Unusual Alde occurrence?

Pintoplumber

At our last camping at Laurel Hill state park, I turned the Alde off before disconnecting the electric using the control panel. We drove to the cabin and parked it in the garage. Turned the battery switch off and turned the breaker off for the garage when we left.

Arrived today, and while working in the garage I heard a sound that sounded like a distant fire alarm starting to ramp up. Happened a couple of times until I thought that sounds like the Alde circulator. 

Went inside and turned the Alde control panel on. (Screen was dark) No electric elements were turned on and no gas was turned on. The thermostat was set at 66 and the thermometer on the kitchen table said 66. I started turning the thermostat down and when I got to 64 the circulator turned off. I ran it down into the 50’s to be sure. 

How could the circulator run with the control panel turned off?  2016 320 CS S.   Any thoughts?

Grumpy_G

You wrote you turned the battery switch off when you parked the trailer. But you don't mention turning the battery on before checking the Alde panel. I suspect the battery was not actually disconnected and the battery drained to the point where the Alde controller went on the Fritz. 

Pintoplumber

The battery switch is still off, plugged into shore power in the garage. Can’t understand how the circulator would run with the Alde panel off and dark.

Grumpy_G

Well the Alde system would also run off the converter with the battery disconnected but you wrote the breaker was off too. Did you turn on the breaker when you returned to the garage ? 

Pintoplumber

Yup, turned the breaker back on the the garage when we arrived this afternoon. The camper is powered up but the Alde screen was/is dark and turned off. Is the Alde actually never really turned off?

jebjam

You can adjust the brightness of the Alde Panel in "Standby Mode" to bright, inverted or dark. The panel turns bright when touching the panel making changes then while the Alde is operating but the panel isn't being used the panel lighting goes into Standby Mode. If that is set to "dark", (which we choose), the panel will appear off, but it's not and neither is the system when you next touch the panel it'll come on.  My guess is this is the setting your unit has for standby mode, so you maybe thought it was off but it was not. In order to turn the system off you have to power it down with the power switch on the left, make sure the green light is off indicating the system is truly powered down. It's possible your Alde is still on and the only indication will be the small green light on the power button, the panel can be dark. You can change the Standby Mode setting scrolling through the settings menu.

Pintoplumber

@jebjam I appreciate your taking a crack at this. We have the Alde 3010 and I don’t believe it has the features yours does. We do have the little green light and it was off. Makes me wonder, it was in the garage at home last winter. I kept the garage at 38 degrees last winter because I was low on heating oil and I didn’t plan on working on anything out there. The T@B was plugged in last winter, was my circulator running last winter? ‘tis a mystery.

BrianZ

@Pintoplumber, I've noticed that the little green power light on the Alde digital panel is recessed, and if you're viewing the panel at an angle off to the side, then you my not see the green light unless you're looking more directly at it.  Maybe that's what happened.  I've been fooled before, thinking it was off when it was on, while the screen had already timed out.

jebjam

Pintoplumber said:

@jebjam I appreciate your taking a crack at this. We have the Alde 3010 and I don’t believe it has the features yours does. We do have the little green light and it was off. Makes me wonder, it was in the garage at home last winter. I kept the garage at 38 degrees last winter because I was low on heating oil and I didn’t plan on working on anything out there. The T@B was plugged in last winter, was my circulator running last winter? ‘tis a mystery.

Ah yes, we have the 3020. Sorry it wasn't that simple for you. I googled the 3010 it does have a brightness setting accessed through the tools menu and the sunlight icon when you scroll down. You can completely darken the screen for night time but guess you don't have the automatic standby setting the 3020 does, if you've looked at that. Still, the 3010 can be on with no display showing.

BrianZ

Our 3010 does have the standby brightness for the screen, which is set in the tool's menu number 9 for brightness (☆) where 1-10 is a fixed level and OFF setting makes it time out & darken the screen; then, you just tap the screen to make it light up.  The small green LED light inside the power button will still be lit when the screen goes dark, to indicate the Alde is on.

Pintoplumber

I wonder if powering up the garage somehow turned the Alde on? I know I turned the Alde off before leaving the campground and it was in the garage with the power turned off and the battery switch turned off. It’s sitting there now with the garage powered off and the battery switch off. I wonder what I’ll find when we get up there again and power up the garage?

Pintoplumber

I have an update on my situation. We got up to the cabin yesterday and I turned on the electric to the garage. Battery still turned off. The Alde green light was/is not on. Circulator not running. I turned the Alde on and turned the thermostat from 50 degrees to 64 degrees and the circulator started. Turned the Alde off and the circulator keeps running. Turned the Alde back on and turned the thermostat down to 60 degrees and the circulator stopped running. Turned the Alde off.

Apparently with our Alde 3010 if the thermostat is set high enough the circulator will run even though no electric elements or propane is chosen and the Alde is turned off. Makes me wonder about last winter. I kept the garage at home at 38 degrees and the T@B was plugged in all winter.

MuttonChops

Pintoplumber said:
. . .  Alde 3010 if the thermostat is set high enough the circulator will run even though no electric elements or propane is chosen and the Alde is turned off.

What you describe is normal operation for the Alde System.  My 3020 model does the same.

= - Before turning the Alde Control Panel Power 'off' I always manually turn off the electric or propane
= - heat source.  When the Alde Control Panel is turned back on the circulation pump will be on if the
= - cabin temperature is below the Control Panel temperature set-point.  Owners manual: "the pump
= - for circulating the glycol heating fluid start automatically whenever heat is called for by the thermostat".

Pintoplumber

Yeah, but it’s doing it with the Alde control panel turned off.

Pintoplumber

This morning’s update- I think it’s possessed. It was 46 degrees this morning so I opened the garage doors to cool it down inside to see if the circulator would run. Opened the door to the camper, the thermometer on the table read 61 degrees. Looked over at the Alde and the screen was lit up. Turned the Alde off again. Didn’t hear the circulator running at all this morning as I was working in the garage. I held the on/off button off for about 3 seconds. Do you think that makes a difference in turning it off?

MuttonChops

Pintoplumber said:
. . . held the on/off button off for about 3 seconds. Do you think that makes a difference in turning it off?

There is nothing in the User manual about 'holding Control Panel on/off Switch for an extended time' to cause a special operation { reset or hard power off }

My experience with the Control Panel has been the opposite . . . if the Off Button is pressed too long the Adle gets confused - - - seems to jump back on.  Both that's just one users experience.