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Mystery optical(?) connector

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grumpydoc:
Long shot, not least because I only have a terrible photo of said connector.

I own a house in which the central heating is based on an air-source heat pump. Wouldn't have been my first choice but it came with the building and works well enough that I have no desire to rip it out. I would, however, like to be able to control it remotely.

According to the manual the controller - a Stiebel WPMW 2 - has an optical RS232 interface but other than that I cannot find anything out about it.

Stiebel sell a box which provides a web interface but it is not cheap at £640 (that's trade price, so without VAT, and possibly not sold to individuals). It appears to hook into the bus between the controller and the heat pump itself (interestingly this appear to be a CAN bus) - Googling around there appears to be a small amount of effort into hacking the CAN bus interface and one guy who found the wired RS232 interface on his heat pump (different model to mine though) and wrote some python scripts to interface to it but that's it.

I haven't asked Stiebel but as they have a product that competes with what I would want to do and, AFAICS, have stopped selling the optical cable/converter to hook up to a PC I would be mildly surprised if they told me much of anything useful. I did find a forum post mentioning a price of €180 for the PC interface which is pretty steep.

The first problem is identifying the connector - which is shown in this photo



Has anyone any idea on what the connector might be? Or any experience with these controllers?

I'm reluctant to take apart the working controller - more hassle than I have time for - but they occasionally turn up on eBay at sensible prices so hopefully I can  get one to take apart and look properly at the thing.

mikeselectricstuff:
Unlikely to be anything standard - probably just a proprietory shaped hole, with a phototransistor/IR LED

grumpydoc:

--- Quote from: mikeselectricstuff on December 21, 2017, 11:09:51 pm ---Unlikely to be anything standard - probably just a proprietory shaped hole, with a phototransistor/IR LED

--- End quote ---
Yeah - you just know the set up will provide maximum annoyance.

Presumably it has to be bidirectional, but I'm not sure I see how. I'm more hoping someone on the forum knows something about these units than is able to recognise the connector, if I am honest.

I'm nowhere near the kit at the moment - will get chance for a further look over Xmas.

abraxa:
The good news:
--- End quote ---


The bad news: the guy never shared his circuit. However, he did say that his circuit is a copy of http://openv.wikispaces.com/Bauanleitung+LAN-Ethernet and he uses a MAX232 that he connects to IN/OUT so that he can talk to this device via RS232. You could of course also directly attach an FTDI to talk USB. The optical interface is a SFH7221-Z.

Software: He says you can download ComfortSoft 3.5.0 v-52 at http://www.stiebel-eltron.nl/vakpartners/vakinformatie/downloads/comsoft-software/ or  you can use an alternative software from http://www.kromschroeder.de/Downloadbereich.4101.0.html (4.2.0 Rev.1068). Kromschroeder is the manufacturer of the device that Stiebel-Eltron is rebranding.

Summary thread for the protocol: http://www.haustechnikdialog.de/Forum/t/168379/Stiebel-Eltron-WPF-per-Konsole-auslesen-und-Parameter-aendern
Original thread with complete discussion: http://www.haustechnikdialog.de/Forum/t/98046/Defekte-Stiebel-Eltron-WPF-7-mit-Waermepumpenmanager-WPM-II-wiederbeleben-und-einbauen?page=3
Circuit side discussion: https://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/252033

It's all in German, so if there's a particular part where you have issues translating, let me know.

grumpydoc:

--- Quote from: abraxa on December 22, 2017, 08:05:37 am ---The good news:
--- End quote ---


--- End quote ---
Wow, thanks that is a really good set of pointers.

I can't quite see how the optical interface works from those shots, I suspect all would be clear if I had a spare unit to inspect.

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