@davidalgarve that sounds like the recommended method, I think the other way is to press and hold 'mode' for 7 seconds to reveal an Access Point

(I think it's like one of those games that you have to hit 7.00s for it to work though! 🙂)

Posted by: @morgan

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@sheriff-fatman

I am in a very similar boat to you. I've actually purchased the dongle, and as soon as it arrived, my confidence deserted me. I occasionally look at the box with a screwdriver in hand and just deflate. 😀 

However, I understood that the dongle fits the indoor control box as opposed to the main ASHP.

I can easily understand that. Here are my additions to what @f1p and @sand have posted.

Firstly, for someone not already familiar with the FTC box, a lot of the advice online is good but misses the odd important familiarisation step. There are two points to note.

1. The FTC gets its power from the outside box so in order to isolate it to work on you have to turn the outside box off. I'd assume most (all?) are installed as mine is in that there's a nice big red isolator switch close to the Ecodan that you can turn off.
2. Once you've taken the cover off the FTC box (two screws at the bottom, two at the top) you shouldn't see any little LED lights; if you can, power's still on so revisit point one. Nonetheless, when you survey the scene you'll recognise the layout from the many pictures posted. However, almost all of those pictures are followed up with a close-up of the CN105 socket with no mention made of where on the board you should focus on. @sand mentioned following the wire from the wireless dongle to the CN105 socket and that's great but if your installer has been tidy then there may be a mass of other wires loosely cable-tied together making tracing a wire awkward. For clarity, @f1p's post ( https://renewableheatinghub.co.uk/forums/postid/53111/) gives a very good indicator of where the CN105 socket is and it's the only red socket of that shape on the board.

Secondly, when you first power the heat pump back up again, the new little dongle will be in its default configuration; we'll come back to that in a moment. More importantly, as long as you've plugged the Melcloud wifi adapter back into the second socket on the new dongle, the new dongle is, as far as the wifi adapter is concerned, just another bit of wire. Everything being presented to the CN105 slot at the board is being passed through to the wifi adapter and therefore onwards to Melcloud. If you want to, you can verify that before going any further, and Melcloud should just see that all as a power cut that's fixed now, just as @f1p mentioned later.

Thirdly, the new bit of kit you've just installed. As I mentioned before, it'll be in its default vanilla mode which means it'll be acting as a wifi hotspot and this is where the instructions you get with it should make sense. Taking your phone with you, disconnecting from your wifi and then connecting it to the dongle's hotspot (wifi network called Ecodan Bridge AP) means you'll be able to use your phone's browser to connect to http://192.168.4.1 to open up the dongle's configuration page. The only thing you actually need to do here is to configure the dongle's wifi by adding the wifi network's name and password since once the dongle is connected to wifi and on the network you can connect to it again from a proper PC and have a keyboard, mouse and big screen to work with. However, if you know the MQTT details you can by all means add them at this stage. Either way, once you've made the changes you need to, make sure you go down to the bottom of the page and press save. If you do choose to put in the MQTT stuff later, accessing the dongle once it's on your normal home network is simple a matter of using your PC's browser and going to http://heatpump.local.

Now, specifically for @morgan, whether you add the MQTT details at the same time as connecting the dongle to wifi or whether you do it later, the MQTT server you need to add is your home assistant box (i.e. just adding "homeassistant.local" should do). The username and password are the ones you set up a couple of weeks ago and made a note of (i.e. a homeassistant user), and the rest should be OK to leave as is (port 1883 and primary MQTT base topic of Ecodan/ASHP). Once you've put those details in and saved, the dongle will start shouting at the Mosquitto broker you set up on Home Assistant. If you then go to Home Assistant, go to the cog that takes you to the settings and then navigate to Devices and Services, Home Assistant should now be telling you it's discovered a new MQTT device. You can then do exactly the same to that device as you did with everything else your Home Assistant has discovered (adding to dashboards etc.). If you get to the "Hey, I've discovered a new MQTT device" and can't remember what to do, just post again and I can run you through it.

Update.

Dongle came very quickly.

Set up was easy thanks, @majordennisbloodnok, I turned off the big red button.😁

Followed instructions, all good.

Still no COP but  that's down to our systems failings.😔

Things I like.

1. that I can see latest daily information all together.

2. I can see latest defrosts, and frequency drops (had to google, no idea but at least I can see it 😀)

3. I can see the current information;  - what's the temp outside what's the flow is it related to my WCC 

4. I'm also very interested in summer eco

Been away set it up last night so early days.

@sand Are you sure this isn't the MELCloud data/integration rather than the Adapter?

You are missing the advanced fields...

Once setup you can migrate in any historical data from MELCloud

@f1p 

Oh that's exciting, I'll check I did get a bit confused about MQQT 😁

How would I know ?

@f1p

It said this am I doing something wrong?

@sand

Hmm so you have - maybe you have it below and your screenshot is cutting off the data like flow rate, compressor starts, fan speed etc
PM me you MEL Pump App ID number under the Configuration page and i will take a look?

@majordennisbloodnok

Lost me completely, I'm afraid.  I haven't installed the dongle yet. As for the rest, I fail to see where I put any of "those details," etc.

Sad to say, but for me to grasp any of this, it needs to be broken down to 'idiot entry level'.

I think we need to split this topic - we have identical hardware for the Home Assistant and MELPump adapter and you can swap/change between the two freely by uploading an update file.

But in terms of this discussion we are mixing conversations on setup and use of MELPump (original thread) and how to configure for Home Assistant use

Posted by: @morgan

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@majordennisbloodnok

Lost me completely, I'm afraid.  I haven't installed the dongle yet. As for the rest, I fail to see where I put any of "those details," etc.

Sad to say, but for me to grasp any of this, it needs to be broken down to 'idiot entry level'.

Worry not. If it isn’t clicking in your mind then saying so is exactly the right thing to do. That’s not “idiot entry level”; that’s sensible honesty and I can deal with that day in day out.

I’ll try to grab some screenshots and post them when I get a free moment or two, although that might not be today.

Posted by: @sand

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@f1p

It said this am I doing something wrong?

Fixed - there is a dropdown at the top (mobile app) or on desktop it's in these boxes to select which source:

Your default was set to MELCloud and it's now been swapped to the Adapter instead

May I cast a vote for F1p's suggestion of splitting up this discussion?

I have just signed up to MEL Pump and I am starting to learn what it has to offer, but I have no intention of changing from Hubitat to Home Assistant at my advanced years