[catalin]

Hello Ray,

thanks for the tips. I managed to identify and replace the faulty part in the meanwhile – the output triac. Case closed.

[catalin]

I have now replaced the old cable with another one. This would be the third tested cable. All good except for the 5th output mentioned above:

2. output 5 appears to be bad. See the gray rectangles (output 5 vs output 8). Checked the same setup for outputs 6 and 7 and it was the same outcome as for output 8. 5 stands out. 5 is the presumably dead output that has failed my previous test cable experiment.

If only I knew what part to replace…

[catalin]

Hello Mike,

Thanks for dropping in. I may have found something:

1. Pretty fluctuating outputs; see the image (the arrows inside the orange shapes indicate fluctuating values; actually i think they all fluctuate, not just the ones with arrows to their left). Input does fluctuate as I move the measuring sticks but not as much.
2. output 5 appears to be bad. See the gray rectangles (output 5 vs output 8). Checked the same setup for outputs 6 and 7 and it was the same outcome as for output 8. 5 stands out. 5 is the presumably dead output that has failed my previous test cable experiment.

I have only disconnected the second cable (5 – 8, COM) as the first cable (outputs 1 – 4, COM) does not exhibit any problems.

Attachments:

1. 

   OS_second_cable_off.jpg
   

[catalin]

I have managed to reduce the non-working valves number to 2. Still there is the issue with high voltage on non-actuated valves, even higher when no cable attached to the two respective IO port.

I have unfolded a secondary 2-wire cable just to test the two non working valves some more. I have left the return path on the the old cable and made various combinations between the 2 IO ports, the 2 wires in the secondary test cable and the 2 valves. Results: both valves working on only one of the ports. I am now stuck. Help!

[catalin]

Hello Ray,

no expansion boards involved, just regular UTP cat 5e cable extension via regular RJ-45 connectors.
I ended up replacing the two RJ-45 heads and it now works again. I think it is a humidity problem. Wish I put a whole length of cable instead of those two lengths and RJ-45 joints. Oh well… just ordered some waterproof RJ-45 female-female connector from ebay. Hope it will do the trick. Otherwise I shall be whining here for a shovel-free method of replacing those two lengths of cable with one piece. Wish me luck!

[catalin]

I have taken out the jacks and made the connections wire on wire. Worked.
Now, the red area sits inside of a valve box which sits in the ground… Could my issue have started from improper insulation, and if this is the case, what can I do to get a water tight connection ?

Thanks!

[catalin]

Good catch, I reckon the UI would benefit from validating user input. Anyway, tried 0 to 100 as well…

[catalin]

Sory, I mean neither of them apply. I.e.

>>First of all, if the change in the three factors are small (like changing from 100 to 95),

tried changing from 50 to 500 as well, and many more combos.

>>Second, each weather call takes some time to process, so if you are trying to change the factors too frequently it might not work.

I have waited for a minute already, I have waited for even days between the changes.

Thanks!

[catalin]

Hi Ray,

I am afraid neither of the two remarks do not apply for my case.

Thanks

[catalin]

I was looking for a “Water Level: X %” feedback upon adjusting the Temp / Rain / Humidity factors. And as described, I do get it at times. (i.e. X will change sometimes)

[catalin]

Hi Samer,

just tried again now without reboot:
1st fiddle worked; subsequent fiddlings did not work
Rebooted
first fiddle worked, subsequent did not
Again reboot
Nothing works any longer

I am on the controller based 2.1 DIY version

Surely this is not a js issue, right ?

thanks

[catalin]

Uhm… anyone else having issues with the water adjustment % ?
It seemed to work some days ago when I fiddled with it, but having tried just now to adjust the 3 factors once again the water % got stuck on 151%. The adjustments were properly submitted and saved on the controller, so… help please!

[catalin]

Very nice now that we have the 3 factors exposed. 🙂
I wish for the next version to allow per zone watering adjustment.

[catalin]

Good thing you are exposing those three, Samer. Another +1 from Romania. It has been so hot these days, yet the cloud has decided to go 49% water level…

Since we are on the subject of weather control, not sure what OS is currently fetching from WU. The station appears in green as well as the developer API key. However, Hitting “Weather Diagnostics” reveals a “Mean Temp” of 18 deg C, which is.. uhm.. well perhaps that was the temperature at 3 am, but no way for mean temp to have been that, we have had 30+ degrees from noon to 19 PM.
Also, after disabling / enabling Zimmerman method the “Last Weather Call” went to Jan 1st 1970… “Last Weather Call Successful” however stayed fine. And the Watering Level went back to 100% after this maneuver. “Min Humidity” and “Max Humidity” – no idea where OS pulls those from. It currently gives me max humidity of 100%. That can’t be true, not even for Panama during the summer season 🙂

Hope you will address those issues for 2.1.5 too, thanks!

[catalin]

By the way, about the ‘Connecting…’ message, that means the controller cannot ping the router — the firmware is set to ping the router every few minutes to check if it’s still connected. If the ping requests fails several times in a roll, it will restart the Ethernet controller. So frequent ‘Connecting…’ means it’s not able to reach the router for some reason.

Obviously, when ping fails there is a problem with connectivity. Attempting to immediately reconnect upon failed ping seems like not the best thing to do. It will and it does cause OS to hang. Some timer should be set in place, like, if connectivity not re-establishes in 1 minute, give up, free up TCP resources, reinit timer, re-attempt connection. Seems OS is not doing that since a manual restart clears the “connecting…” display immediately.

Thanks

[catalin]

Hi,

Much better than 1.8 no doubt, But it still ciuld use some improvements 🙂

– quite often it happens for OS to become inaccessible through web browser. I go to it physically and the display says “connecting”. It becomes available again after a manual reatart, but that beats the purpose of a network controllable amenity
– the watering times for each zone look to me rather based on current time than on actual start time. So, if a zone starts at 12:43 and is scheduled to water for 2 minutes, it only runs for 1 min and 17 secs.

Hope these will get addressed, thanks!

[catalin]

This is over my head… today 3 out of those 4 valves stopped buzzing. Without me doing anything other than turning the mainline valve thus allowing water to the valves. I have just swapped the remaining buzzing solenoid with another one from another zone – a zone which will seldom get activated.

Regards

[catalin]

Ah,much better!

[catalin]

Hello again,

laid out the cable to valves box – about 40m distance, managed to shorten it. Using 3 x HV100 valves and 1 x DV100. They all work without any water pressure, but they all also buzz like they are going to blow up. Some tremble too while active and buzzing, others just buzz. I think OS even turns them off at times and will not run them for a full minute as I request. Pulled the meter and read 21.6 VAC :-0 – on HVs. DV came out at 20.8 VAC.
Next I have connected two wires together for one valve in order to halve the impedance (one-way, the return wire was not doubled) and read 22.3 VAC- but still the buzz was there. Took out that solenoid and tested it straight at OS outlets. These HV100 valves seem to be a little noisier than humming, but still, I managed to get rid of its buzzing by firmly pressing its wires against OS outlet screws (not so firm /wonky contact resulted in same buzz). There also is another valve box closer to the OS outlets and those valves inside hum, not buzz. I am thinking about attempting with a 30 VAC transformer. Other ideas ?

Thank you!

[catalin]

thanks for sharing, dun4cheap, might be useful in the future 🙂

[catalin]

Hmm, this is not OS related any longer, so thanks for replying Ray, I shall live in confusion, f*** it 😀

[catalin]

Hmm, wait a minute, cable was not laid out straight on the ground but was a bit coiled… and we are dealing with AC.  I’ll measure its resistance.

 

LE: measured – came out at about 0.42 ohm / meter. Confused again. Should have been 0.084 ohm / meter according to http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm 😐

[catalin]

Thanks Augustin, but I am quite sure you won’t run into any problems with that distance and AWG 🙂

As for my case – I must correct myself – on the cable box there is a 0.4 mm print. It does not say what does that 0.4 mm represent. However on the cable sheath “24 AWG” is printed, meaning a conductor diameter of 0.5 mm, not 0.4 mm. So I have used these two calculators and they both came up with similar voltage drop:

http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

http://www.calculator.net/voltage-drop-calculator.html?material=copper&wiresize=84.22&voltage=24&phase=ac&noofconductor=1&distance=52&distanceunit=meters&amperes=.3&x=42&y=11

 

of around 2.65 V – for

distance = 52 m

current intensity = 0.29 A

diameter = 24 AWG

material = copper (CAT 5e UTP cable)

 

More than that, I did a dry run on a 52 meters cable (tested with actual hardware, but electrovalve was not installed at location yet). The solenoid actuated in this test, and I did the readings:

25.9 VAC at source outlet

22.2 VAC at solenoid inlet

So, uhm.. I am confused about this. The calculated 2.65  VAC and the measured 3.7 VAC are pretty far away from each other. Although 22.2 ought to be enough for the solenoid to operate even a pressurized valve, I am still confused about this discrepancy. Where did I go wrong ?

 

Thanks again!

 

[Author]

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