Zooz Zen16 issue

[toy4rick]

Hey all,

Having a strange issue with my Zen16 which stopped working after 18 months

Using R1 to trigger a Hot Button call on a Navien 140a2 hot water heater to turn on the HWH recirculation pump via a Basic Rule, tell Alexa to turn on hot water, a v-switch is turned on which then turns on R1 which then turns on the hot water recirculation pump. Again, working fine for 18 months

12.2v from Zen16 power supply, 11.4-11.6v at R1, R2 and R3 (however, none work)

When the relay is turned on, voltage goes to 0 and should trigger the hot call button to turn on the recirc pump, which it doesn't

Working with The Smartest House, Initially they said it could be my PS, tried several others, then I sent the unit back, they say it's working as it should, no issues to be found, they did give me one of their PS to ensure it's within specs, same result.

I then installed the community advanced driver for the Zen16 and changed variables 12, 13 and 14 to value 0, size 1 (dry contact), same result

What is weird is, sometimes it will trigger but usually only 1 time after powering everything up and then not again. It's almost like when R1 is turned off, the 11.4-11.6 volts is just not enough to reset things so the next time it is turned on, going to 0 doesn't work b/c the Navien board never saw the change from the previous attempt at being turned on

And, tried a new Navien board, same thing, so it leads me back to the Zen16

Am I missing something on the Zen16 setup?

Thanks, Rick

[hydro311]

@toy4rick

...12.2v from Zen16 power supply, 11.4-11.6v at R1, R2 and R3 (however, none work)

The Z16's own power supply is always just 5v/0.5a, so where is that 12.2v number coming from?

Which hardware version of the Z16 do you have, and what firmware is it on?

Parameters 12,13,14 are for decoupling (or not) switch input control on hardware 2.0+ models.

Z16 paramater options

[toy4rick]

The 12.2v is on the input side of the Zen16 as it comes from the power supply

H/W v. 2
F/W 2.10

Not sure what you mean by decoupling or not re: parameters 12-14, I thought those were what sets R1, R2, R3 to dry contact?

[hydro311]

@toy4rick

The 12.2v is on the input side of the Zen16 as it comes from the power supply

Ah, so you are using one of these?

12 VDC Power Supply, 0.5 A, Black

@toy4rick

Not sure what you mean by decoupling or not re: parameters 12-14, I thought those were what sets R1, R2, R3 to dry contact?

The Advanced Settings page I linked above is the source-of-truth from Zooz about what the various Z16 parameters are.

[toy4rick]

Yes, they provided the 12VDC vs what I was using which was a USB-C PS

Which parameter should I be setting to ensure R1 is a dry contact

[hydro311]

None of my Zens are set up for a use case similar to yours, so I'm not in a good position to say. You can always ask Zooz for advice - they've always been helpful to me.

But from your first post... You realize the power supply frm Zooz (whether hard-wired like yours or the USB-C option) simply powers the Z16 unit itself (I think of it as ZW radio power) -- that doesn't have anything to do with the power that its relays actually supply or anything like that.

The relays simply act as a basic switch for whatever line-&-load are wired into the R terminals. When coupled to the relay, the corresponding "Sw" input on the Zen acts as that relay actuator, and the "Sw"-related parameters are where you set them up as contact sensor, dry-contact, etc etc.

There are several example use-cases discussed on the Z16 support page - perhaps one of them will be helpful.

ZEN16 MultiRelay - Zooz Support Center

[jtp10181]

@toy4rick

Which parameter should I be setting to ensure R1 is a dry contact

They are always a dry contact relay, there is no setting.

@toy4rick

When the relay is turned on, voltage goes to 0

What voltage goes to 0? Across what contacts exactly?

@toy4rick

11.4-11.6v at R1, R2 and R3 (however, none work)

How are you measuring this and where is this voltage coming from? The ZEN16 does not put out any voltage to the relay (R#) connections internally.

Can you provide a basic wiring diagram?

[toy4rick]

The +- are wired to the wall wart PS provided by The Smartest House and they measure 12.v

The 2 terminals for R1 are wired to the Hot Call button board to the Com and Signal terminals per the install manual. I'm not using S1-S3, just R1

I am measuring the voltage both at the R1 terminals on the Zen16 and the corresponding ports on the Hot Call board and they read the same

0v when off and 12.6v when R1 is turned on

What I think I am seeing now is for some reason, the Hot Call board doesn't like the immediate on/off in the basic rule so I added a 1 sec wait between the On and Off and it has now fired 2 times in a row

[jtp10181]

@toy4rick

What I think I am seeing now is for some reason, the Hot Call board doesn't like the immediate on/off in the basic rule so I added a 1 sec wait between the On and Off and it has now fired 2 times in a row

Yes that is a common issue with garage doors also. The "standard" is a 2s delay between on and off for a "momentary" button push. Just think about if you were pushing a button manually, that's what these systems are expecting for input.