– Grouping of Stations to run parallel.
A: what I had in mind seems to be different from what you want. What I have planned is to introduce the concept of ‘sequential groups’, for example, stations 1 to 8 is in one group, 9 to 16 is in another group and so on. Stations in the same group will be serialized, while stations in different groups are allowed to run in parallel. What you want is different in that you want to bundle stations together so that they turn on and turn off at the same time. Normally this is implemented in hardware by simply inserting two station wires into the same port. It can be done in software too, for sure, but I have to think about how it fits with the ‘sequential group’ concept or if there is some way to generalize the two.
– Changing Station Run Order
A: To accommodate this, I probably need to switch the firmware to use a calendar type of scheduling method. The idea is that you can schedule stations as calendar events, so that you can drag and drop them in different orders. Not rocket science, but it does require quite a bit of UI change.
I’ve once modified OpenSprinkler for a biology professor to make it a biology experiment controller. There I wrote a customized firmware which is similar to the calendar schedule type.
http://rayshobby.net/modified-opensprinkler-becomes-a-biology-experiment-controller-2/
There is a video showing how it works (the video is somewhat long, just to warn you 🙂
– Action on irregular water flow
A: this is something we plan to introduce in the future. Currently the firmware only logs and displays flow sensor reading, and not using it to trigger any action yet. We will gradually expand the functionality here.
– Broken Wire Detection
A: both the AC and DC versions of OpenSprinkler now have current sensing circuits. When a valve is on, the app / UI will show the total current running through the valves in real-time. This isn’t doing auto-detection of broken / shorted wires / valves yet, but it does allow you to see early signs of potential problems (say if the current draw is higher than normal).