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FWIW I have built a remote sensor to trigger OpenSprinkler to trigger my drip irrigation system. I have strawberries planted in gutters along the perimeter of my deck and the soil dries out quickly. I used a Vegetronix VH400 soil moisture sensor to measure the soil in the gutters. When it gets dry, OS turns on the zone and waters it. You can see the charts here https://thingspeak.com/channels/239044
My setup involves a custom circuit and some programming but they also sell a controller board that might work for you. I’ve not used it but it looks pretty simple. Check out http://www.vegetronix.com/Products/VG-RELAY-AC/
Mike
@IDtheTarget
That looks like a manual flow control valve, not a programatically controlled one.Could this be made to work with non-wifi and non-ESP8266 connected sensors? I want to measure the soil moisture in an area that is outside the range of my wifi. I’ve already got all of the components I need to set up a remote XBee sensor (solar powered with a battery) that will transmit the soil moisture readings to another XBee attached to my OSBo.
I’m thinking that once I get a soil moisture reading, I’ll use it to calculate a % watering level that I can feed to OpenSprinkler. Would OpenSensor be a good fit for my project?
Mike
What about wiring a float switch in series with the valve that OpenSprinkler controls?
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I’d like to use a soil moisture sensor to adjust the % watering level on one zone but the weather data to adjust it on another zone.
Not quite the ‘template’ that you are thinking of but you might be able to get what you’re looking for from here
https://opensprinkler.com/forums/topic/ospi-3d-printed-case-2/Is this what you’re looking for? https://opensprinkler.com/forums/topic/enclosure-tecnical-drawing/
Ray I’ve been pondering this for the past few days and reading the API documentation and I think I’m still missing something. I don’t understand how to set a %WL that is different for each program or station. I’d like to create programs using OpenSprinkler, set them to use weather adjustment and then either feed or request a different %WL for each one individually. The %WL would be calculated by my own script. Is that possible?
That’s a great idea! I could write my own script that accesses my soil moisture sensor and calculates a % watering level. I use an OSBo so I could then host the script on it. I can create a program that uses a weather adjustment and set the weather adjustment method to manual. My script will provide the % watering level.
Two questions:
1. I believe the OS firmware polls WU at some interval. How can I poll my custom script instead of WU?
2. If I have multiple soil moisture sensors, how can I differentiate between them? For example, I might have a program and a soil moisture sensor for the potted plants on my deck and also have a program and sensor for my vegetable garden in the ground. The pots will require more frequent watering than my vegetable garden.David I like your idea of interacting with it over the API. I’ll have to start by reading the API documentation.
I’ve purchased the parts I need to build a soil moisture sensor module that uses an XBee instead of WiFi. My gardens aren’t all within range of my router. See this thread for more details and this link for where I got my inspiration. My plan is to assemble the parts and take a crack at incorporating it into the unified firmware code this winter. Just as you suggest, I’d have the XBee wake up at some configurable? interval, take a reading, transmit to the base station, and go back to sleep.
Sounds like you’re trying to use a raspberry pi image on a BBB? I’ve not tried that myself but I have installed the actual BBB image from http://www.raysfiles.com/osbo/osbo2.zip It works. It has the old software though, so as David mentioned you’ll need to update it. I’ve also installed the latest BBB Ubuntu image following the directions here http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu I then had to install the build-essentials package before I could install the latest version of the OpenSprinkler unified firmware. However that also worked.
I found them in one of the /var/log files. I’m not in front of my setup right now but I think it was in /var/log/boot
This problem is resolved. It turns out I had a hardware problem with my OSBo. I sent it in to Ray and he replaced a defective switching regulator. He found that the RTC worked just fine if the BBB was powered by 5VDC. However, when powered by 24VAC, it showed the symptoms I described. It turns out the switching regulator was outputting too much ripple voltage that affected the RTC. He replaced the switching regulator and the RTC is now functioning well under 24VAC.
By default the OpenSprinkler software runs on port 8080. Unless you’ve change the port it operates on, try forwarding 8080 instead of 80.
I spent a brief bit of time this evening documenting how to reproduce the problem. It is simple for me to reproduce. I re-loaded a fresh copy of the OSBo Ubuntu image onto a uSD card. Here’s the entire transcript of all I did after booting it.
login as: ubuntu
[email protected]’s password:
Welcome to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.8.13-bone56 armv7l)* Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/
Last login: Sat Jun 27 00:15:32 2015 from 192.168.1.103
ubuntu@arm:~$ sudo su
[sudo] password for ubuntu:
root@arm:/home/ubuntu# echo ds1307 0x68 > /sys/class/i2c-adapter/i2c-1/new_device
root@arm:/home/ubuntu# dmesg | grep -i rtc
[ 0.000000] Kernel command line: console=tty0 console=ttyO0,115200n8 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 ro rootfstype=ext4 rootwait fixrtc
[ 2.040391] omap_rtc 44e3e000.rtc: rtc core: registered 44e3e000.rtc as rtc0
[ 2.047851] 44e3e000.rtc: already running
[ 2.584010] [drm] Cannot find any crtc or sizes – going 1024×768
[ 2.720847] omap_rtc 44e3e000.rtc: setting system clock to 2015-06-27 00:16:27 UTC (1435364187)
[ 152.593546] rtc-ds1307 1-0068: rtc core: registered ds1307 as rtc1
[ 152.593616] rtc-ds1307 1-0068: 56 bytes nvram
root@arm:/home/ubuntu# hwclock -f /dev/rtc1 -r
Sat 27 Jun 2015 12:19:36 AM UTC -0.271957 seconds
root@arm:/home/ubuntu# hwclock -f /dev/rtc1 -r
hwclock: ioctl(RTC_RD_TIME) to /dev/rtc1 to read the time failed: Input/output error
root@arm:/home/ubuntu# hwclock -f /dev/rtc1 -r
hwclock: ioctl(RTC_RD_TIME) to /dev/rtc1 to read the time failed: Input/output error
root@arm:/home/ubuntu#Thanks Ray. I agree it is odd. Any suggestions you have to help narrow the cause down would be appreciated.
Already been looked at and Ray has the code. https://opensprinkler.com/forums/topic/flow-sensor-working/ A flow sensor would be nice for those of us not on city water and therefore without a meter.
Use an HDMI + USB touch display like this one.
Hi! Which instructions did you follow? I went through it a month ago, following the instructions starting on page 7 in the user manual and everything worked as expected.
Mike
Not sure what you’re planning to add, but you might want to consider stackable headers. Remove the headers that are on the OSBo and put stackables on through the back. That enables standard capes to be used. You’ll have to come up with a new enclosure though.
I’m not one of the developers, but it seems to me that you might want to skip the 31st because otherwise you’ll end up watering two days in a row. You’d water on the 31st and again on the 1st. I don’t know why you wouldn’t water on the 29th if it’s not the last day of the month. Just my two cents.
Mike
I’m in the process of building my first greenhouse. It’s taking up half of my garage right now. That’s holding me up from working on this moisture sensor project.
It sounds like you may not need any OpenSprinkler product. Just run 24 volts to the relay control board with a moisture sensor attached. If it’s dry it’ll turn on. If it’s wet it’ll turn off. Very simple. You’ll only have one on/off threshold though. Would be better to have separate on and off thresholds. That would help avoid short-cycling. Bury the sensor deep enough though and it may be all you need. My plan with the moisture sensor integrated with my OSBo is to have the moisture sensor trigger when to start watering, water for some adjustable amount of time and then shut the water off. That’ll all be handled on the software side of things.
