Programs not running & manual mode

[kabbak]

Hi,
First, thanks for the wonderful project and the enormous amount of work it represents!

PROBLEM: Log line says a zone ran manual mode at 18:07 May 18th, but NOT that it ran subsequently on May 20th despite preview showing it should have and wilting plants confirming watering did not happen then. Also, I believe, the device has failed to run it’s cycles before. I DID run the indicated zone manually on the 18th as logged. Might doing a manual mode on/off interfere with programs? Any idea what might be causing interval programs to not run or how to verify a conflict exists? Any easy way to tell the timekeeping to speed up by say a factor of 144 so a day passes in 10m for debugging?

Programs & Setup: I have only three active interval programs. They’re for same day, every 3 days and in the exact same time slot. I.e., Every 3, starting 2 (May 21) 06:00-07:30, Every 0hrs 20m. Prog1: 12m, prog2:12m, prog3: 17m. E.g., all should run May 17, 20, 22,… with each zone turning on twice that day. Options: sequential, delay:3, Rain delay:off, Rainsense:n/a.

V1.4s HW (has PTC device) , 1.8.3 FW from April purchase.
Thanks for your help!

[Oleengr]

It sounds like it could be the same problem I ran into.
see this link: http://rayshobby.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=86&p=329&hilit=colliding#p329
Sequential only applies within one program, not between all your programs. You have to make sure there are no programs that have different valves open at the same time. There’s a way to check for conflicts suggested in the link. I believe having Sequental ON will prevent a conflicting valve from running. If Sequential is OFF, then multiple valves may run simultaneously (if I remember correctly). If you don’t want more than one valve on at a time, then you have to adjust the times. If you can have several valves on, then there’s not a problem if sequential is OFF.
Hope this helps.

[kabbak]

Thanks for the reply.
I don’t think it’s a sequential problem as the program has not changed, has no dependencies and they have worked. Also I would expect at least one program to have a solution found.
On the other hand, something does seem wrong.

[Ray]

If you switch to manual mode, all the programs will stop running until you switch back to program mode (i.e. manual off). If you just want to run an ad-hoc program and want the controller to automatically switch back to program mode, you should consider using the ‘Run-Once program’. Please refer to this section of the user manual:
http://rayshobby.net/?page_id=730#manual

[kabbak]

Ray, thanks for straightening me out.
Aways better to find out it’s operator error than a real problem.

Perhaps a future firmware might indicate in the operation status field, manual, program, rain delay, etc. I believe I misinterpreted the operation “on” and didn’t observe the change of manual button’s text to remind me of the mode change.

I changed this post’s subject to better reflect the issues.
Thanks very much!

[djagerif]

I had a few bytes of memory left so I put something in to display Manual Mode on the LCD. See picture attached. I don’t know if I broke something else but that’s why I got this – to toy around. If there was a bit more space you could display “D” for Rain Delay Active and even “S” for Rain Sensed.

Ingo

[Ray]

I agree that a mode indication on the LCD would be useful.

I believe the firmware does show a ‘Rain Delayed’ message on the LCD when rain delay or rain sense is activated.

[djagerif]

So it is, I activated the Rain Sensor setting in the Options screen and voila, both are visible on the LCD.

[Author]

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