Newbie questions – OSPI on the way. Looking to replace current "dumb" controller

[redheadedrod]

Have my OSPI on order so I expect it here soon and excited to get it up and running. I read the directions today and I will be putting this in place of an older “push in the pin” style controller box.

I have some related questions which are not fully explained.

Since I have both RPI 2 and 3 I will likely use my 2 with WiFi dongle for now. Assuming it works as expected I will likely move this to a RPI Zero W which I assume will run without any additional requirements such as a USB power supply?

With the current unit There is a motor starter and 8 zones. If I am reading the directions correctly I will have to use one of the OSPI “zones” as the pump controller output and setup each zone to need to use this “Master” zone? In other words will only have 7 available zones?

The current setup has 5 zones. of which 4 of the zones are pretty small for this pump and I may want to try running pairs of them together or up to 4 of them together if possible if my pump will support them all. The 5th zone has enough heads on it that it probably is not desirable to run it with any other zones. (Zone 5 has 7 gear driven heads, 1 other zone has 3 of the same heads and the rest of the zones use much smaller spray nozzles.)
If I setup my Zone 5 as sequential and the others as Parallel is it possible that any of the parallel zones will try to run with the sequential zone?

There is no link for the “current” firmware manual, latest one available is 2.1.7?

As I said, I do NOT have the unit in my hands yet as I got notification it was sent out today. I just want to insure I have what I need on hand before it gets here. I will probably install the software on one of my RPI 2 units and see if I can tinker with it at all.

If I decide to stay with the RPI 2 and install the RPI 7 inch touch screen has anyone verified if that will work or if it uses pins used by the OSPI?

Thanks for your time in answering my questions!

Rodney

[redheadedrod]

Follow up on the Sequential / Parallel modes.

What I meant to ask was I know the parallel zones will run with other parallel zones but will they also try to run when a sequential zone is active?
And will the sequential try to run when parallel zones are active?

I would hope the normal operation is that a sequential zone only runs by its self. Or that there is an option to do this. Shouldn’t be hard to incorporate.

Also, if there is a rain delay due to the weather site used saying there has been rain, Should I be safe to assume that any delay would be given to all of the zones that over lap or are sequentially starting?

Ie 2 zones, first one parallel starts at 8pm and runs for an hour, second one is sequential and runs at 9pm. Due to the weather there is a 30 minute delay in the starting of the parallel one. So now the parallel will run from 8:30pm-9:30pm. Will the Sequential one then not run until 9:30pm or will it try to run at 9pm? Also assuming the result in reverse would be the case.

This might also be affected by the %water amount as well… If same setup as last paragraph and was assumed to be 100% water to get above setting then at 50% watering the parallel one would run from 8pm-8:30 then the Sequential would run at 9pm? But if the water was at 150% would the Parallel run from 8-930 then the Sequential start at 9pm?

I would rather have my water run constantly from one zone to the next but would like to be able to group zones together in software as I may run different zones depending on where vehicles are parked and such.

Note that in the above examples I might actually have 2 Parallel zones running at the same time thus the desire to run parallel zones. (Saves energy if I can run more than one zone at the same time if the pump can support it.) My Parallel zone configuration will likely change as needed due to vehicle parking or other similar issues. Or one area more shaded than another etc.

If I read correctly at this point in time if I want to use the weather modifications to my zone watering I need to overlap my zones. If I want to insure they run sequentially and run until they are done I need to setup all 5 zones as sequential and probably set the start times up 1 minute apart and it should run them one after the other? Ie zone 1-5 at 8pm, 8:01, 8:02, 8:03, 8:04? Then they will run one after the other and expand out according to duration that is set and weather condition modifications?

If this last paragraph is correct then I may just have to at some point use my software engineering skills and change to my liking. (One of the main reasons I chose OpenSprinkler… ) I have other projects I need to complete so it wouldn’t be a “this week” thing… 😉

Thanks again.

Rodney

[Ray]

The firmware user manual is available here:
https://openthings.freshdesk.com/solution/articles/5000716364-user-manuals

OpenSprinkler uses software defined master zone. So if you enable 1 master zone, you have 7 zones left. You can set up the firmware on your RPi and try out the firmware features without OSPi. This will allow you to test the programs and see if they do what you need them to do.

Regarding your questions about serial vs. parallel, and rain delay, I suggest that you take a look at the user manual first. Your questions may very well be answered there.

[redheadedrod]

Ok, I guess I will just have to tinker with it. I see the user manual link is now available. It wasn’t for the 2.1.8 when I originally posted this message but is now.

The manual isn’t really clear on some of what I mentioned which is why I posted the questions. Again I guess I will just have to tinker with it.

From other postings it looks like the Sequential stations only affect other Sequential stations and that Parallel stations will run regardless of what the other stations are set. Which I think is not the best option. I will verify this when I have mine up and running. I have my unit now but decided to order a Pi Zero W and use it as the cost of that unit is nearly the same as buying a nano WiFi dongle.

If the Sequential and Parallel zones run at the same time I will be looking to add a feature to disallow this. Basically force the Sequential stations to only start when no other station is running and only allow parallel stations to run if a Sequential station is not already running. (May add an option to the Sequential stations to force Sequential action regardless) Will have to see how it works.

Thanks

[Ray]

“the Sequential stations only affect other Sequential stations and that Parallel stations will run regardless of what the other stations are set” — this is correct.

If you want to manually manage how the zones run, you can set all of them to parallel and use multiple programs to arrange how you want the zones to run.

[redheadedrod]

Ok, I will have to dig into the source code at some point and try modifying it to allow Sequential stations to run all by themselves.

In my case one zone is a large zone and may not play well with the other zones. Maybe one or two but certainly not all 4 of the other zones. The other 4 zones however are small enough to have them all run together as one if necessary. Certainly overlapping isn’t an issue with them.

I ended up purchasing a RPI Zero W to run with mine as none of my WiFi cards were apparently Nano and was close to same price to just purchase a RPI Zero W as it was to get the WiFi dongle.

Have the unit with the software running on it, just need to install it now and see how well it works.

Rodney

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