Kristil, formerly Smart House Systems, formerly Smart House.

These are just a few notes that may be of interest to system owners and anyone supporting these systems. I have added some general information – Here

Electrical Safety

As the system operates at mains voltages I have to say that repair work should be carried out by an Electrician.

Triac Modules

I have repaired Triac modules. Generally your electrician will remove the faulty modules so that they can be shipped to us for repair.

Kristil have changed the design since my original back in the late 90s to a newer micro-controller, added a internal noise filter for the triac switching (it was external). I originally designed the extrusion and see that they have added a mounting channel to the bottom. In the units repaired, it was interesting to see that the circuit boards were all hand soldered. I thought the surface mount would have been machine soldered as they were when we were making them. Hand soldering SMD is very time consuming.

The earlier triac modules have been very robust, generally just blowing when switched on with a shorted load and occasionally causing one of the 3 circuits to fail.

In order to evaluate a triac module it’s necessary to drill out the rivets and free the circuit board; a tricky task. Repaired modules are tested and reassembled. Often the earth wire needs re-terminating at both ends to ensure safety standards are maintained.

Typically, we will charge $120 +gst per hour (+ courier return) to evaluate and repair if possible. As we need to carefully drill the rivets (a tricky process) to get at it the minimum charge is 1 hour. Typically repair and testing takes 1 to 1.5 hours.

Be sure to test all circuits before replacing the repaired module. You don’t want to blow the triac again. This can be tricky to do due to the electronic transformers now common and the way water damage may not show up until full voltage is applied. Your electrician should be able to do this testing.

How to arrange repair

Send the items to be repaired to me. Click on About PMB in the menu above for delivery address etc. I will repair the items and provide an invoice for payment, then return the items by courier. For Australia, we will have to work something out for shipping.

Control Switches

I have had only limited contact with the later versions of control switch.

Support

I can probably provide some support but will need to know something about your system.

Other Parts

I’m always happy to look at other parts that may be unknown or requiring repair. I can generally provide a quote following a quick once-over.