Display of status of station for expansion module

[Andrew]

It would be nice if the station status automatically scrolled to the group that it shows as running. MC, vs E1, E2 etc.

And while we’re on it, it would be great if the station that was running would just flash as a sequential number at the end of the dispaly (seems like there is room for it).

So when station 4 is running it shows 4 flashing…or something like that. There is enough room at the end of the display to 3 digits so large expansion controllers would even work.

[Ray]

@Andrew: Automatic scroll to the current running station: yes, this can be done.

Display the station that’s running: this is a bit tricky because the LCD doesn’t have much room to display. It can certainly scroll or time share, or use a button to toggle the displayed information. To be honest, since OpenSprinkler is mainly a web-based controller, the LCD functions are kept minimal.

[Andrew]

Ray – that’s why I said based on the current design there actually is space for current station status to be showing. Here’s my suggestion in detail.

• Keep the segment display as is for the “overview” station status. Scroll through this based on active stations. In other words if any of stations 1-8 are currently running it shows the MC station status. If stations 9-16 are running the it shows the station status of E1 and if stations 17-24 are running it shows the stations status line E2. These are static displays and show you what is actually running. In the situation that stations running span multiple groups, then automatic scrolling would happen say every 2 seconds or so.
• Then, I propose we add data to the stations status line.
  • If more than one station is currently running just display a “M” for multiple in one of the last three spaces (which is currently open) of the station status line.
  • If only one station is running, then display the station NUMBER in the last three digits of the station status line.

Reasoning: With a quick view of the the display you can see what the actual status of the system is. What station is running and how far along it is in the process? Has it just started and it’s running station 1 or is it midway through say at station 9.

More info: I had an older irritrol and it has a VERY minimal display. It simply cycles the display to show the current station running and the time that stations has been running. So if it’s on station 12 that is programmed to run for 25 minutes and it’s run for 10 minutes, it cycles displaying (12 15:00) then (12 14:59)…and so on.

And while we’re on this topic, having the functionality to program the buttons on the side would be helpful as well. I know your goal is to have as much functionality within the gui as possible, but simple control from the unit is a very useful aspect as well. I would program one of the buttons to be “interrupt current program and pick up at the next program”.

Thanks,

Andrew

[Ray]

As much as I want to include your suggestions, I honestly don’t think this will happen in the near future. There are two main reasons. One, a main advantage of having a web-based controller is that you can use browsers and apps to present information in any way you want. In contrast, the LCD screen is small and limited, I just don’t know how many users really care about seeing detailed information on the LCD (less to say that the sprinkler controller is usually in the garage or some place that isn’t convenient to access). The other reason is that the microcontroller has only 64KB program memory space and 4KB RAM, I would rather use the limited resources to add other more urgent features.

[Andrew]

I’m not familiar with the code so this is just a guess – but I would think this would be just a refactoring of the valve status. In fact, when talking this over with another engineer he suggested that the each of the 8 current display places represent the station status of each group of 8.

In other words – the first display digit would have a flashing 0 for MC station one, or a flashing 1 for the first station of the next group of 8 and so on. This would not take up ANY additional real estate. This would replace the code for the current station status.

[Author]

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