OpenSprinkler › Forums › Hardware Questions › OpenSprinkler Pi (OSPi) › Easy Manual Zone Feature?
- This topic has 7 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 6 months ago by Tails86.
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May 17, 2015 at 4:38 pm #37739
Tails86ParticipantI am considering on purchasing the OSPi version of OpenSprinkler. My only concern is that I have a neighbor that helps me shut down my system every year. He is not so technically inclined, and sometimes comes over while I am away. I would like to know my options as far as making it simple to start a zone manually.
I was thinking of getting a USB number keypad and modifying the software to accept manual zone entry. Having the key entry of “.12<Enter>” could stop any current program running and run zone 12 for 20 minutes. Maybe then “-” could stop whatever is running. How difficult would that be to implement?
May 17, 2015 at 9:42 pm #37743
Tails86ParticipantI thought about it some more. The terminal would be capturing keystrokes. I could have a program capturing those keystrokes and sending signals to the interval program, but that seems messy. It would probably be better/easier to implement a scanning keyboard on 8 of the unused GPIO. I can have a separate thread monitor the keys within the interval program. Then a flag can be set for timing_loop() to poll for. A buzzer would probably be nice to provide feedback on a valid entry too. Does that seem simple enough or am I overlooking something?
May 18, 2015 at 4:55 pm #37780
RayKeymasterIf what matters is to shut down the system, would it be sufficient to just unplug the COM terminal block, or even unplug the power?
May 19, 2015 at 2:10 pm #37813
Dan in CAParticipantTails86,
It sounds very doable. If you could implement it as a plugin, other users might find it useful also.
In any event, if you have specific questions, you can open an issue on Interval program’s GitHub repo and I will try to assist you as much as I can.
https://github.com/Dan-in-CA/OSPiDan
May 24, 2015 at 2:14 pm #37910
Tails86ParticipantMy neighbor usually hooks up his air compressor to the main line, and than runs each zone on the control box for a minute or so. I suppose that he could go over to each valve to turn each one on manually after powering down the system. That is a good fallback if I fail to implement something that is easy to use.
Thanks for offering your help, Dan. I have a lot of questions, but I’m still digging through the project. proto.py seems to be where I need to start. I see you even have documentation on that 🙂
May 25, 2015 at 11:01 am #37927
Dan in CAParticipantThe documentation for writing plugins still needs a lot of work.
Any questions you have will help me fill in the gaps.the best place to post questions is on the GhtHub plugins repository:
https://github.com/Dan-in-CA/ospi_plugins/issuesDan
June 14, 2015 at 8:28 pm #38416
Tails86ParticipantI find the documentation fairly straightforward so far. I’m new to python, so most of the time that I have spent building a plugin has been learning python syntax. I have a fairly simple working plugin now (
attachedattachment failed). I don’t actually have the OSPi hardware yet, but I have confirmed that it works through the web interface. I still need to flesh it out and clean it up. What would be the best way to share this?June 25, 2015 at 8:47 pm #38727
Tails86ParticipantFor anyone who is interested, I branched ospi_plugins from Dan-in-CA and added my keypad plugin here. I still still don’t have hardware, so I have only tested it using the web interface. Please don’t judge too much as this is my first time working with python.
The keypad can be used for the following functions.
-Start Manual Station
-Start Manual Program
-Set Water Level
-Set Manual Station Time
-Set Rain Delay Time-Activate Rain Delay
-Deactivate Rain Delay
-System On
-System Off
-Restart System
-Reboot OS -
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OpenSprinkler › Forums › Hardware Questions › OpenSprinkler Pi (OSPi) › Easy Manual Zone Feature?