Feedback on Hestiapi Touch

Customization
1

Hello,

I’ve been testing and tweaking a Hestiapi Touch for about 4 months now. I like the project but some things caught my attention.

First, I found the original linux distro and interface were incredibly slow so I installed Arch Arm linux on it (yes I am an Arch fan)
I figured I can go with a custom webinterface and python code, ditching the way too heavy java and OpenHAB. Right now my little system is very fast and all sensors etc work fine but I still have work to do.

My thoughts on some specific points:

  1. The screen is touching the bevel when I push the back ‘Wall’ plate in all the way. The screen then recognizes the bevel as a touch event happening all the time and it becomes unusable.

  2. Screen is not locking well in the bevel (grips too small and too short)

  3. AC lines on the PCB are not isolated. Possible shock hazard here.

  4. I am not an expert on this area, but the AC (230V) lines on PCB seem very close to DC lines.

  5. My heating system requires OpenTherm/eBus (low voltage) for continuous modulation or simply open/closed loop for on/off modulation, and will get fried with 230V AC on the modulation port. I’ve bypassed the transformer by connecting a standard 5VDC USB power supply, which works fine and is safe. I haven’t done inquiries yet but I suspect that many European systems use low voltage or open/closed loop control. Anyway, a 5VDC USB powered version would be really good in my humble opinion (save one component?).

  6. The resistive touch screen seems to not have all capabilities supported by the official drivers. Is it an unbranded version of an official Raspberry Pi screen? It seems to do it’s job though.

I hope my feedback is of value to you. Will keep you posted about my development.

Cheers,
Jan Bonne

1 Like
2

Here’s my board with bypasses soldered on to allow open/closed loop heater modulation and 5VDC power supply:

20180409_184331
20180409_1843313258×2443 2.42 MB

3

Thank you for that!
The issues with the case (1 and 2) are covered with the new case release that will be released within the next month.
The issues with the PCB (3 and 4) are also covered with the latest PCB design which was designed by a fellow forum member here. We are expecting the latest release within this week to go into further testing and we hope to solve all these.

About your board… What is the modification you made?

4

Whoops - I just found the obligatory introduce yourself thread :rofl:

The long red wire is 5V, the long black wire is ground, from a USB 5VDC power supply by means of a BEC connector.
I’ve cut the AC/5V track near the logo to get a 5V switched signal on the H terminal.

Then it gets a bit messy. I only then dug up the specifications of my heater. I don’t need a hot water terminal. Instead of a 5V signal my heater requires an open/closed circuit. So I moved the short red wire that supplies both relays Common contacts with 5V (for testing purposes to only supply Hot Water relay NO contact with 5V) and added the short black wire between the W terminal track and the Common contact of both relays.
This modification allows for setting open/closed loop via H and W terminals.

The short red wire should probably be removed on my board.

5

If you solder the other 2 pads from where you cut the track (I think) you get the same result.