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
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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If you are managing a commercial building in Australia, you know that HVAC consumption typically accounts for 40–50% of your total electricity bill. Within that plant room, supply and extract fans are often the biggest culprits of energy waste.
The solution isn't just buying newer fans; it is controlling the ones you have intelligently.
At Controls Traders, we have supplied building automation components for over 40 years. One of the most effective upgrades we see for immediate ROI is the installation of Variable Speed Drives (VSDs). This guide explains the physics behind the savings and how to apply them to your facility.
In short, Variable Speed Drives reduce HVAC fan energy use because they:
1. Match fan speed to real-time airflow demand instead of running at full speed.
2. Exploit the fan affinity laws, where small speed reductions deliver large energy savings.
3. Enable intelligent control via BMS signals, pressure sensors, and CO₂-based demand control.
A Variable Speed Drive (VSD)—also known as a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD)—is an electronic device that controls the speed of an AC induction motor by varying the frequency and voltage supplied to it.
Think of a VSD as a "dimmer switch" for your heavy industrial motors. Without a VSD, your AHU (Air Handling Unit) fan is either OFF or running at 100% full speed. With a VSD, that same fan can run at 40%, 60%, or 95%—matching the exact airflow required by the building at that moment.
Most HVAC systems in Australia are designed for "Design Day" conditions—the hottest days of the year (e.g., a 40°C day in Adelaide or Western Sydney).
However, these peak conditions occur for only a fraction of the year. For the remaining 95% of the time, the building operates at partial load. If your supply fans are running at full speed during mild weather, you are pushing more air than necessary.
In older systems without VSDs, this excess air is often choked back using mechanical dampers or inlet guide vanes. This is the energy equivalent of driving your car with your foot flat on the accelerator and controlling your speed by riding the brakes. It is inefficient and mechanically stressful.
A VSD replaces the need for mechanical throttling. By receiving a signal from your Building Management System (BMS) or a standalone controller, the VSD slows the motor itself down.
The financial magic of VSDs lies in the Fan Affinity Laws.
While flow is proportional to speed, power is proportional to the cube of the speed. This is known as the "Cube Law." $$Power \propto Speed^3$$
This means a small reduction in fan speed results in a massive reduction in energy consumption.
Let’s look at the math for a standard supply fan running at 80% speed (a 20% reduction):
The Result: By slowing your fan down by just 20%, you reduce its electricity consumption by roughly 50%. Even a modest reduction of 10% speed saves nearly 30% in energy. This is why VSDs offer such a rapid payback period.
VSDs are versatile and can be applied to almost any rotating equipment in the plant room:
While VSDs are powerful, they require correct installation:
Beyond the electricity bill, VSDs reduce mechanical wear. By "soft starting" the motor (ramping up slowly), you eliminate the high-torque shock of "Direct On Line" (DOL) starting, which extends the life of belts, bearings, and couplings.
For most commercial buildings, the ROI on a VSD retrofit is typically under 2 years, making it one of the most attractive CapEx projects for facility managers.
If your HVAC fans are running at constant speed while your building load varies, you are paying for energy you don't use. Implementing Variable Speed Drives allows you to harness the Cube Law, turning a 20% speed reduction into a 50% energy saving.
At Controls Traders, we warehouse a range of drives and controls suitable for the Australian market, ready for fast delivery.
Ready to upgrade your plant room? Read the full guide on our website for installation specs and recommended models. Browse our range of Variable Speed Drives and Test Instruments to get started.
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