Product News Spring 2022

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In turbulent times, the focus is on maintaining the ability to deliver which also takes up parts of our R&D capacities. Nevertheless, we are launching several new products in the 2022 catalogue, 3 of which we present here.

1. °C-Lite Thermostats

The new °C-Lite thermostats fulfil an important dual function in the °CALEONbox control system for surface heating and cooling. Firstly, they provide the sensor values from the rooms, which are then used to control the supply of heat or cooling. Secondly, they offer the user a simple way to set the desired temperature in the respective room.

In the “Clima IAQ” version, additional sensor values for determining the air quality are also recorded and visualised for the user. In addition to the CO² content of the room air, the so-called Indoor Air Quality index is also determined. The IAQ value is based, among other things, on a VOC sensor, i.e. volatile organic compounds that can have an impact on human health and well-being. Read more about this topic in the article “Indoor Air Quality Index”.

The °C-Lite thermostats are operated via capacitive touch surfaces. The user interface consists of 48 coloured LEDs. If there is no touch interaction, °C-Lite automatically goes into standby mode and blends smoothly into the room design.

Flush-mounted °C-Lite in standby (click for zoom)

°C-Lite Clima IAQ with indoor air quality monitoring (click for zoom)

Terminal connections of the °C-Lite

The °C-Lite communicates digitally with the °CALEONbox via 1-wire bus. The power supply with 5VDC is also provided by the °CALEONbox. As the connection terminals of the °C-Lite follow the same colour code as other components of our UFH control system, the correct assignment of the wires is visually intuitive. Technically and colour-matched cables are also part of our delivery programme.

Like the Room Sensors, the dimensions of the °C-Lite thermostats match the 55mm standard dimensions of common European switch ranges. They can therefore be seamlessly integrated into frames from Gira, Busch-Jäger, Jung and many more. Suitable country versions or adapters exist for other dimensions in countries such as Italy or the UK.

°C-Lite for Italian switch ranges

Functional comparison table of the 3 unit types from which the customer can choose for each room

Application example: Multi-zone control with mixed devices

Like the entire °CALEONbox system, °C-Lite also follows the modular construction principle, with which all components can be combined in almost every way. This makes it possible, for example, to connect several °CALEONboxes, °CALEONs, Room Sensors and now also °C-Lite together in one installation.

°C-Lite as a development platform for OEM applications

While °C-Lite is primarily listed in the new SOREL catalogue as a component for °CALEONbox systems for multi-zone control of surface heating, we have also designed °C-Lite as a versatile OEM platform that allows for any number of additional modules and applications. Other connectivity modules such as Modbus, WiFi or Opentherm, onboard switching outputs, customised user interfaces and much more are possible. Are you a manufacturer and would like to learn more about the application possibilities of the °C-Lite platform? Contact our OEM team at oem@sorel.de.

OEM options of the °C-Lite platform

2. SHCC Fresh for decentralised fresh water with heating control

The trend towards electronic control for decentralised fresh water preparation in heat interface units persists strongly. Read here why this is so.

The new SHCC Fresh completes the portfolio for decentralised fresh water controllers. The core function is an intelligent fresh water control with a fast-acting valve, which is supplemented by a basic heating control. Here, a pump and/or a 2-way valve is controlled as an injector. An extra valve that holds hot water in summer operation is optionally available, as is a Modbus interface.

 Possible hydraulic diagram of the SHCC Fresh

The HCC Fresh, on the other hand, offers the possibility of directly switching 230V devices such as pumps and valves. Compared to the SHCC Fresh, it also has more inputs and outputs that can be used for additional functions such as weather-compensated heating circuit control or a circulation pump. The °CALEONbox Fresh for surface heating and cooling also offers fully-fledged heating circuit control when PWM mixers are used.

The controllers for heat interface units are only available for system manufacturers, as the control parameters must be matched very precisely to components such as the heat exchanger and valve. You can read here what to consider when adjusting a fresh water controller. In addition, pre-wiring from the factory is a good way to benefit from economies of scale in the wiring process and to simplify installation with a ready-to-plug-in unit.

3. Connectivity for OEMs

As an OEM specialist, our product development is designed to optimally prepare our catalogue products for adaptation to special customer requirements from the HVAC industry – adaptability by design. This continuously expands our stack of hardware platforms, software modules and complementary services such as apps or cloud services. Like an iceberg, many parts of the tech stack remain in the background and are not always apparent from the catalogue articles.

As the connectivity and digitalisation of HVAC technology is advancing rapidly, a recent focus has been on the integration of Modbus modules for connection to building management systems and the creation of a server infrastructure for intelligent data use. Feel free to contact our OEM team to learn more about our tech stack and their application possibilities specifically for your HVAC systems.

The new SOREL Catalogue 2022 can be found here.