by ericmark »
Fri Oct 04, 2019 10:07 pm
Thank you for the post, I had not heard of Chrono Proportional before your post, it refers to an advanced control algorithm in the thermostat, however there is also an advanced control algorithm inside the boiler, to work they must work together.
Many thermostats have anti hysteresis software built in, and the simple method is to start cycling the boiler off/on using a mark/space ratio before it hits the target temperature to stop it over shooting, this was common with pre-modulating boilers.
However when the condensation boiler came out, the return water needs to be cool enough for it to work, the original method was the thermostatic radiator valve (TRV) and the by-pass valve, as the TRV's close the by-pass opens and hot water returns which causes the boiler to modulate (flame height is reduced) and the advanced control algorithm means the water temperature actually reduces so the boiler gains the latent heat.
However if you turn the boiler off/on with a wall thermostat it upsets the boilers advanced control algorithm, so it does not gain the latent heat.
The normal way was to use the wall thermostat to only switch off the boiler when the weather has improved, so it is placed in a cool room on ground floor with no alternative heating or outside door.
However this has evolved and now the wall thermostat, or maybe better name is a hub, is connected to the ebus, either special manufacturers thermostat, or OpenTherm, so the boiler is modulated directly by the thermostat.
Some manufacturers use a single wall thermostat not interconnected with the TRV heads, so again location is rather important, it also means third party thermostats don't work very well, it seems the Chrono (Means to do with time) Proportional (another name for mark/space ratio) is an attempt to make a thermostat that can be used without connecting to ebus, that will control boiler in a similar way.
However a 30 second burst is unlikely to get water to a radiator so rather useless, a series of 30 second bursts may work, but even that is unlikely, the basic thing is, when a boiler turns off, any heat in the boiler is lost through the flue, so normally you get the boiler to modulate to it's minimum setting and lowest temperature before it turns off.
The Chrono Proportional makes me think of snake oil, but I may be wrong.
