3 ACs controlled by 2 CCCs. Why did they do it that way???

[rpasetto]

Yes, I agree, an old-to-new board changeover would be a lot easier than reverse engineering the outputs of the CCC2 thermostat.  But the latter is evidently what 'EasyTouchRV' had to do for Dometic as well as Coleman.

For the old-to-new board swap, a different and admittedly easier task.  While a good meter to check voltage levels may do it,  a scope may be necessary if pulse width is involved int the signals.  What do you think the thermistors are for?  Overtemp?  

Anyway the new control board runs over a hundred bucks; not cheap but it sure beats shelling out for a new AC.    The open question is: who tries it first?  I vote for you since you already have a lot of info and likely the know how to do it.  🙂

@William  here's new control board... may be less elsewhere:

  https://pantherrvproducts.com/dometic-3312022-000-replacement-ccc2-electronic-control-board-3312227-000/

[wamcneil]

1 hour ago, rpasetto said:

For the old-to-new board swap, a different and admittedly easier task.  While a good meter to check voltage levels may do it,  a scope may be necessary if pulse width is involved int the signals.  What do you think the thermistors are for?  Overtemp?  

Anyway the new control board runs over a hundred bucks; not cheap but it sure beats shelling out for a new AC.    The open question is: who tries it first?  I vote for you since you already have a lot of info and likely the know how to do it.  🙂

@William  here's new control board... may be less elsewhere:

  https://pantherrvproducts.com/dometic-3312022-000-replacement-ccc2-electronic-control-board-3312227-000/

Pulse widths? I'm not sure there's anything nearly that sophisticated going on here. The compressor is on or off. The fan is standard 3-speed AC motor. The reversing valve is on or off. Amp draws of each component have got to be pretty similar to the old components. 

Take a look at the two attached wiring diagrams. Pretty dang similar, right??? Except for the new Outdoor Temp Sensor P3 (which appears to be screwed to the edge of the base pan). I think that's the only new component (edit- nope, I just noticed 'ambient sensor' on the old diagram).

Hopefully the reversing valve is the same normally-on or normally-off design as the old penguin. In the new design, the reversing valve has two connections to the circuit board, in the old design it has one connection to the board, and the other to neutral.

I'm sure Dometic wouldn't encourage anyone to do this rather than buy a new unit, but as far as I can tell, the new penguin is just another very low-tech window-unit heat pump that's been reconfigured to fit inside the rooftop shell.

If anybody has access to a junk'd penguin II and can give me a board and thermistors, I'll try it!

Cheers,

Walter

Edited September 11, 2020 by wamcneil

[Dr4Film]

Walter, that "new" sensor noted in your diagram is not really new as there is an ambient temp sensor (P3) in the old diagram also but never used. The early versions of the CCC-2 Thermostat had 12 buttons one of which was Outside Temp but it is no longer used by the 10 Button CCC-2 thermostats sold today. Everything else is the same.

[wamcneil]

2 hours ago, Dr4Film said:

Walter, that "new" sensor noted in your diagram is not really new as there is an ambient temp sensor (P3) in the old diagram also but never used. The early versions of the CCC-2 Thermostat had 12 buttons one of which was Outside Temp but it is no longer used by the 10 Button CCC-2 thermostats sold today. Everything else is the same.

Ok. Yep, I found it. On the new unit the outside sensor is out on the side of the pan, on the old unit it's screwed to the inside of the circuit board housing. 

The other apparent differences are:

• Reversing valve neutral is connected to circuit board COM instead of spliced into the dual-capacitor COM. 
• Old unit only uses fan Lo and Hi, Med is not used and has a splice cap on it.

So far the major pieces all look identical. The new circuit board looks to be the same size too, so I think it'll pop right onto the old standoffs and be a drop-in replacement. I'd need to verify a few things like 1) that the reversing valve is still energized for heat, 2) similar specs on the thermistors.

I might just go ahead and be the guinea pig.

Does anybody have a CCC2 circuit board they'll let go for cheep?

Cheers,

Walter

 

[rpasetto]

@Walter

I see how similar they are now looking at the wiring diagrams.  Not quite though.  Looks like some terminal designations changed....  if I understand what the schematics show:

 - T2 on the new board now gives a connection to medium speed fan, OK, nop problem there.   

 - But on the old board, T2 is wired to the control the reversing valve with other connection of valve going to the C terminal on the run cap.  On the new board, either T4 or T7 serves as control for the reversing valve and the other (internally connected to T6?)  gets to the to 'C' on the run cap.   Not sure of best way to deal with this, maybe testing with a meter should show which is which.

 - Relays appear to be simple on-off, no momentary "pulses" as I thought there might have been.   K6 of the old board controls the compressor as does K2 on the new, so no diff there.  It is unclear what K1 on both boards do, but hopefully that won't be an issue. 

 - Other than that the connections appear to be the same, [although mysterious things go on inside to interpret signaling from their respective thermostats. 🙂  ]

The new ccc2 control boards are going for low 100's and up, but there may be a few available which were pulled when new Penguin units were converted to use the old CCC thermostats.  I'll check eBay once in a while.

 

PS:  I'm not in TX now but when I'm there you're probably 1.5hrs away.... or 'just down the road' in TX distances.   I'll be back in the fall so if you decide to do this project & the timing is right I could come help.

[granvillebarker]

Walter,   
 

What a great idea, that sounds easy and should work!  
 

I could get three of the new penguin-2 boards and an easy-touch. 
 

—

Granville Barker

[wamcneil]

1 hour ago, rpasetto said:

@Walter

I see how similar they are now looking at the wiring diagrams.  Not quite though.  Looks like some terminal designations changed....  if I understand what the schematics show:   

 - But on the old board, T2 is wired to the control the reversing valve with other connection of valve going to the C terminal on the run cap.  On the new board, either T4 or T7 serves as control for the reversing valve and the other (internally connected to T6?)  gets to the to 'C' on the run cap.   Not sure of best way to deal with this, maybe testing with a meter should show which is which.

The new ccc2 control boards are going for low 100's and up, but there may be a few available which were pulled when new Penguin units were converted to use the old CCC thermostats.  I'll check eBay once in a while.

 

PS:  I'm not in TX now but when I'm there you're probably 1.5hrs away.... or 'just down the road' in TX distances.   I'll be back in the fall so if you decide to do this project & the timing is right I could come help.

T6 and T7 are boxed off on the board and labeled a neutral, so I’m feeling pretty sure they’re just two COM terminals and there’s nothing fancy happening with the reversing valve. As far as I can tell, reversing valves are very standard and are either energized in cool or energized in heat. 
I’ll watch eBay and see if one comes along. 
Stop by when you’re by the hill country!  We’re right by Garner state park. 
Cheers

Walter

[wamcneil]

1 hour ago, granvillebarker said:

Walter,   
 

What a great idea, that sounds easy and should work!  
 

I could get three of the new penguin-2 boards and an easy-touch. 
 

—

Granville Barker

Yep. But you’d also need to add a remote temp sensor for the 3rd unit. If I understand it correctly, Temp on the thermostat is only for Zone1 and all other zones need their own sensor connected to the rooftop unit.  
Cheers,

Walter

[Bob Nodine]

9 hours ago, wamcneil said:

Yep. But you’d also need to add a remote temp sensor for the 3rd unit. If I understand it correctly, Temp on the thermostat is only for Zone1 and all other zones need their own sensor connected to the rooftop unit.  
Cheers,

Walter

https://tinyurl.com/yxjctas6

 

[granvillebarker]

Thanks for the link to the remote sensor Bob.  

 

So my plan is to put the Easy-Touch thermostat in the front, replace all three penguin boards with the penguin-2 boards, run a rj-11 cable from the front unit to the middle unit through the ducts to link all three units together.   Then repurpose the wires to the rear thermostat for the temperature sensor, replacing the thermostat with the sensor in the back.   I could use a pair of the rj-11 wires for each of the temp sensor wires.  

 

3 Penguin 2 boards @ $136 = $408

1 Easy-touch @ $250 

1 Remote Temp Sensor @ $29

 

Not bad really, for remote control of 3 units.   I think that's about what one Control4 home thermostat costs.

 

I'll let ya'll know how this goes when I dive off into it.

 

--

Granville Barker

05 Dynasty

 

 

 

 

[rpasetto]

@Granville, Interesting project.  Keep us apprised.   You may find more competitive prices online for the 3312022 boards than the one I posted earlier.

 

[granvillebarker]

I talked to the guys at Micro-air today that make the EasyTouch RV Thermostat.   He said it will support the Duo-Therm protocol by December, and I should wait for that instead of replacing the upper control boards.
 

—

Granville Barker

05 Dynasty

[wamcneil]

That’s nice of them!  

[granvillebarker]

Last week I followed up with micro-air and the Duo-Therm version was ready.   They arrived this morning and took literally five minutes to install them.   
 

So far they appear to work great, and now I can adjust the air from anywhere!

 

—

Granville Barker

05 Dynasty

ps:   I have no affiliation with micro-air, just a happy customer.

 

 

[wamcneil]

I kind of wish I’d tried those rather than the CCC. Too late now I’ve cut the hole for ccc...
The display is easy to read now... But it really irks me that dometic:

a- makes a new version of the product that is twice the size of the old model (sucks if your thermostat is in a narrow spot)

b- has such a limited and IMO virtually useless scheduling feature (one schedule, as opposed to one for heating and one for cooling)

c- has a stupid automatic heat-cool function with only one temperature set point. (I don’t want to cool at 78 and then immediately switch on the heat if it gets cloudy and the temp drops to 76)

d- requires a big honking hole to be cut for installation (there’s a big round protrusion coming out the back)

[wamcneil]

Hey Granville... How is the Duo-Therm working out?

I'm really wishing I had tried it out...

Did I mention how much I hate the stupid CCC2 scheduling feature???

On my home thermostat, I have a temperature setpoints for heating, and a setpoints for cooling. And I can easily over-ride the scheduled temperature by just pushing a temp up/down button, knowing it will return to the scheduled setpoint at the next schedule time. 

When I put the home thermostat into heating mode, it runs the heating program. When I put the system in cooling mode, it runs the cooling program. Very intuitive.  

The stupid CCC2 scheduling feature has ONE program. To change from a heating program to a cooling program one must reprogram the schedule. The scheduled temperature setpoints CANNOT be temporarily over-ridden. In order to change the setpoint manually, you have to reprogram the schedule or take it out of schedule mode (and then remember to put it back in schedule mode later...).

To put the system into schedule mode, you press the schedule button not once, not twice, but THREE times. 1st press, to shows/edit the first schedule period, 2nd press to show/edit the other schedule period, then the 3rd press actually enables the schedule.

And to take the system out of schedule mode, you have to hold the schedule button for several seconds until "PROG1" stops flashing and goes away. 

I'm slowly getting used to this, but I think they could have made it a lot better and more intuitive.

Cheers,

Walter

[Chuck B 2004 Windsor]

On 9/7/2020 at 6:25 PM, wamcneil said:

Ok, so I've got 3 heat pumps controlled by 2 CCCs. One in the kitchen, and one in the bedroom.

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I might have a new twist. I just got done replacing the forward AC with a new penguin II/CCC2 and I'm starting to plan replacement of the other 2 units. Options...

Here's the current situation:

1. Front unit is all by itself, controlled by a CCC2 located in the kitchen.
2. Rear unit in the bedroom is Zone1 on a CCC in the bedroom
3. Middle unit (more like a 2ndary forward AC than 'middle' AC) is also controlled by the bedroom CCC as Zone2 and senses temperature using an external sensor located in the bathroom.

Before I start planning a reconfiguration... is there some benefit in this configuration that I'm missing? To me, it's much more intuitive for the front unit to be Zone 1, and the middle to be Zone 2. I'd rather do away with the temperature sensor in the bathroom, but I think it's required to have an external temperature sensor on Zone 2+.

So here's what I'm thinking. If I replace the middle AC with a penguin II, I could easily run the middle unit off of the front CCC2, right? The only problem would be connecting the two front units together with a phone cable from the front unit to the middle unit. It's only about 6' between the two.

I could run that phone cable either beside the central duct in the ceiling, or inside the duct.

Any problems with that plan?

Thanks.

Walter

 

I trust that you are aware there is a difference between a flat "phone cable" and the flat data cable that connects the different units.  The difference is how the plug at each end is wired.  The longer the flat cable is, the easier it is to introduce cross talk into the cable/system from a florescent light fixture that is going bad.  If you are going to replace the cable you would do better by using a twisted cat 4 two pair cable than a flat cable.  Chuck B

[wamcneil]

On 9/7/2020 at 6:25 PM, wamcneil said:

Ok, so I've got 3 heat pumps controlled by 2 CCCs. One in the kitchen, and one in the bedroom.

...

So here's what I'm thinking. If I replace the middle AC with a penguin II, I could easily run the middle unit off of the front CCC2, right? The only problem would be connecting the two front units together with a phone cable from the front unit to the middle unit. It's only about 6' between the two.

I could run that phone cable either beside the central duct in the ceiling, or inside the duct.

 

Well, I lost enthusiasm for spending money to replace the control board in the middle AC unit. If anyone has a CCC2 board laying around from a failed unit they'd like to donate to the effort I'll try it. But couldn't find a cheap CCC2 board with ambient sensor. 

Almost there on the middle AC though!!!! I found a deal on a new Penguin II for the middle and am starting to wire it to the front CCC2.

I managed to push a fiberglass fish alongside the duct from middle to front unit. The hard part was keeping the fish from going up and riding on top of the center ductwork. Once I managed to hold the fish from riding up to the top of the cavity, it made it to the forward register and underneath the foam baffle beside the duct pretty easily. 

Once I'm ready to replace the bedroom unit, I think I can use the same technique to push a fish from the middle unit back to the bedroom and remove the bedroom CCC. Should be able to repurpose the wires from the bedroom CCC to place a remote temp sensor in that location and drive all 3 units from one CCC2.

Cheers,

Walter