Smartify JAROMAT Eco AP 15/5 Roller Shutter

Tired of pulling your roller shutter strap, have a difficult access to your shutter box, or you simply want to automate things? e.g. trigger your shutter based on your alarm clock, or local daylight time.

We will be looking into extending the JAROMAT Eco Roller Shutter functionnality (having a motor, but no remote control) by introducing a MCU controlling the UP/DOWN buttons.

The 15mm strap allows a seamless integration. For a 23mm strap, the electronic parts might have to be put outside of the shutter box. The AP-version stands for 'Aufputz' (surface mounted) in German, the UP-version stands for 'Unterputz' (flush) in German, this model seems more compact, not sure how easy things can be fit inside.

Supplies

Tools:

PH1 screw driver
T7 screw driver
3.5 flat standard screw driver
cutter blade
soldering iron + solder wire

Parts:

1x RADEMACHER / JAROLIFT Eco AP 15/5 - https://anleitungen.jalousiescout.de/elektr.gurtw... ~70€
1x MCU (e.g. WEMOS LOLIN D1 Mini v3.0.0 with 4MB flash memory - https://www.wemos.cc/en/latest/_static/files/sch_...) ~2€
1x 24V/DC 5V/DC @500mA buck converter (e.g. R-78E5.0-0.5 - https://recom-power.com/pdf/Innoline/R-78E-0.5.pdf) ~3€
2x optocouplers Vr~=5V, If~=30mA or similar (dual channel) to bypass the push button (e.g. SFH610A-1 - https://www.vishay.com/docs/83666/sfh610a.pdf) ~0.50€/piece
2x 220 Ohm resistors ~0.xy€/piece
a few cm² of PCB
double strand braided cable (e.g. 2x 0.14mm² for audio)
tape (optional)

Prices depend on the sellers.

Step 1: Shutter Box Disassembly

The device shall not be powered.

Use the cutter blade to cut the vendor seal located at the bottom.
Unscrew the 7x screws at the back of the box, remove the lid.
Dislocate the small "half-disc cover" from the lid (press it down, then slide).
Remove the 2x screws tigheting the control board.
Unplug all connectors to ease the soldering work.

You should now have all the components separated.

Make sure to put the screws in a small box to find them back when you will reassemble.

Step 2: MCU Software

Tasmota is well established for the ESP8266, we will be using it to communicate over the MQTT protocol. The selected MCU as enough flash memory to provide OTA updates if necessary, so we do not have to dismount the device again.

Tasmota configuration:

Configure Module: 'Generic (18)' GPIO5 to Relay1 and GPIO4 to Relay2 to use the UP/DOWN buttons.
Configure MQTT.
Configure Timer: 'Enable Timers = true', 'Timer1: Enable = true', 'Timer2: Enable = True' => save.

Tasmota MQTT configuration:

Host + Port: your MQTT broker address and associated port.
Topic + Full Topic: configure it as you wish for addressing the MCU.

Configure Other:

Tick MQTT Enable
Device Name: name seen with discovery protocol
Friendly Name 1: Relay1 name, e.g. RollerShutterUp
Friendly Name 2: Relay2 name, e.g. RollerShutterDown

Tasmota rules:

Rule1 ON Power1#state=1 DO RuleTimer1 <seconds> ENDON ON Rules#Timer=1 DO Power1 off ENDON
Rule1 on
Rule2 ON Power2#state=1 DO RuleTimer2 <seconds> ENDON ON Rules#Timer=2 DO Power2 off ENDON
Rule2 on

The <second> parameter is to be replaced by the duration in seconds you would like to have the relays kept ON, before being automatically switched off by Tasmota's rule.

Notes:

We are using relays in combination with rules to simulate a long-press to bypass the device debounce. You can go for a button if your setup is doing a long-press at another stage.
1s or 2s shall do the job before resetting the switching back the relay.

Step 3: Soldering and Fitting the Electronics

First, clear the "half-disc cover" with the cutter blade (or use a side cutting pliers), as you can see on the picture this is where we will be fitting the additional electronics parts. As you can see, the 'WEMOS LOLIN D1 Mini' fits perfectly in the middle.

Now we need to cut 6x double stranded cable chunks that will later be soldered (the longer the cables, the more difficulties you will have to fit things into the shutter box):

3cm: buck converter (+5V, GND) <=> MCU (+5V, GND); a bit longer on the picture.
7cm: MCU (GND) <=> PCB (optocouplers)
7cm: MCU (D1, D2) <=> PCB (resistors)
14cm: power board (+24V, GND) <=> buck converter
14cm: control board <=> PCB (optocoupler)
14cm: control board <=> PCB (optocoupler)

Refer to the scheme to solder all the parts.

Caveats:

D1 and D2 are to be used on this MCU.
Watch out for the optocoupler polarity.
The PCB is meant to be as small as possible, refer to the next step to have a good overview of what is to be achieved.

At this stage, without reassembling the whole device, common sense tells us to test our prototype to validate the wiring and the logic:

Plug all connectors back and the device's power supply.
Use MQTT to publish messages (relay pins ON/OFF) to trigger UP and DOWN buttons.
If everything works as expected, proceed to the next step. Otherwise verify your wiring and MCU configuration.

Step 4: Reassembly

This is the trickiest step, all parts need to be fitted into the "half-disc cover". Once all parts inside, you can use some tape to keep things in place.

Put all screws back, the last picture gives an idea about how the final assembly may look like. One could drill holes to avoid having the cables pushing the cover out of its place, in my case this is not preventing the strap from winding, so I kept it that way.

Test once again the remote control over MQTT to make sure nothing got teared apart while reassembling.

Proceed bringing your roller shutter to your wall. Enjoy.