Welcome to Controls Traders, located in Adelaide, South Australia. We are a supplier of quality building automation controls and peripheral products for the HVAC industry. We stock a full range of controllers, sensors, valves and actuators, damper actuators and accessories to suit any application. Our aim is to provide our customers with the highest level of service, from sales to delivery and after sales support. With our extensive in-house knowledge and expertise in the industry, we can advise you on selection and application of our wide range of controls products.
Backed by 40 years industry experience. When you just need to be sure.
No, we’re serious. Anywhere. Anytime.
We stock all major global brands. And if we don’t have it, we’ll find it.
We warehouse the stock so you don’t have to wait.
$150.00 ex GST
For HVAC consultants and commissioning engineers, hydraulic instability is the enemy of efficiency. In a traditional variable volume system, pressure fluctuations caused by opening and closing valves elsewhere in the loop can cause "ghost flows" and overflow conditions.
The solution to this hydraulic cross-talk is the Pressure-Independent Control Valve (PICV).
At Controls Traders, we have over 40 years of industry experience supplying high-performance valves to the Australian market. We see PICVs as the standard for modern energy-efficient design, replacing the traditional "control valve plus balancing valve" setup.
A PICV is a single valve body that combines three functions:
Unlike a standard control valve, where flow is a function of both opening area and differential pressure ($Q = Kv \times \sqrt{\Delta P}$), a PICV maintains a constant flow rate regardless of pressure changes in the branch line.
In a large chilled water system, when a valve closes on the ground floor, the pump pressure (head) increases for the rest of the building. In a standard system, this pressure spike forces more water through open valves on the top floor, leading to overflow and Low $\Delta T$ Syndrome.
A PICV prevents this using an internal mechanical regulator (often a diaphragm and spring).
This ensures that the control valve cone (the part the actuator moves) always sees a constant differential pressure, making the flow dependent only on the actuator position, not the pump speed.
When specifying or installing a PICV, you are dealing with three distinct elements:
Why are consultants specifying PICVs for hospitals and Green Star buildings?
Advanced Tech: For the ultimate in visibility, the Belimo Energy Valve combines a PICV with flow sensors and temperature sensors to measure energy consumption ($kWh$) and self-optimize based on real-time coil performance.
PICVs are the "go-to" solution for variable flow systems where efficiency is critical.
Scenario: A 10-story office building in Adelaide. The Problem: When the morning warmup sequence ends and VAV boxes throttle down, the pressure in the riser spikes. The PICV Solution: Instead of installing a 2-way ball valve and a manual balancing valve at every FCU, the installer fits a single Pressure Independent Control Valve.
The Pressure-Independent Control Valve is not just a valve; it is a hydraulic stabiliser. It decouples the control loop from the hydraulic loop, allowing your BMS to control temperature without fighting system pressure.
At Controls Traders, we stock a wide range of PICVs and matching actuators from brands like Belimo and Siemens. Whether you are retrofitting a plant room or designing a new build, getting the valve selection right is the first step to a high-efficiency building.
Read the full guide on our website for flow diagrams and actuator pairing charts.
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In Building Management Systems (BMS), the controller is the brain, but the sensors are the nervous system. No matter how advanced your iSMA or Siemens Controller is, it cannot maintain occupant comfort or energy efficiency if it is receiving inaccurate data.
For mechanical engineers and installers, selecting the "right" sensor isn't just about picking a catalogue number. It requires matching the physical form factor to the medium (air or water) and the electrical characteristics to the controller’s input card.
At Controls Traders, we stock the full spectrum of Sensors & Transducers from trusted brands like BAPI, ACI, and Siemens. Here is a technical breakdown of how to choose the right temperature sensor for your application.
A temperature sensor is the primary variable for 90% of HVAC control loops.
We categorise sensors based on where they live and what they measure.
Once you have the physical type, you must select the sensing element. This creates the most confusion for junior technicians.
Based on our experience supplying the Australian market, here are common pairings:
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Even the best sensor fails if placed poorly.
Selecting the right temperature sensor ensures your BMS operates efficiently and your tenants stay comfortable. Whether you need a simple strap-on sensor for a retrofit or a high-precision immersion sensor for a hospital chiller, the details matter.
At Controls Traders, we warehouse a massive range of sensors from BAPI, ACI, and Siemens, ready for fast delivery across Australia.
Need to check a resistance curve or find a compatible thermowell? Read the full guide on our website for selection charts and technical specs.
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For decades, the "twisted pair" ruled the BMS world. If you were fitting out a plant room in a hospital or a university campus, you pulled kilometers of MSTP cable, terminated RS-485 shields, and chased down ground loops.
But with the rise of IoT and the push for cheaper retrofits, LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) has entered the chat.
For integrators, the question isn't "which is better?"—it’s "which is right for this specific application?" Using LoRaWAN for critical valve control is a disaster waiting to happen, just as running RS-485 across a 5km campus for three temperature sensors is financial suicide.
At Controls Traders, we stock both the heavy-duty wired controllers (iSMA, EasyIO, Siemens) and modern wireless sensors (like Aranet). Here is our technical breakdown of when to pull cable and when to go wireless.
The choice between wired and wireless dictates your labour costs, reliability, and commissioning time.
BACnet MS/TP (Master-Slave/Token-Passing) runs on the RS-485 physical layer. It connects devices in a daisy-chain topology.
LoRaWAN is a Low Power, Wide Area Network protocol designed for IoT sensors. Unlike WiFi (high bandwidth, short range) or Bluetooth (short range), LoRaWAN uses sub-gigahertz radio frequencies to transmit small data packets over massive distances.
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Imagine a university campus with a main chiller plant (Building A) and a small remote lecture hall (Building B) 500m away.
Don't force a square peg into a round hole.
At Controls Traders, we have 40 years of industry experience helping integrators design these networks. We stock the BACnet controllers you need for the plant room and the wireless sensors you need for the field.
Need help selecting a gateway or controller? Read the full guide on our website for protocol diagrams and integration options.
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If you walk into the plant room of a hospital in Melbourne or an office block in Sydney built before 2000, there is a good chance you will hear the hiss of compressed air.
Pneumatic controls—relying on 3–15 psi signals to open valves and dampers—were the industry standard for decades. They are durable and safe, but they are also "dumb." They drift, they leak, and they offer zero data visibility.
For modern facility management, "blind" systems are no longer acceptable. The push for NABERS ratings and energy efficiency is driving a massive wave of retrofits across Australia and New Zealand.
At Controls Traders, we supply the hardware for these upgrades every day. Whether you are planning a full rip-and-replace or a hybrid integration, here is the technical workflow for retrofitting pneumatics to a digital Building Management System (BMS).
In a legacy pneumatic system, a compressor sends air to a Receiver-Controller (RC). Thermostats act as bleed valves; as the room warms up, the thermostat changes the air pressure in the line. This pressure change physically inflates a diaphragm on a valve or damper actuator to move it.
While mechanically ingenious, these systems have no memory and no feedback loop. If a damper is stuck, the compressor just keeps pushing air, and the facilities manager has no idea until a tenant complains.
The ROI on replacing pneumatics is usually driven by three factors:
To convert air to electrons, you generally need three categories of hardware:
Unlike pneumatics, digital actuators need to be "taught" their limits.
Once the hardware is installed, the BACnet Controllers come into play. Instead of a simple proportional band (like a pneumatic thermostat), you now configure PID loops in the software. This allows you to implement strategies that were impossible before, such as:
Retrofitting pneumatic controls extends the life of mechanical plant and drastically cuts energy bills. While the upfront labour is significant, the removal of compressor maintenance and the gain in control precision pays for itself.
At Controls Traders, we have 40 years of industry experience helping contractors navigate these upgrades. We stock the actuators, linkage kits, and controllers you need in Adelaide, ready for Australia-wide delivery.
Ready to start your retrofit? Read the full guide on our website for retrofit tool lists and product recommendations.
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