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[Oldtimer]

Utilizing Powerflash "Partial Status Memory"
 (When Connected to a Thermostat for Example)

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Oldtimer

Part of my post HOW SOLAR HEAT IS CAPTURED AND WHY mentions the use of a PF284 PowerFlash connected to a thermostat to control two fans in our house that circulate solar heat from the front of the house to the back.  While the write up doesn't go into details there were several macros and two flags involved in the original set up. Because we don't like to leave these fans going when we're not home we turn them off when we leave for a while, but, when we turn them back on when we return we'd like them to only turn on if the thermostat would have activated them anyway while we were gone.  The original installation handled the simple off and on but would have turned the fans back on even if the thermostat might have called for them to be off while we were gone.  Another conditional macro and another flag could have handled this but I felt the whole thing was getting too complicated and started looking for a simpler solution.

What I found, after some experimentation is, that if the PowerFlash module is not plugged in but the thermostat is activated, that when you do plug it in the PowerFlash immediately sends an ON signal to its programmed X10 address.  If the thermostat is not activated when you plug the PowerFlash in it does not send either an ON or OFF signal to its programmed address.

In simple terms the final solution to my problem was to plug the PowerFlash into an appliance module, in this case an AM14A 2 way unit.  The AM14A now controls the activation of the overall solar heat environment including conditional seasonal activation and dusk turn off.  There is now just one flag, that is also used for something else,  and the ON and OFF fan macros activated by the thermostat.  The "In", "Out" and "Away" functionality is in other macros that existed already independent of the solar heating installation.

I'm sure there are many other control applications for this "partial memory" feature of the PowerFlash module.

If anyone is interested in more complete details I will expand this thread to include them or post them separately as appropriate.