Have older OSPi; solenoids opening and closing (pulsing water on and off)

[jollyrogers]

Hi,

I apologize if this is a repeat. I’ve searched these forums inside and out, and I can’t find anyone who has my same problem. I purchased an OSPi a few years ago, and finally got around to connecting it last year. I have had a Hunter SRC Plus controller, and everything works great with this controller. Of course, being a Raspberry Pi enthusiast, I wanted to change out my Hunter controller with the OSPi. At first, everything seemed to work as expected. Soon after, I noticed that the water would not stay on, and I could hear the clicking of the solenoids in the middle of the night when the cycles were running. The water will come on for anywhere from 5 seconds to a few minutes, and then it will shut off, and then repeat the cycle. This isn’t just annoying, I imagine this can’t be good for the valves or the solenoids either.

– My Hunter is powered by a 24VAC transformer, which also seems to power the OSPi just fine.
– My solenoids are all Hunter brand, but they appear to be the 24VAC, non-latching kind (each has two red wires), though I’m not 100% sure they are non-latching (picture of one of my boxes is attached)
– Water pressure shouldn’t be an issue, as my irrigation pressure has always been very good–even at busy watering times of the day; also again, everything works great with the Hunter SRC Plus controller
– All solenoids have this same behavior, which I would think eliminates possibility of wiring problems

I’m really hoping someone on these boards can help me. Could this be a problem with the OSPi itself? It is one of the older models. If it comes down to my valves being the problem, I’ll sadly have to part with my OSPi and stick to my boring, unconnected Hunter, as it’s not worth the money and time it would take to replace all of the valves and/or solenoids.

Thank you!

[jollyrogers]

Attaching the picture of one of my two boxes (first attempt failed). Retrying with smaller image file.

Attachments:

1. 

   IMG_0886.jpg
   

[Ray]

The first thing to check is whether you are using the official OpenSprinkler firmware, or third-party OpenSprinkler firmware. We can only provide support for the official OpenSprinkler firmware. The interface should look like this:
http://demo.opensprinkler.com/
default password is opendoor.

[jollyrogers]

I’m using the latest version of the official firmware. My interface looks the same as the demo.

Thanks

[jollyrogers]

Also, if it’s helpful, the exact version of the hardware is:
OpenSprinkler Raspi 1.2 (Rayshobby 06/2013)

The Pi is the original Raspberry Pi Model B.

[Ray]

Just to make sure, can you go to the About page and find out the firmware version? To get to the about page, you click on the upper-left corner icon to bring out the side bar, then click on About.

Also, did you use the pre-configured SD card image, or did you have an existing Raspbian and installed the firmware yourself? If it’s the latter, it’s possible that you may have another program using GPIO causing interference with the firmware.

[jollyrogers]

Ray,

Sorry for the delay in following up with this. When I first started out with OSPi, I did install and play around with other firmwares, which made your theory about multiple programs using GPIO at the same time plausible. I decided to start from scratch and reimage my SD card with the latest firmware, and it works great so far!

Thank you!

[Author]

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