According to the info they sent, the firmware upgrade for the FTC_6 was supposed to be rolled out at the end of November 2021, as they clocked errors in their logic in June 2021. The firmware update flash routine was relatively painless. Find an SD card, make sure that it only has the two firmware files on it & nothing else, switch off the mains power to the FTC_6 & cylinder/immersion AND the compressor outside. Change a jumper, put the firmware SD Card in, re-power the FTC_6. The LED's flash for about a minute (longest minute of your life), then go solid, so power it down, wait until all the lights go out (takes longer than you might expect), swap the SD cards back over, re-attach the front of the FTC_6, power up the FTC_6 & cylinder/immersion, then go & power on the compressor outside. It takes the FTC_6 a couple of minutes to load the new software, then it all comes back. It appears to keep all of your settings and logs, but I'll find out more as I look through everything.
The detailed instructions come with the firmware & it's all fairly straightforward. It looks like this is something that has to be physically done on site, rather than being rolled out from the cloud.
Hmmm.Ā But nearly all of my Freeze Stat is through the night when the ASHP is off for 5 hours.Ā It uses very little energy but does circulate the water when the ambient is below 5C.Ā The ASHP kicks in properly when the flow gets below 20C and heats it up to 25C then stops.Ā
I thought this wasn't needed when the ASHP was running.Ā Defrost is a different thing altogether although Melcloud reports a little bit of Freeze Stat in its stats during defrosts. I've never noticed the heating being off for long.
Please let us know how you get on.Ā
Hi Kev,
My understanding is that the freeze stat function is for systems that don't have sufficient antifreeze for the present outdoor air temperature. If your system has adequate antifreeze protection for temperatures down to say -20C, then the freeze stat should never need to operate.
I would suggest that you go into the service menu and check the setting.
Freeze Stat is is set up to run in my system; it's the way it was left by the installer and I haven't bothered to change it. I also know I have 25% glycol so it's probably not needed.
I've just gone through the settings & Freeze Stat is set to activate at 5Ā°C - you can lower it to 4Ā° or 3Ā°, but if you go any lower than that it appears to disable it - it flicks onto ** as a setting, which I'm guessing is Off. I have plenty of Glycol in the system, so I'm trying if off for a while to see if it makes any difference.
@justinsb - Sorry to hear you were having hassles - went off and checked mine - don't think it looks like same thing happening.Ā
All - as ever thanks for all useful postings - invaluable really. In terms of general update still running weather comp - settings are -2* = 38*C and 20* = 20*C. CoP continues to be between 3 to 4 which is better than before made switch to weather comp. Heating more areas of the house to a consistent level than we used to do with LPG. We use quite a bit of elec but I think (hope) from my projections we're still ending up with a warmer house for less than we would be paying for LPG which was the endgame we were hoping for. Will know more once get through a whole year. Conscious we've had a relatively mild January. The consumption does ramp up when temp gets down to 0*C outside. Like everyone a bit anxious re forthcoming price hikes. As ever if anyone has thoughts or observations based on the data I've posted - always gratefully received.
@RV3 that looks good to me.Ā I assume you have the heating on 24/7 as that's a very high % of heating. I'm about 65% but I have the heating off 12-5am.Ā It looks a lot less peaky than mine, but maybe that's location/weather?Ā But circa 40 kWh/day for your type/size of house is good and your COP is good too. I'm using about 30 kWh per day but my house is quite a bit smaller IIRC.Ā
I've been discussing this on another forum and we concluded that January 2021 was quite a bit colder and my consumption would have been about 1.4-1.5 times January 2022.Ā That's probably about as bad as it's likely to be.Ā
I had an issue a couple of years ago where it constantly ran the defrost cycle late at night when it was cold. I disabled the frost protection as our system runs 24/7 and the underfloor heating system will call for heat if the house drops really low whilst we are on holiday. The glycol level is checked every year during the service so it shouldn't be an issue.
OK, I promised to report back on how the firmware upgrade has worked out for me. Basically, it's been fabulous...! In the months prior to installing it, my house temperature was all over the place. We would often have nights where the whole house got really cold, the the ASHP had to work at full steam to try & get everything warm again - leading to some very expensive days in terms of our electricity usage. It's now been almost exactly two months since I flashed the firmware, & what a success it has been. Since it went live, the house temperature hasn't changed once. The whole system has been solid as a rock & I literally haven't touched the controls. Alas, my Ecodan usage data records from before February are unreliable, which makes comparing figures almost impossible, but my meter readings seem to back up my anecdotal feelings that not only has the temperature been 100% stable, but the whole system has been much cheaper to run. January & February were comparable, weather-wise, although we generated 15% more Solar in February than January. However, overall we used 33% less electricity (& the house was warmer) in February than we did in January.
Because of this, I'm happy to say that I believe that the firmware upgrade has been a huge success & well worth installing if you have an Ecodan FTC6 based system. Now that the sun has reappeared, I'm also loving our solar system. Now, I need to get some batteries installed...
Morning all - turning to the forum again in case anyone can assist - grateful for any advice. This week my dhw temp soared to 70*C. It is set to heat to 47*. Yet the ASHP data on melcloud is saying there has been no energy used to heat the hot water. Over last couple of days this has continued - the water has again heated up to 60*C but the data says no dhw activity from the heat pump.
Does this mean that for some reason the immersion is kicking in? I have not made any alterations to settings. I seem to think others on here have had issues with erratic behaviour. Wondering if this is a firmware update but my ecodan app says no update available. Grateful for any thoughts on this. The room heating seems to be working normally. Not sure why it has started to operate differently, why the ASHP is not heating the dhw - but yet it is being heated up to very high temps. Thank for any assistance.Ā
Morning all - turning to the forum again in case anyone can assist - grateful for any advice. This week my dhw temp soared to 70*C. It is set to heat to 47*. Yet the ASHP data on melcloud is saying there has been no energy used to heat the hot water. Over last couple of days this has continued - the water has again heated up to 60*C but the data says no dhw activity from the heat pump.
Does this mean that for some reason the immersion is kicking in? I have not made any alterations to settings. I seem to think others on here have had issues with erratic behaviour. Wondering if this is a firmware update but my ecodan app says no update available. Grateful for any thoughts on this. The room heating seems to be working normally. Not sure why it has started to operate differently, why the ASHP is not heating the dhw - but yet it is being heated up to very high temps. Thank for any assistance.Ā
Is the tank temp reaching 60 or 70 deg or is that the flow temp? It certainly seems strange that the ASHP has no DHW activity.Ā Can you download/see the csv data from Melcloud or are you looking at the graphs?Ā It must be the immersion because the ASHP won't reach 70 deg.
Hi Kev - thanks for the response.Ā I think it was the tank that got to 70*C -Ā was using the graphs pls see attached the first one shows the 70* episode on wednesday. Monitoring closely this morning and now seems to be behaving as I would expect i.e. couple of the family have used the shower, dhw tank temp drops to about 30*, ASHP switches from heating to dhw - flow temp goes up until dhw reaches just above 47*C which is what it is set to - flow temp drops back down again. Second graph shows this I think?
the RH graph looks normal.Ā Even though the tank target is 50 deg or so, the flow will be higher to achieve that.Ā I still don't get the 70 deg on the LH one. It wasn't a legionella cycle was it?
