Danfoss Randall FP975 Direct Plug-in Replacement Programmer

Read the reviews most seemed positive, easy to fit it said. Mmmmm!! Really? YES it was, follow the instructions and you should be done in minutes, only have the hot water in at the moment but all working perfectly, extremely happy with my purchase

Arrived very promptly. Replaces the previous Danfoss which succumbed in the electrical cut out after 25 years. Out of box and functioning in under an hour.

I installed this myself as a direct replacement for my old 922 model. It fitted easily onto the existing backplate and the instructions were simple enough. It’s running a gravity fed hot water supply and copper cylinder with pumped central heating. It’s been on and working fine for about 7 weeks now. So far so good.

I bought this FP975 controller because it was the easy option to quickly upgrade my old Randall 972 controller without having to re-wire everything. The FP975 is backplate-compatible so it just plugs straight in, albeit the physical size/shape of the box is different - not important if your older controller is sitting flat onto a wall, not so convenient if it is inset flush (as mine was) because the new one is offset to the left from the original when installed on the existing series9 backplate. Other than that the FP975 is just a like-for-like replacement and it offers no more functionality than the older 972. The tiny LCD display is woefully lacking and shows less information about what is happening. e.g., the on/off times are not displayed, so you are not going to know when the system will next switch on/off just by glancing at the display. The backup battery in my Randall 972 had failed so after even a moments power outage it would lose all it's settings - that was one reason for 'upgrading'. However, although the original NiCad Varta battery is no longer available it can still be replaced in the 972 by soldering in a new compatible NiMH one (search for 1-V150H_pin I8 1.2V 150 mAh NiMH button with pins) at a cost of around £5 if you shop around (avoid Ebay where you'll pay twice that!). It was worth the repair as I now have a spare controller should this new one stop working. I'm only giving this FP975 three stars because of its poor display, the lack of info is particularly noticeable when you compare it to most other new controllers - and this FP975 is not cheap.

Had to make some changes to the wiring but now installed works well.

This product was purchased to replace like with like for ease of fitting. However, I had to contact Danfloss Support as it appeared to me, viewing the old with the new, that the micro switch instruction label on the rear of the controller had been incorrectly attached indicating that the 4 switches were in reverse order. Once this error was confirmed, the set up all went well. I did suggest to Danfloss that they may wish to investigate to ensure this was an isolated manufacturing problem. Had the initial problem not been encountered, then I would happily have given 5 stars.

Direct replacement for twenty year old part which had been trouble free for twenty years. Hope this one is as good as the last one. Easily fitted in minutes.

Looked identical to our 2002 model that broke down. But appearances are deceptive - and so is the manual. Our old one had two functions - daily, and weekday/weekend. The new one had an extra - 24/7. But the manual didn't bother mentioning this, and I could not recognise the figures on the display which was 24/7 by default!!! Fortunately the excellent helpline had the problem sorted without a fuss, and it has worked perfectly ever since.