Every MLR003 device contains a “Thermoelectic “Thermoelectric Generator (TEG)” element, which generates electrical energy when there is a temperature difference.
The TEG harvests energy from the temperature difference between the heating flow temperature and the ambient temperature (usually room temperature).
The MLR003 comes with an aluminium housing as a functional part to generate electrical energy.
The actuator has a valve-side temperature sensor to determine the flow pipe temperature and an ambient sensor to determine the temperature away from the flow pipe. Because the ambient sensor is surrounded by the aluminium housing and is still very close to the radiator, when the radiator is heating, the value measured by the ambient sensor is higher than the actual room temperature. Thus an algorithm is applied to estimate the room temperature.
A controllable offset for the flow sensor is available to compensate for devices which are mounted above exposed hot water pipes. It can be set by sending an FPORT 0x08 Downlink.
Valve adapters further increasing the offset between the internal flow sensor and the water temperature must be taken into account
Fluid (water) temperature FSRV | Recommended offset for the flow sensor FTMP (Offset values derived in climate chamber and without valve adapter) |
|---|---|
55°C | |
65°C | 13°C |
70°C | 14°C |
To obtain an estimate of the ambient temperature, the device measures the flow temperature every 5 minutes and performs a moving average across the last 30 minutes. It then performs the following computation
Orah footnote an.spaceKey MH text Ambient Estimate Calculation id 0cv82peijaks
...