Vermont Energy Control Systems

Practical monitoring and control for the real world

Front Panel

A picture of the front panel of the Vesta

Along the right side of the front panel there are four LEDs and a small three-position switch. As delivered, the LEDs and switches are connected to Vesta discrete inputs and outputs. There are also some simple rules defined that illuminate LEDs based on switch position. Try moving the switch and observe what happens to the LEDs and to the Vesta controller web interface.

This switch and these LEDs can be used for any desired purpose. In particular, they are good for developing and testing rules before assigning the rule to real hardware. The LEDs are often used as visual indicators of system status, and the switch can be used to manually set operating modes ('Summer' vs. 'Winter', for example).

System Settings

Clicking the 'System' tab on the web interface brings up a page where some basic system settings can be configured. Each section of this page will be covered in detail later in this manual. For initial setup, the most important setting is the 'Centigrade' checkbox. While the system can be switched between Centigrade and Fahrenheit at any time, any numeric values used in rules will NOT be converted and will have to be manually re-entered in the new units. For instance, if the system was originally programmed in Fahrenheit and there was a rule to turn on a circulator any time room temperature dropped below 70 degrees, the rule would have dramatically different effects if the system were then changed to Centigrade. 70°C is a pretty high room temperature! It's important to choose units at initial setup to avoid this problem.

A screenshot of the Vesta System tab

Make any changes and click 'Update'. Changes take effect immediately.