Defrost state

[frassefraze]

First off, I absolutely love the project—thank you for all your hard work! My system has been running smoothly for over a year now, adjusting the temperature based on electricity prices to avoid excessive heating during expensive periods.

I wonder if it’s possible to add a state or similar feature for the defrosting. It would be nice to track how often defrosting occurs and detect any anomalies, particularly if it starts running too frequently. Is this something that the units can report, feels like something that should be able to pickup ?

[willie013]

I think the panasonic interface doesn't provide this information, and the estimated energy consumption has quite a delay on it to detect this. Using an external power monitor plug might be the best solution here, you would just need a control algorithm to reliably determine if the unit is defrosting (it might also be cycling since temp is reached). This is something I want to try as well in the near future

[frassefraze]

You’re probably right. But it just seems like something that should be possible to detect. My units closes up, and the floor unit flashes a blue LED for "DEICE" (I’m not sure about the wall-mounted unit, but it likely behaves similarly), there are several things happening at the same time.
I attempted to debug the interface to find the relevant rows, but the data being sent and received is a bit complex for me. Plus, I need to catch the logs when a defrost is starting or at least ongoing.
But please let me know if you come up with a good workaround or solution.

[redbullterror]

Hello i have check de rx with defrost and without maybe you can use it.

Normal 70.20.44.30.80.A0.30.00.00.40.00.00.48.2E.00.00.00.00.16.01.FF.18.01.FF.80.80.FF.80.14.00.01.80.69.65.E6 (35) Defrost 70.20.44.30.80.A0.30.00.00.40.00.00.4C.2E.02.00.00.00.16.01.FF.18.01.FF.80.80.FF.80.2A.00.03.80.69.65.C8 (35)
Bit 14 change from 00 to 02

[willie013]

That's great news @redbullterror ! However, I've been thinking about this:

We need a way to predict when the unit goes into defrost, since when it enters the defrost state, it starts blowing cold air into the room.

Ideally we would have a mechanism which could detect when we're close to defrost and act on it (in my case, let the boiler take over the heavy lifting heating). This way the unit doesn't enter the defrost state and the temperature inside also doesn't fluctuate that much.

I've noticed that when it enters the defrost state during cold weather, it goes into the defrost state continuously since it overshoots when it starts to heat up the room again...