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What Tstat work great with AMX?

marshallnguyenmarshallnguyen Posts: 7
in AMX General Discussion
I have had it with Aprilaire tstats. What other communication tstat out there that work great with AMX?

Comments

  • banobano Posts: 173
    marshallnguyen wrote: »
    I have had it with Aprilaire tstats. What other communication tstat out there that work great with AMX?

    I've used the thermostats from Lutron RadioRa2 with great success, but you have to poll them as no unsolicited or change of state feedback
  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    I haven't tried the Lutron stats with anything but a Lutron system, but I've had my share of issues with them, mostly on the order of getting them to talk to the system properly. I haven't found any that work "great" with AMX. But most of them don't work all that well with anything really. It seems to me the entire thermostat industry is plagued by sloppiness and shoddy engineering. I've even seen a Honeywell stand-alone thermostat fail because it's batteries were low ... the display was on, no low battery indicator, it just wouldn't fire it's relays until the battery was replaced.

    We've settled on Aprilaire. They have their issues, but usually once you work them out they are OK ... until one fails completely. But it's usually obvious and catastrophic enough of a failure that you know what to replace right away. Usually. The exceptions are a true nightmare, but thankfully not common.
  • viningvining Posts: 4,368
    DHawthorne wrote: »
    I haven't tried the Lutron stats with anything but a Lutron system, but I've had my share of issues with them, mostly on the order of getting them to talk to the system properly. I haven't found any that work "great" with AMX. But most of them don't work all that well with anything really. It seems to me the entire thermostat industry is plagued by sloppiness and shoddy engineering. I've even seen a Honeywell stand-alone thermostat fail because it's batteries were low ... the display was on, no low battery indicator, it just wouldn't fire it's relays until the battery was replaced.

    We've settled on Aprilaire. They have their issues, but usually once you work them out they are OK ... until one fails completely. But it's usually obvious and catastrophic enough of a failure that you know what to replace right away. Usually. The exceptions are a true nightmare, but thankfully not common.

    Are you using the 8800's now or still reffering to the 8870's. I'm curious if those initial com bugs the 8800's had are gone yet.
  • marshallnguyenmarshallnguyen Posts: 7
    Thanks for the inputs. Aprilaire replaced 8870 with 8800 and I still could not get them to work together. Client willing to replace all Aprilaire tstats.
  • ericmedleyericmedley Posts: 4,177
    I've had really good luck with the 8870s. The new ones do seem to have their problems. There is a known issue with the newer ones, version 1 firmware. Also, you cannot mix and match version 1s and version 2s.
  • viningvining Posts: 4,368
    ericmedley wrote: »
    I've had really good luck with the 8870s. The new ones do seem to have their problems. There is a known issue with the newer ones, version 1 firmware. Also, you cannot mix and match version 1s and version 2s.

    But are 8800's v2 working good, similar to what we had with the 8870's?
  • ericmedleyericmedley Posts: 4,177
    vining wrote: »
    But are 8800's v2 working good, similar to what we had with the 8870's?

    Too early to tell. it's only been a couple weeks. :) But, will let you know...
  • viningvining Posts: 4,368
    I'll take a couple of weeks installed without seeing any negative posts on the forums as a positive indicator.
  • John NagyJohn Nagy Posts: 1,742
    Our dealers have a number of the 8800's installed going back 6 months now, and once the connection ID and power are settled, there have been no comments of any kind... which I hope to presume to mean no problems.

    But then we have many installs using the 8870's and the AMX stat that seem fine too, once connectivity and actual defective units are settled. Miniverters are often a problem, we used a serial connection on the 8870 which we find more reliable. Test by unit substitution instead of tearing at the programming when something seems wrong... much faster to a solution.
  • marshallnguyenmarshallnguyen Posts: 7
    I still could not get 8800 to work by themself.
  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    8800's are re-branded Honeywells with a comm board. The display is identical ... and a step backwards, as far as I'm concerned. I've not had communications problems with them yet (knock on wood), but they have the battery issue - if the batteries go down, so does the stat, even if it has transformer power.
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