Gen 3 Constantly passing Voltage. Is this correct?

Troubleshooting
1

When a zone/master valve is calling/turned on, the controller passes through 28v to that zone/MV, as it should.

However, during standby, the controller is constantly spitting out 18.5v to all zones along with MV.

Is this the normal operating procedure?

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Update… I contacted support and they claim that this is normal behavior. Just wanted to post this for others to see.

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I don’t quite understand the relationship between amps, volts, and watts. . . but my real question is how much is the standby consumption costing?

4

Probably about $.16 a year…

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So I put the amp meter on my R3 8-zone controller. Here are my non-scientific results:

With the LED light off, the controller idles around .05A (6 watts)

With the LED light on ‘normal’, the controller idles around .056A (6.72 watts)

When I activate a zone, the controller pulls around .15A (18 watts)

Using the electricity bill calculator below, I entered in 6 watts power consumption, 24 hrs/day, and left the default kWh cost. It says the cost is about $6.50/yr.

https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/electricity-calculator.html

Edit: If you are only using the controller for the summer months, for me it’s usually June through August or so, you could just unplug power to it for the 9 or so months it’s not being used. If you do this, my calculations tell me the controller will cost about $1.63/year in power consumption.

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Thanks both of you for the feedback. Makes me feel much better. It’s hard to identify the real energy leeches in a home.