[mikethechap]

Thanks, again, BinaryOS. I just ordered some!

Mike

[mikethechap]

Thanks a bunch, BinaryOS. What amperage did you use, if I can ask. I think I saw here in the forums 1amp minimum. Do you remember if that’s what you used? I also wonder if there’s a case here for some advanced boards with this kind of protection as well as confirmatory logging? For instance, my logs were saying that the zone in question was watering but it wasn’t. It would be nice to have some advanced way to protect and confirm that Irrigation has happened.

All that said, if you happen to remember the fuse amps, I’d be glad to know what size you used. Otherwise, I’ll send in an order on Wednesday for the fuses and fuse holder. Thanks for the great suggestion.

Mike

[mikethechap]

Hi, Ray

I’ve got a bad valve that is burning up Triacs. The NXP part number you mentioned earlier is no longer available. There’s a 400v version. There’s also this one. The link is to Mouser. Can you make a recommendation as to which one I should use to replace the burned out ones? Thanks!

Mike

[mikethechap]

 

 

Hi, Ray!

I missed your reply (guess I didn’t have the updates set). Anyway, thank you for that. I’ll be getting an updated version soon (the OSPi is version 1.1 so I assume that the expansion board purchased at the same time is also 1.1).

Mike

[mikethechap]

Heck, I just saw this! Awesome, Salbahra! Thank you. Next payday I’ll send a little something your way.

I will mention that I was using the online version and wasn’t able to connect at all. It doesn’t seem to want to connect at all. The interval timer is installed and working and on port 8080. I see your install page. But, every time I submit, I get the “Not Saved, check the IP and Port Settings and try again.” It never gets past that page. I look at my ssh listing of the files in /var/www/sprinklers and this is what I see:

pi@rpiGarage1/var/www$ cd /var/www/sprinklers
pi@rpiGarage1/var/www/sprinklers $ ls
config-example.php index.php locale README.md
css install.php locale.php sprinklers.php
img

I didn’t see an .htaccess file or a config file: the only config one is the example one.

I had all this working perfectly until I updated the Interval Software about 3 weeks ago and then it all went crazy. It was working so perfectly, I was even having a little fun. My daughter in law was giving me grief one Sunday for being a techie. As soon as she got out into a particular lawn zone, I brought the sprinklers on! YES!!! She actually thought it was hilarious. But, warned me about the nature of payback.

That’s why the app was such a relief. And, it is. But, I’m not sure what’s going on with the web interface that it can’t connect but the app can?

[mikethechap]

I use Dan’s/Ray’s Interval Script to control sprinklers at home and Salbahra’s script to control over the web.

In Salbahra’s scripts, I know that the sprinkler system reliably stops on rain (making a call you the Yahoo weather API) The other morning though it ran when it was 27 degrees and was reported at 27 degrees.

I am not sure what the function of location is in the Interval Script. I reviewed Dan’s GitHub and didn’t find location except in Javascript calls and in the field definition.

My Questions:

Does Salbahra’s script turn off on freezing temperature as well as rain? It looks like it should, but it didn’t.

Is there some way that the Interval Program might have conflicted with Salbahra’s?

Would I be better off to go ahead and add a rain freeze sensor than depend on the Yahoo call?

I just want to make sure I do what’s best so I don’t have ice on the sidewalks, etc. BUT haven’t had great success with rain/freeze sensors.

Thanks to Ray, Salbahra and Dan for their great contributions!

[mikethechap]

Just renamed the stations now that I have room to breath! Thanks a bunch.

[mikethechap]

I don’t know if this will help anyone. I hope so. I think this is a great project, capable of making a significant dent in water use.

First, I’ve been getting reports from Texas A&M for about a year now. They have a lot of information on ETo. The main place to get that information is here.

A&M also has a store that sells catch cans. It’s really easy to use these. I have a set. You can find them here.

Again, great job.

Mike

[mikethechap]

Thanks, Dan!

That did the trick. I think I must have updated just prior to you uploading the new version.

[mikethechap]

I had my first error this AM. I was trying to run a program one-time manually. I tried it first from the web app and then from the interval program. From the Web App, there was an error message saying it could not communicate with the sprinkler. On the interval program, it threw the error noted at the bottom of my post here.

To try to help with troubleshooting, I tried to see if I could get it to run manually and it did fine (running right now, in fact).

This is only in the run-once program setting.

I hope this helps.

Thanks, Mike

at /cr
schedule_stations() takes exactly 1 argument (0 given)
Python
/home/pi/OSPi/ospi.py in GET, line 810
Web
GET http://192.168.1.49:8080/cr
Traceback (innermost first)
/home/pi/OSPi/ospi.py in GET
schedule_stations() …
▶ Local vars
/home/pi/OSPi/web/application.py in handle_class
return tocall(*args) …
▶ Local vars
/home/pi/OSPi/web/application.py in _delegate
return handle_class(cls) …
▶ Local vars
/home/pi/OSPi/web/application.py in handle
return self._delegate(fn, self.fvars, args) …
▶ Local vars
/home/pi/OSPi/web/application.py in process
return self.handle() …
▶ Local vars

INPUT
Variable
Value
pw
‘somepasswordthatI’mjustthrowinginhere’
t
‘[0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1080,1080,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0]’

[mikethechap]

I’ve been looking it over and playing with it. I’ll continue to explore. It may be over my head, but I’ll take some time with the idea. That post was primarily to float the idea and see what others thought.

[mikethechap]

Thanks, Dan!

The OSPI connected to the sprinkler is running wheezy. I am using Occidentalis on another Pi. but that RPi isn’t connected to the OSPi board. I’ll try and check it out tomorrow and see if it works okay.

The wheezy kernel did fine using your instructions. The glitch was not observing the integer 1 in the following instructions for the 512 RPi board:

echo ds1307 0x68 > /sys/class/i2c-adapter/i2c-1/new_device

Thank you!

As soon as I get a chance I’ll try the Occidentalis with the OSPi board.

[mikethechap]

Tried to wget the program tonight but unable to get through… I’ll try again tomorrow. Everything else including WiringPi downloaded fine.

Thanks for your work on this. I’m looking forward to trying it.

EDIT: I had to put sudo before issuing the wget command. After that it did fine. Thanks for the help. The issue of running as root may be confusing to those of us who are not so familiar with linux.

Additionally, maybe related to the same issues, I’m getting errors when I try this:

CODE: SELECT ALL

tar -xzvf sprinklers_pi-1.0.4.tar.gz

This is the error report:

tar (child): sprinklers_pi.1.0.4.tqr.gz: Cannot open: No such file or directory

tar (child): Error is not recoverable: exiting now

tar: Child returned status 2

tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

Do I need to change directory before I run the tar command? Which directory?

I hope this isn’t seen as criticism in any way. In fact, I think of it as testing so that people who would love to have something like this won’t be put off by any difficulty.

[mikethechap]

Great comments and observations eddiek2000. I put my pi behind a pretty nice surge protector. I’m also going to be adding a fastblow fuse to prevent overcurrent damage. Your comments also made me think that I should have a second setup on hand including a ready to go image of my present SD card.

Because I needed the extra zones (and they weren’t available yet with this c version), I’ve been set up on the interval program and the Web app for about two weeks now. I do like the web app ability for vacations and testing and such. But, one of the other creative mind here came up with a way to fix that for this c version, too. So, I think my plan is to get another SD and flash it with this version and then use that set up: see what works the best. I will say the set up on this version is MUCH more friendly to novices.

These are just amazing options. Seeing what’s in people’s grasp at this point makes me think of other ways I can improve things around the home: adding sensors to check and control for things like water leakage (hot water tank, sprinkler valve stuck open with electronic valve control for emergencies), garage door control, and access control. There are things that could reduce waste, property damage and improve quality of life.

[mikethechap]

I love the set up. Nice pics. Kind of funny to put it in a gutted Rain Bird box. It adds a note of irony, don’t you think. That said, I fought to get my sprinklers to run dependably using WeatherMatic with a super weather sensor, a Rain Bird, and another really expensive one that uses it’s own moisture sensors in the ground. No aspect of home management has lead to more profanity, frustration and anger. Then Open Sprinkler comes along and it runs better than any of those systems ever ran, far more intuitively, and at less cost. Thanks to these incredible developers. I truly think that the Raspberry Pi has a shot at being another Gutenberg Press.

[mikethechap]

Check this out…

Display attached to the Pi with switches for service people

Regarding setup, I think they both have pluses and minuses. I believe that there have been more power related issues with the Pi. In this sense, the turnkey version may be better. As I was getting the OSPi set up, it took a lot of time to adapt to the Linux, get SSH set up, etc. A lot of stuff, at least if you aren’t really on top of things. The standalone version is basically plug-and-play. There were more than a few times where I thought about trying to trade out my OSPi for the standalone.

All that said: the OSPi is just plain fun, with lots of options and very rewarding.

[mikethechap]

@rszimm wrote:

As a followup, rather than hardwiring a rain sensor to your sprinkler controller, I could actually pull data from your internet connected personal weather station assuming you’ve got one that’s reporting to Weather Underground. That would actually be pretty trivial, and would be MUCH more complete than just a rain sensor because I could do different things based on temperature, humidity and exactly how MUCH rain was received.

That’s not to say I shouldn’t support hardwired rain sensors anyway… Just a thought…

I just wanted to follow-up. I am interested in pulling the data from my weather station. It does report to Weather Underground. Which, as you mention, would be better.

Also, have you been able to add zone extension code to your program? Just wondering.

Thanks,

Mike

[mikethechap]

I’d be interested in this, as well. I’m going to go ahead and get the fuse set-up done, but several previous timers that my OSPi replaced had a feature that checked for this.

[mikethechap]

Thanks so much Dan!

I was just getting ready to post a reply to say that it didn’t work I thought I would make sure I put the python reference in there and saw that I had typed 0.0.0:8080. Ooops, no wonder “His” code didn’t work. I fixed that and rebooted. Sweeeeeet! 😀

Thank you, Dan!

[mikethechap]

In addition to the question posted just above, I’m also having problems with it auto-starting and then going into the background. I am using a hard-wired version to the network (as of yesterday afternoon and evening – that was a ton of work). Here’s my rc.local file:

#!/bin/sh -e

#

# rc.local

#

# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.

# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other

# value on error.

#

# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution

# bits.

#

# By default this script does nothing.



# Print the IP address

_IP=$(hostname -I) || true

if [ "$_IP" ]; then

printf "My IP address is %sn" "$_IP"

fi



#echo ds1307 0x68 > /sys/class/i2c-adapter/i2c-0/new_device

#hwclock -s



### Start the OSPi interval program

$host=$hostname -I | sed 's/ *$//g')

host=0.0.0.0

port=8080

cd /home/pi/OSPi/

nohup /usr/bin/python ospi.py $host:$port  2>&1 &





exit 0

I still have to manually start the program (change directory / sudo python ospi.py). And, it never goes into the background meaning I have to shut down putty. What could I be missing. It’s as though doesn’t know that it needs to go to the ospi on startup.

[mikethechap]

So, as I read this (and I’m pretty much a novice with **nux), if I put an & before the exit statement, then the OSPi program running in my SSH interface should go to the background and I should be able to resume my SSH session. Is that right? My SSH is still running OSPi the whole time. I’m just trying to see if there’s some way to get OSPi to run in a way where I can do other stuff with my SSH.

Am I barking up the wrong tree?

Thanks!

[mikethechap]

I’ve got a pretty similar situation. Mine cuts off after several hours. Ordered a new transformer/adapter that should be in tomorrow. I’ve tried powering with the 3-wire cable plugged in and unplugged. I don’t see any difference so far. Just for safety’s sake I also ordered a new RPi. With the watering restrictions here in TX I don’t want to play around with this too much. I’ll try the other suggested tests this weekend if the power supply doesn’t work.

EDIT: I think (hope) I’m back on solid ground again with this. It appears so. Troubleshooting process (thanks to the previous posts for their suggestions):

I did the voltage testing suggested here;

I replaced the RPi with another one (“Oh my gosh, what will I ever do with another RPi?” 😉 ) and that didn’t solve the problem;

I thought I would try a WiFi extender to make sure I was getting good coverage to the garage. That didn’t work;

I re-imaged my SD card. This may have fixed it but not positive;

I ran CAT-6 cable to the garage so I didn’t have to connect to WiFi. I think that this was the ultimate fix. The RPi/OpenSprinkler boards were running really hot with the WiPi WiFi adapter.

It was shutting down within and hour or less. It’s been running about 12 hours now. It’s running much, much cooler now.

I hope this helps someone!

EDIT 2: Wow. It’s running great now. With the help of Dan I was able to get the auto-start working.

Here’s the install in the garage: https://plus.google.com/114571878398957500272/posts/VCuXyqk7zqL

My next projects with respect to the RPi are to:

Install a moisture sensor

Connect to the internet to check for rain/freeze

Install a fun selection of status lights on the board: rain, freeze, pending, sprinkling, and, heck, just some lights that say to the kids, “Lookie here, I’m cool!

[mikethechap]

For the life of me, I could never get the Toro to work. The moisture level never went below 75 on either of the Toro wireless sensors I got. I’m glad yours is working. I was so frustrated with them. I’m thinking about using wired moisture sensors. Anyway, I’m looking forward to when the activation on/Off is all working.

[mikethechap]

OpenHab looks pretty cool I don’t see me using it at this time, but having this module available would sure be a draw if I was interested in that level of home control. Very impressive.

[mikethechap]

I’ll contribute.

[Author]

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