Although SmartZone does not have any built-in capabilities for controlling DE-humidification (DH) or Humidification, some applications are possible by using a thermostat on ZONE 1 that does have the capability to control DH.
“DE-humidification, in most residential systems, is simply running the equipment in COOLING with LOW speed fan instead of HI speed fan.”
Before we get to zoning, the equipment being used must have the capability to control humidity. This usually means it has a terminal (DH/BK/DS) that is energized or DE-energized by a thermostat to control fan speed of the equipment. Controlling fan speed allows the equipment to DE-humidify the air when the fan is running in low speed.
Back to zoning, using zone 1 thermostat to control DH is not as simple as wiring directly from the thermostat to the equipment. PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS. The equipment and the zone thermostats are running on different transformers and this will case problems and potentially damage to some components. You could isolate the output from the thermostat with a relay to get around this issue of different transformers but you would still have an issue with this method of wiring "around" the zone controller. The issue can arise when zone 1 calls for DH but the equipment is already running in heat, this mixed signal might just be ignored by the equipment but we cannot take that for granted... all equipment works differently.
The best way to control DH using SmartZone on single stage equipment is by using the method below. It may seem a little UN-orthidoxed but it is a valid APP note from the engineer at Ecojay (It's intended to work this way).
- Select a DH enabled thermostat of your choice
- Connect Y2/ECO on SmartZone Zone 1 to Zone 1 Thermostat DH/DS/BK
- Connect Y2 on SmartZone Equipment toEquipment DH/DS/BK
- Set Zone 1 "STAT TYPE" to G2
- Set DIP switch #4 to "LOCKOUT"
Zone 1 thermostat will now enable and disable DE-humidification any time the equipment is running in the cooling mode.
NOTE: When starting cooling from OFF state, 90 second delay will occur before HIGH speed fan will energize.
Using this method we are assuming that the equipment is expecting DS/BK/DH input terminal to be ENERGIZED for high speed fan and DE-ENERGIZED for low speed fan. This method should not be used for more than 3 zones or with multi-stage compressor equipment.
This application will work with Ecojay's SmartZone-2X and SmartZone-4X. Learn more
Click for SmartZone-2X/4X Install Guide
