Intelligent solutions OJ Electronics

OJ Electronics is a leader in energy-efficient control solutions for HVAC and underfloor heating. Today it is focused on developing products with high level functionality and intuitive operation.

intelligent SolutionS

When the owners of a successful restaurant in Sønderborg, Denmark, recently decided to build an entirely new hotel adjacent to the restaurant, they turned to Denmark’s OJ Electronics for a system to manage the heating and ventilation in the rooms, ensuring that guests get exactly the comfort they need – and that the hotel itself enjoys greatly reduced energy consumption.

Thomas Grosen, project manager for all ventilation aspects of Hotel Bella Italia, first suggested that OJ Electronic’s new GreenZone™ system should control the indoor climate of the hotel’s individual rooms. GreenZone™ is a sophisticated VAV (Variable Air Volume) zone control system capable of handling different temperature and comfort settings in up to 125 separate zones per AHU (Air Handling Unit) – while also saving plenty of energy in day-to-day operations. Thomas says: “What we wanted to do at Bella Italia was to create a system that is intelligent, and which saves energy. The intelligent aspects are obvious from the fact that you can access full information about the system and its performance at any time.” From products to solutions

For more than half a century OJ Electronics has been designing and developing electronic controls for underfloor heating and HVAC controls and drives. With its headquarters in Sønderborg, Denmark, the company supplies its products through subsidiaries and sales offices covering the global markets, including offices in the USA, Russia and Poland.

In the past, says the company, its business was the production of world class products but today the focus is on the supply of connected solutions that are easy to control from anywhere in the world, whether it is for improved comfort or easier maintenance.

Consequently, OJ now defines its vision as all about innovation, or, in its own words, WIN NXT GEN. It is determined to lead in the development of the next generation of HVAC Controls & Drives and electric floor heating thermostats for all its customers. Always meeting the market with new products, always embracing new technology.

HVAC Controls

Today, OJ Electronics’ range of HVAC Controls and Drives include AHU Controls, Fan Solutions and drives for Rotary Heat Exchangers. AHU controls fit perfectly into modular and compact AHU-units and are based on a versatile, modular platform. The controls come preprogramed and are freely configurable.

The OJ DV Fan Solutions product range features 13 power variants from 0.5 to 15 kW fitted inside different housing sizes to match any rooftop fan, plug fan, or AHU application and they can be used in the field of industry, indoor climate, data centres, energy solutions, agriculture, transportation and retrofit solutions.

OJ’s DRHX drives for rotary heat exchangers combine Modbus {data communication protocol) as well as analogue technology in a flexible design. They have a self-cooling design, which eliminates the need for additional cooling such as fans. The gear-free technology ensures accurate control throughout a wider range of speeds than ever before. A patent-pending sensorless software

monitors the rotation of the rotor, which means that no physical/ optical rotor guard is required. This gives a simple efficient solution, with fewer components for an easier installation

Thermostats for electric Floor Heating

OJ’s Microline® WiFi thermostats offer everything you would expect from a smart touchscreen thermostat – intelligent, adaptive controls, intuitive operation and a sleek design. The OJ Microline® apps make it easy for users to organise their thermostats to exactly match their temperature control needs. What is more, detailed information on energy consumption etc. allows users to control the heating to maximise their energy savings.

OJ Microline® programmable thermostats are very easy to program, while end users get energy savings and optimum comfort. There is a wide range of options from simple segment or monochrome graphical displays up to advanced full-colour touch displays.

Investing in new test facilities

OJ Electronics is currently putting the finishing touches to the latest expansion of the company’s in-house test facilities. Spanning no less than 340m2 of floor space in a building that has been converted for the purpose, the new test area will focus especially on electric drives but will also be used for the testing of other ventilation applications as well as thermostats for electric floor heating.

Martin A. Jensen, Senior Quality Manager at OJ Electronics, explains: “We’ll use the facility to conduct a wide range of tests, but we will focus mainly on electric drives, testing them in various applications that echo those of our clients – and use their actual

products in different combinations. For example, we will install and test set-ups with fans ranging from 500W to 15kW, checking their uses in ventilation units, as rooftop fans for ventilation in houses and agricultural facilities, and rotor applications for heat recovery.’

“It’s quite an investment for us; we’re spending some 80,000 euros on these test facilities,” says Martin Jensen. “But at OJ Electronics, we’ve always prided ourselves on making solutions that reflect our customers’ real life and real applications, and our new test facilities makes it even easier for us to do just that.”

New fan controller for energy renovation projects

The latest electric drive in the OJ range of supporting products was created specifically with energy renovation and retrofit projects in mind.

“Like so many HVAC controls created by OJ, this was directly prompted by customer demand,” explains Preben Jessen, Product Manager for Drives at OJ Electronics. ”A lot of our customers work with energy renovation and retrofit projects where they want to cut out a single, large fan and replace it with several smaller ones around the system – which also allows them to introduce differentiated control rather than just a simple on-off switch. Systems of that kind are much more energy-efficient than the old set-ups, but of course you’ll need a controller for the new fans. That’s where the new OJ-VCH HMI electric drive controller comes in.”

‘‘Even though it lets you control up to 32 fans, the controller itself is very compact and simple to use,” says Preben. ”You can control the speed of the fans directly, or you can let the fan speed be governed by the flow or pressure in the ventilation system. Similarly, you can control the speed, pressure or flow directly from the 3.5” touch display – or via a 0-10V analogue signal if you prefer. And if you want alarms in the event of system faults, you can fit a relay option module in just one of the connected drives and select it from the on-screen menu as a shared alarm relay that covers the entire system.” ”At the end of the day, we set out to make a device that would make energy renovation projects simpler. So, we included the features that would make that happen – and left out all the things you don’t need for ventilation projects. That’s the way we at OJ Electronics constantly work to deliver the solutions that meet the exact needs of all our clients!” n