Is there such a thing?

I'd like to control my immersion heater from a computer,
with an indication of the water temperature.
Is that possible nowadays?

Timothy Murphy wrote:
Is there such a thing?

I have one - I bawl "Whoever's turned that bloody immersion on again,
switch it off!"

Doesn't work too well though (and so I fitted a 'booster' switch - ie
1-3 hrs on only - instead).

David

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 13:50:29 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote:

Is there such a thing?

I'd like to control my immersion heater from a computer,
with an indication of the water temperature.
Is that possible nowadays?

Wireless control switches are sold for heating controls. However they
generally won't have 13A contact(s) so you'll probably need a contactor
unit to switch the actually heater.

The simplest way for the computer to control the wireless sender is to use
the a pin on the (probably unused) parallel port to drive a 5V relay. [Or
you might be able to do something with the probably unused 9pin serial
port at 12V]

Others will probably tell you how easy it is to fix up a tele-thermometer
with off the shelf bits.

However over-arching all this is the fact that with a well insulated
modern HW cylinder the standing loss will be less than 100W and the
built-in thermostat on the heater can be left to control the HW temp.
A simple (high-current) time switch can reduce the standing losses a bit
provided your lifestyle is not totally random.

HTH
--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at http://www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html
Choosing a Boiler FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/BoilerChoice.html