IDEA – Runoff detection function

[tlukowski]

Greetings, I am currently using an Open Sprinkler along with my Pulse Hub with a VWC sensor automating my watering cycles for my plants in rockwool using the defined VWC trigger then to desired VWC in %. The unique challenge with rockrool (but not limited to, all mediums encounter this), is the fact that you start with a high VWC at the beginning of a grow, and will end in a low VWC at the end. As the roots slowly take over the medium, limiting the water carrying capacity in the overall volume, causing more and more runoff if the parameters are left unattended. You would want the controller to detect that runoff, then slowly adjust up the trigger VWC and adjust the desired target VWC down to match the current max VWX content of the grow medium and maintain the desired dryoff target %.

To first determine the runoff trigger(psudo code): IF pump/Valve = on for x amount of minutes AND VWC did NOT increase by 1%, RunoffTrigger=True // If the pump has been running for over 5 minutes and the VWC didn’t go up by one, then runoff is happening, set variable to True.

Now that we detected runoff, we can first schedule a single cycle to cause the desired runoff volume depending on growth phase. The second part is to simply reduce the target VWC by 1% and irrigation trigger UP by one to keep the desired dryoff % targets unchanged.

If Runofftrigger=True, add +(min) irrigation cycle at the end of set cooldown period. Then increase the VWC trigger by 1%, decrease VWC target by 1%.

This is very doable, and would save a measurable amount of manual adjusting. I’m not sure if this suggestion should go to you or Pulse, but I figure I start the conversation. By doing very little work, can amount to an incredible amount of value and time savings.

Thanks!

[Author]

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