so hard to make a smart house...?

Haha. I think it's very hard to explain why this is so important to a man. It's like living in a house that you created yourself. But by the way, I built my own smart house. I did everything like in the movies about the future, so that the house itself would start cooking in the morning, brew coffee, turn on the lights, make the floor warm when needed. All in all, my dream house. My friends asked me why I needed it. They thought it was wrong to simplify my life. I gave them the led night from Amazon. When they realized that the light turned on by itself as soon as it got dark, they too began to dream of a smart house.

Jamie Hall

M0nica23 said:

Hmm. This is very similar to what my husband has been agonizing over for the past month. Men are so proud, why can't we leave it to a handyman? Why is it so hard to make a smart house...?

Because there is no standard -- probably fortunately -- for exactly what constitutes a smart house, nor any uniformity as to what appliances are there, nor how many, nor how they are controlled, nor what the consumer interprets as a smart house, nor... so one does have to know what one is doing even to get a smart thermostat to work (assuming that it is compatible with the rest of the heating system -- which it often isn't)... and so on.

This isn't plug and play like your home entertainment system, folks.