sprinklers_pi – An alternative sprinkler control program

[LeighGr]

@rszimm wrote:

The API allows you to combine two different “pages” of information into a single call. The “yesterday” in the URL gives me data for what happened yesterday. The “conditions” in the URL gives me data for current conditions. Put them both in the URL and you’ll get everything in one API call. Here’s a link to the API documentation: http://api.wunderground.com/weather/api/d/docs

Thanks Rich. I’ve been wondering the same thing myself. I’ve attempted to modify your code in an attempt to get the current wind speed. My problem is 4 out of 5 time I run the WUnderground Diagnostics, I receive an “Invalid Response from WUnderground server!” message. I’d be happy that I’d broken the code if it did it every single time, but every now and then it does return all the data, so it’s not too broken.

Is there a way I can pipe the response to a file, or a debug page, so I can figure out where it’s tripping up?

Regards,

[jonathon]

Hi,

Apologies in advance, this is a newbie question. My sprinkler_pi says “Communication Failure” when doing a WUnderground Check. I’ve checked that I my API key is correct. I’m using 69.192.200.120 for the WUnderground IP.
I’ve tried using both a zip code (98101) and a PWS ID (IBCVICTO1) but none of those changes appear to make any difference. Is there a log I can check?

[LeighGr]

@jonathon wrote:

Hi,

Apologies in advance, this is a newbie question. My sprinkler_pi says “Communication Failure” when doing a WUnderground Check. I’ve checked that I my API key is correct. I’m using 69.192.200.120 for the WUnderground IP.

Hi Jonathon

I don’t know where you got that IP address, but I’m using 38.102.136.138, as indicated in Rich’s screenshots, and it works 1/10 times, but I don’t get Comms failure messages.

[jonathon]

I don’t know where you got that IP address, but I’m using 38.102.136.138, as indicated in Rich’s screenshots, and it works 1/10 times, but I don’t get Comms failure messages.

Thanks Leigh! Switching to 38.102.136.138 works. I almost always get a Communication Failure message. In case it helps someone else, I’ve found clearing the error message and pressing [F5] is frequently successful.

[dkossman]

I’ve just received my OpenSprinkler 1.2 board and it’s hooked up to my new Rev B Pi and wired to my sprinklers. I installed sprinklers_pi and its dependencies, set up the schedules, zones and wunderground key, set the output to openSprinkler, etc. However, I’m seeing unreliable valve control – both when using the Manual option and when scheduling. the symptom is that sometimes a zone doesn’t turn on when it should, and sometimes it doesn’t turn off when it should. I’m checking the output voltage directly on the station pins. once it gets stuck, the only solution is to use the Advanced/reset function. the app continues to run and everything appears to be OK, but station control stops working.

I shut down the sprinklers_pi app and ran the ospi_selftest program, and this runs fine – all zones started and stopped as expected (i had disconnected everything, so this test was with no load, whereas when i was testing sprinklers_pi, the valves were connected).

I did notice that the output of i2cdetect has some UU entries – could this be the issue?

pi@raspberryospi ~ $ sudo i2cdetect -y 1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f
00: — — — — — — — — — — — — —
10: — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
20: — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
30: — — — — — — — — — — — UU — — — —
40: — — — — — — — — 48 — — — — — — —
50: — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
60: — — — — — — — — UU — — — — — — —
70: — — — — — — — —

Has anyone else run into this? Thanks for any suggestions.

Don

[Ray]

I suggest first following the instructions here to set the RTC time:
http://learn.adafruit.com/adding-a-real-time-clock-to-raspberry-pi/set-rtc-time
because RTC was not set initially on OSPi, I’ve seen a few cases where it may cause the RTC to be detected as UU. Setting a valid time may help solve the problem.

[dkossman]

thanks – actually the RTC was set up. But it turns out the real cause of the problem was apparently just a poor or intermittent connection between the Pi and the Open Sprinkler board. One of the ribbon cable connectors apparently wasn’t seated correctly or there was some dirt on one of the contacts. I reseated it, and everything seems to be working fine now :-). I’m still seeing the “UU” entries in the output of i2cdetect, but I believe this is because these devices are in use by the program so show up as “Unavailable”.

BTW I also was having problems with the pi sometimes losing its wifi connection, and not re-connecting – found the “wicd-curses” package and would strongly recommend it to anyone having similar problems (or just to simplify setting up wifi on the pi):

http://windowslinuxcommands.blogspot.com/2013/06/raspberry-pis-new-wifi-manager-friend.html

my next project is to figure out the best way to connect my existing rain sensor (its just a NC switch that opens when it gets wet) to the pi/OSPI board, and integrate it with sprinklers_pi code.

regards
Don

[Rexel99]

@jonathon wrote:

I don’t know where you got that IP address, but I’m using 38.102.136.138, as indicated in Rich’s screenshots, and it works 1/10 times, but I don’t get Comms failure messages.

I was getting a ‘Bad response from Wunderground’ and the IP I got pinging api.wunderground.com presented two other options (switching). I was also trying to use the Melbourne airpot PWS (YMML) so all combined it wouldnt work.

Changed ip to the 30.102… Added 90210 to the P/Code (just to avoid ‘0’ and yet staying with PWS) and changed the PWS reference to another close to the airport IVICMARI2 and together this seems to work.

Very happy as I have just installed this onto the OS that comes with XBMC, this unit will be my Media Centre in my back yard and also do the sprinkler control, should be a nice efficient and valued combo.

Thanks Rich.

[Rexel99]

One question…

I can’t find a description/explanation of the term ‘Duration’ anywhere…?

When you set a schedule is the ‘Duration’ 1 = 1 Minute (up to 100 minutes?)
That being the case then if you set multiple (start) times in a single schedule, say 5pm, 6pm & 7pm but the Duration is 60 then the valve would remain open for 3 hours?

[Brettv]

Hi everyone,
I have recently installed sprinklers_pi and am experiencing the following problem

If i try to access the webpage while a scheduled program is running, the sprinklers shutoff, the web page timesout and freezes up. A few mins later, the sprinklers will turn back on, but with a reset amount of time, and outside the scheduled time as well.

I can access the web page fine, when the scheduled programs are not running. Any thoughts?

Cheers
Brett

[Rexel99]

@Brettv wrote:

If i try to access the webpage while a scheduled program is running, the sprinklers shutoff, the web page timesout and freezes up. A few mins later, the sprinklers will turn back on, but with a reset amount of time, and outside the scheduled time as well.

My quick thought is the power supply, not that I yet have a lot of experience with this thing myself but… Given that the valve is on and using power it will be reduced when trying to activate things on the board/processor too. My P/S is 750mA and seems to be quite ok with one valve on at the moment and using the Pi (on my Pi I run Sprinklers-Pi and XBMC as a media centre) 😉 Still testing all that so far.

[Brettv]

Hmm interesting thought, I’ll look into it, as i have two valves operating at once (main supply valve and circuit valve)
Although the power supply i am running is rated to 1 amp.

[wingnut]

Hello everyone,
I have a quick question about the baseline values (30% humidity and 70*F) used in the weather formula. Where did theses values come from ???

The reason I ask is that I live in sunny “aka…humid” Florida and I wonder if I should change them. I ran a quick test just to see and it adjusted my scheduled time down to 17% and we haven’t had any rain lately. I doubled checked the math of the formula with the actual values at the time of the test and it was correct.

Thanks,
Kevin

[kenk]

I have just received and setup my V1.3 board with my raspberry pi.
I noticed that when I activate zone 1 from the manual activation screen, both zone one and 2 are active, if I activate zone 3, both zone 1 and 3 are active. If everything is off all zones are off.
Could zone 1 be acting like the pump zone? This is not a big deal, I will just have to shift all my wiring one to the right and correct my programming.

[eddiek2000]

@kenk wrote:

I have just received and setup my V1.3 board with my raspberry pi.
I noticed that when I activate zone 1 from the manual activation screen, both zone one and 2 are active, if I activate zone 3, both zone 1 and 3 are active. If everything is off all zones are off.
Could zone 1 be acting like the pump zone? This is not a big deal, I will just have to shift all my wiring one to the right and correct my programming.

Zone 1 is the second connection. The first is reserved for the pump.

[kenk]

Zone 1 is the second connection. The first is reserved for the pump.

Thanks for clearing this up for me.

[LeighGr]

@Rexel99 wrote:

I was getting a ‘Bad response from Wunderground’ and the IP I got pinging api.wunderground.com presented two other options (switching). I was also trying to use the Melbourne airpot PWS (YMML) so all combined it wouldnt work.

When I ping api.wunderground.com, it resolves to an akamai cluster host (a92-122-108-120.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com), which I doubt would work. When I use that IP (92.122.108.120), I immediately get an ‘Invalid Response from WUnderground server!’ response. Changing back to 38.102.136.138, it takes a few seconds before it comes with the same error, which is really starting to peeve me off.

Ahh. The problem could be with the PWS I’m trying to use. IWESTERN153, the one I was using, but now give an invalid response, does show current info on the web site. IWESTERN136, does give a valid response, and that is displayed in the diagnostics page. Only problem is, their rain gauge shows either 0 or gives wild readings, so it’s no use. One mystery solved. Time to go looking for another nearby PWS with a working rain gauge.

At least I now know it wasn’t my modifying the script to display decimal figures, as I just upgraded to 1.0.7, and was getting the same error. Now to go modify the 1.0.7 files.

Leigh

[exbangs]

Hi

Thanks so much for the excellent program. Very simple and easy to setup up.
I am having one issue and it may be very newbie of me to not be able to understand where it’s coming from.
I seem to get no response from the graph and table logs. I figured I needed to set up the Wunderground function
to actually see it, but yesterday I set it up and I do get data from the Wunderground Diagnostics section so it’s working.
Just the display for the logged irrigation times and adjustments are not.

I went into the /var/log/sprinkler_pi file and grabbed some of that information for you to see.

(from when I access the logs page)
2014/02/19 09:26:26 Got a client
2014/02/19 09:26:26 Found a KV pair : sdate -> 1392163200
2014/02/19 09:26:26 Found a KV pair : edate -> 1392768000
2014/02/19 09:26:26 Page:json/tlogs
2014/02/19 09:26:26 Prepare Failure (no such table: zonelog)

(from when the schedule runs)
2014/02/19 05:30:00 Connected
2014/02/19 05:30:00 Adjusting H(-38)T(-40)R(-62344):0
2014/02/19 05:30:00 Turning Off All Zones
2014/02/19 06:00:00 Connected
2014/02/19 06:00:00 Adjusting H(-38)T(-40)R(-62344):0
2014/02/19 06:00:00 Turning Off All Zones

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks from me and my plants for the amazing program.

[jason_lunde]

I am wanting to get the extension board. I have looked through the boards, and have thus been unsuccessful at modifying the code to get extra zonage. Any ideas from anybody? I cant be the only one wanting to do this 😀

[QMan]

Here is how you tell OpenSprinkler that you have an Extension board:
[attachment=0:k34po5d4]addExtensionBoard.jpg[/attachment:k34po5d4]

[LeighGr]

@QMan wrote:

Here is how you tell OpenSprinkler that you have an Extension board:

This is not the case for Richard’s alternative sprinkler control program. AFAIK, this only supports one expansion board, and does work, as I’m using 13 of the available 15 zones.

[jason_lunde]

Thanks for confirming that Leigh! For some reason I was under the impression that the expansion board would not work…though I have no reason why. I think ive been looking at code too long /sigh.

[Sepp1945]

Hi,

I had your program working perfectly, then it started to give me connections errors .. and came up with blank info eg no stations or schedules.

so I started fresh and now I have ” warning missing braces around initializer for ‘FullZone’ and the
warning: array subscript is above array bounds [-Warray-bounds] 9 times.

when I now connect via 8080 it says connection error and the blank form again.

Your kind help is very much appreciated

Many thanks

Sepp

[fendrbendr]

Does anyone know how to use all 16 stations? I’m willing to drive into the code if need be.

I wish sprinklers_pi looked at the “no master” setting and updated its interface accordingly. The Pump” under each station would go away and an additional station would become available. I apologize if all of this is already possible and I just to dense to figure it out 🙂

thanks,
ben

[rok]

Hi!
Last year everything works fine. After the winter season, yesterday I’ve activated my OSPi, connected to the web interface and tried to manually switch on one of the zones. Nothing happens. No switching, no water, no error message in the log. What’s going wrong here? Is there a problem with the hardware? How can I test/fix it?

[Author]

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