Arzel Zoning
Find out what the Pro Panel universal zoning control can do for your residential and light commercial applications. It's more than zoning; it's intelligent HVAC control. The Pro Panel can control up to 16 zones, with any equipment type, from conventional furnace and A/C to multi-stage dual fuel. The Arzel Pro app makes it easy to set up, with one-tap equipment settings and an easy-to-use dashboard. It's also A2L-ready, with a designated contact for your A2L equipment. You'll also find advanced features for heat pumps and multi-stage equipment of any kind. Try the Pro Panel today and find out how easy a feature-rich zoning experience can be.
We wanted to give you a brief overview of the Pro Panel, the new universal zoning system by Arzel. With the Pro Panel, you can zone everything from single-stage conventional equipment all the way to multi-stage dual fuel.
One exciting feature of the Pro Panel is that now you can control up to 16 zones. The Pro Panel supports daisy chaining. Up to four panels can be connected together to add fully functioning zones to your system.
The Pro Panel also helps you get the most out of your multi-stage equipment. For the first time ever, you can adjust both staging timers and temperature thresholds. The staging timers determine how long the equipment runs in each stage, and the temperature thresholds set how aggressively the equipment stages up.
All of these settings are controlled by our new mobile app. The Arzel Pro mobile app makes it easy to set up and diagnose the Pro Panel. To connect to the Pro Panel, first, you open up the Arzel Pro mobile app, then power on the panel and press the Connect button when it appears on the screen.
When you connect to a Pro Panel that’s already been set up, the first thing you’ll see is the dashboard. This puts all of the current system information at your fingertips. Here, you can see which zones are calling, the HVAC equipment outputs that are engaged, the outdoor air temperature, and the supply air temperature.
The first time you connect the app to a new Pro Panel, you’ll need to do setup. The great thing about the Arzel Pro app is that it offers one-tap configuration. There are over a dozen premade default configurations available for different types of HVAC equipment. You can select one and configure the Pro Panel with just one tap. Here, the app lets you choose the type of equipment you have. If the defaults for that type of equipment aren’t what you’re looking for, you can use the setup wizard to go through each of the Pro Panel settings individually.
For this example, I’m going to choose Multi-Stage Conventional and use the default settings as-is. You can still go back and view the settings and make changes from this interface. If you’re on the dashboard and you want to change the configuration, just tap the wrench icon to see all the settings for your panel.
The Pro Panel also allows you to download system logs to see a history of equipment runtime. Tap the icon showing a page with a folded corner. From there, tap this button to download the system logs. An Excel spreadsheet will be created showing the system runtime history. You’ll be able to see the zones that were calling, the temperature, and the state of the HVAC equipment.
Sometimes, when you open the Arzel Pro app, you’ll see this message that says a software update is available for the Pro Panel. Tap to update the Pro Panel using the app. The panel will pause operation as it updates, then begin running again when the update is complete.
The Pro Panel also has advanced features for inverter heat pumps. With the adjustable staging timers and temperature thresholds, you can guarantee that the inverter is given enough time to warm up in each stage. We’ve also increased the temperature ranges for key settings related to staging and changeover to make the Pro Panel work seamlessly with modern inverters.
If you have a dual-fuel or all-electric system, the Pro Panel can be set up to control emergency heat mode. Connect a heat pump thermostat to Zone 1 and wire both the W and Y terminals to control both the backup heat and the heat pump. Whenever the Zone 1 thermostat is put into emergency heat mode, the Pro Panel will know not to run the heat pump and only to use the backup heat.
The Pro Panel also has some of the same features you might know from the HeatPumPro. It works with any 4 or 5 wire thermostat, no matter what type of equipment you’re using. You never have to use a heat pump thermostat. You can use a conventional 1 heat / 1 cool thermostat and still get 4 heat / 2 cool operation.
The Pro Panel also allows the blower and the condenser to stage independently. Like the HeatPumPro, there are two sets of Y1, Y2 contacts for controlling the blower and condenser independently. For situations where zones need high stage airflow, but they don’t need the condenser to run in second stage, the blower can run in second stage while the condenser continues to run in first stage. That way, the condenser doesn’t use more energy than it needs to.
We’ve also brought back the zone weighting feature, so you can control staging based on the amount of available ductwork. This allows you to create smaller zones that will lock out second stage airflow when not enough ductwork is available.
With the Pro Panel, now you can also set up non-calling zones. That means you can create a zone that only opens when other zones are calling. Non-calling zones don’t control the equipment, so it’s safe to create a zone that would normally be too small.
On the Pro Panel, we’ve got a designated contact that’s grouped in at Zone 1 labeled EXT. This contact is specifically for connecting to an A2L refrigerant detection system, an A2L board that’s meant for detecting leaks in the refrigerant.
If that board detects a leak, it’ll close a contact which will energize this EXT terminal on the Pro Panel. When that happens, the Pro Panel knows to stop heating and cooling, open up all dampers, and run the fan. So it will immediately respond to the leak detection system, sending the signal over.
This is a little bit easier than what we’ve done in the past with our legacy zoning products. Usually, we would require an additional relay to guarantee that all the dampers get opened, and then you’d have to test and make sure that when there’s a leak, the relay clicks, the panel gets shut off, and all the dampers are brought open.
With the Pro Panel, not only do we have this contact, you’ve also now got the opportunity to test it, take a look if you’ve got voltage on the contact, and an LED light will illuminate. And then you can look on the app and it’ll tell you that there’s a refrigerant leak detected. And you can see that the contact’s energized.
So we’ve got all these pieces in place so you can wire directly from the Pro Panel to these leak detection boards.
To find out more about the Pro Panel, visit us at arzelzoning.com or call at 1-800-611-8312.