Suggestion: Add a 'load'-setting

[gartner]

Hi

I miss a feature where you could set a “load” for each station. 0-100%. And then when running a program, have opensprinkler run the stations either from the top, with a load as close to maximum as possible, or even have it re-arrange the stations in the program, to make it as efficient as possible.

Reason: I have one watersupply into my property. This can supply a set amount of woter (100%). I have 15+ stations, some of them take op almost 100% of the watersupply, and some just take 20% of it.
If I make a program now, it will run one station at a time – this can take a lot of time, as just one station is run at a time, when some of them (but not all) could be run in parallel.

I know I can untick the ‘sequintial’ for each station, but this in turn can still give me trouble if I start a non-sequintial station that uses 20% and then at the same time one of the stations that take almost 100%.

Thank you for making this product, its quite awesome!

-mads

[Michael]

In case those “20%”-stations should run the same duration, you could group the corresponding valves in hardware. Combine five 20%-stations into one.

[gartner]

Good suggestion!
However, that is not the case here. I tend to mix and match the stations which is also why using the ‘sequential’ option is not that usefull to me. There is no guarantee that I do not start too many valves for my watersupply to keep up if I set ‘sequential’ on the valves.

[Ray]

I think this feature is too specialized. Would the ability to group stations into ‘parallel groups’ helps? Previously there have been proposals to create ‘sequential groups’ — stations that must be serialized can be put into the same group, and stations from different sequential groups are allowed to run at the same time. Your application would be the opposite of this — stations that should run at the same time can be put into the same ‘parallel group’, and stations from different parallel groups must be serialized.

[mark182henderson]

Ray,

I hadn’t thought about having open sprinkler do the load balancing for me. I agree that this is probably too specialized for you to spend any time on. What I was hoping for is the sequential groups option. Then I could do a fair job of balancing the load just by choosing which zones to put into each group. So this is my question. Is the sequential groups option something that will be rolled out at some point? Or is there not enough interest from users to make it worthwhile for you to put the considerable time and effort that it would require into it?

[Ray]

Sequential groups is definitely something quite a number of users have requested, and that should be a high priority for next round of firmware update.

[Author]

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