[nachtigall]

Hi @Meise86, fyi there was a related discussion on this topic recently in https://opensprinkler.com/forums/topic/ok-to-hardwire-7-zones-7-x-24v-ac-valves-in-parallel-with-ospi/#post-78733 (last paragraph about “virtual zones”).

FWIW regarding your idea of total capacity = 1 and 0.1 and 0.2 capacities: I think that I would have difficulties in practice to estimate whether a zone would be 0.1 or 0.2. Of course, I planned my setup but it is also a lot of rule of thumb and best guesses and not too fine-grained. That is, more in the range of these steps: 0.1; 0.25; 0.5; 0.75; 1 or so. Just to give some feedback on the idea… But virtual zone do sound a bit more easier to grasp imho.

[nachtigall]

‘virtual zones’ sounds interesting. I guess that would also solve the issue of being able to reorder stations. That’s another thing I already looked up in the forum in the past and it seems that the easiest way to do this is rewiring the ports. That is, I have a certain logical way the hardwiring is done due to the color codes of the valve cables – and I would not like to change this color order. But for driving the irrigation system and watering the plants/flowers I would like to have a mapping from my hard wired order to something different. Sounds like ‘virtual zones’ could be this flexible software mapping.

But reordering the physical order in software is not a real issue at the moment for me. I just wanted to let you know that ‘virtual zones’ sound interesting from another perspective too.

Thanks for the help and for OpenSprinkler alltogether!

[nachtigall]

Yeah, I inserted 7 wires into one single port. See https://imgur.com/a/EB0rqxh where the black cable goes into port 1 and all 7 wires are hardwired with a WAGO connecting clamp. I tested it about 4 times, but only for 5 minutes (so 4 x 5 min together) and it seemed to be working. This was on May 2. After reading your response I disconnected it again for now (thanks for the Heads up) – better safe than sorry. I hope it didn’t burn anything yet :-/

The valves I use are 100-HV-MM Rain-Bird 24V AC (nothing special as far as I know): https://www.rainbird.com/de/products/ventile-der-serien-hv-und-hvf

What I find strange is that your “fellow” German OpenSprinkler shop sells this AC Adapter (https://opensprinklershop.de/product/netzteil-24vac-15a-36va/) and promotes it with “Can operate/run up to 8 zones simultaneously!” – EDIT: Well, rereading this page now and watching the embedded video it means “Can run up to 8 zones in parallel – but the each zone is connected to 1 individual port”. So this clarifies it…

> In the firmware you can set these zones all to parallel, and that way you create a program, run each zone 1 hour, they will all turn on at the same time, so they all finish together. I just don’t understand why this is not a feasible option?

I already have a zone expander and enough open ports. But I rethought our “problem” over the weekend and maybe I/my family need to change their “mental model” on how we use OpenSprinkler. At the moment me and my family (wife/kids) very often manually start zones (no program) whenever they think this is needed (with the Android app). So they start all dripline zones (group P) and then 2 or 3 sprinkler zones (group A). And they expect the driplines to run in parallel and sequentially followed by the sprinklers. But then driplines (P) will run together with the sprinklers.

We already have separate programs for the driplines and the sprinklers. But – and that’s the change we have to do – we have to make sure that these programs are schedules on completely different days (or times) to make sure they will not run in parallel. And then I will need to tell my family that the “dripline zones” (P) will run in parallel with everything else. So my family can still start the driplines / or dripline program manually but they should wait before they start any sprinklers manually, too. Otherwise they would run in parallel. I think we can change our behaviour here.

Thanks for the input.

[nachtigall]

> Well you can always write a script yourself and send command to OpenSprinkler to open zones in any pattern you’d like. A single firmware is not going to fit everyone’s need. The reason we make the whole product open-source is to give users the freedom of modify the software in any way they want.

OpenSprinkler, also its API, is really great. And I am very happy and grateful for being able to use it.

> Also, the firmware supports up to 40 programs, so technically you can create many programs to define when does each group of zones start. So in theory you can use multiple programs to do anything you want. It is certainly tedious and difficult to update this group of programs, but it should be able to achieve what you need.

This is what we do currently. But the 7 Driplines run 1h each, that is, 7h alltogether. Our water pump is rather loud and also takes 800 W. By wiring all together the driplines can run in 1h together.

> If you want to hardwire multiple zones to the same port, please note that a single port can support no more than 2 parallel solenoids. Each solenoid draws 250 to 300mA holding current, and 500 to 700mA impulse current. The triac on each zone cannot drive more than 800mA to 1Amp max, so it can’t do more than 2 zones. You can always use an external relay, which can drive amps or even tens of amps. That way one single zone switches the relay, and the relay in turn switches high current load.

As said, I am not good in electronics. I have a software developer background. The power adapter I have from https://opensprinklershop.de/product/netzteil-24vac-15a-36va/ says:

> Kann bis zu 8 Zonen gleichzeitig bedienen! Siehe unten verlinktes Video!
(English: Can operate/run up to 8 zones simultaneously! See the video linked below!)

This is just for the OSPI. For the PI itself a have a designated USB-C power adapter extra (2A I think).

Also I hardwired the 7 zones today and it seems to be working. So I am a bit confused now whether it is ok or not as you said that at most 2 can be hardwired.

Kind regards, Jens

[nachtigall]

> I am not sure what you mean by “Due to the lack of being able to to this in the OSPI firmware,” — if you assign a zone to the parallel group, it can run at the same time with any other zone. So if you assign all 7 zones to the Parallel group, they can all run at the same time

I think we already discussed this in another thread some time ago (EDIT: found it: https://opensprinkler.com/forums/topic/parallel-grouping-of-stations-with-2-2-0-ospi-firmware/) . The problem is that I have many other zones (sprinklers not driplines). And I need to always run the sprinkler zones not in parallel with anything else (not enough water otherwise). So, ideally I would need/wish to have a group zone where all its group valves run in parallel, but at the same time this group must be sequential with regards to all other groups/zones.

For example I want to schedule the Group of 7 to run first (all paralell), then afterwards a Group of 2 very long driplines (again all parallel), then a sprinkler zone etc. – these 3 things should run one after another.

That does not seem to be possible. So the only way I can think of is hardwiring unfortunately.

[nachtigall]

Hi Race, this problem here is when you have also an extra http auth password next to your normal OpenSprinkler password – and when you can login via Browser but not using the Android app (which just had a recent minor update which seemed to introduce a bug). In your case it rather seems like you have to find a way to reset your password. I am not sure how you can do this, probably also depends on what OpenSprinkler hardware you have (OSPi or other). The default password is “opendoor” (without the quotes), just in case.

If you google for opensprinkler and password reset, then there are quite a few other folks asking.

Hope this helps a bit.

[nachtigall]

I (and my wife) are facing the same problem after the recent App update on Android. It works in Browser (also mobile) but does not work with Basic Auth + SSL after upgrade:

IP was: myserver:99999/mylocation/

Then SSL and Basic Auth enabled.

On the OSPi in the Apache conf, I had:
`
<Location /mylocation/>
AuthType Basic
AuthName “Restricted”
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/.htpasswd
AuthBasicProvider file
Require user myuser
ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8080/
ProxyPassReverse http://127.0.0.1:8080/
</Location>
`

First I added simply this to this block:
Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
but no success after restarting Apache and the App

Then I tried the snippet from the linked https://opensprinkler.com/forums/topic/ios-app-currently-not-working/#post-70047 IOS topic. But still no success.

So in the end I disabled the http auth in the app and on the Apache:
`
<Location /mylocation/>
#AuthType Basic
#AuthName “Restricted”
#AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/.htpasswd
#AuthBasicProvider file
#Require user myuser
ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8080/
ProxyPassReverse http://127.0.0.1:8080/
</Location>
`

Then with disabled “Use Auth” in the App I could re-add the site again. Since I am using SSL/https anyway, I guess this is okay with just the simple OpenSprinkler password…

[nachtigall]

Yeah, I agree that simplicity is also a key quality factor of software. While watching the youtube video I also noticed how many options the scheduler already has and wondered how attractive this might be to the “average” user.

So, I had have a clear opinion about the logic:

> What happens if a group is supposed to run but then a user also want to manually operate one zone in the group? It’s non-trivial to clearly define the logic. Say zones 1, 2, 3 are in parallel group P1, what if P1 is currently running (i.e. all of zones 1, 2, 3 must be running) while the user also wants to stop zone 1 individually? Should that be allowed? Which should take priority?

Yes, should be allowed. The recent action of stopping P1 would take priority.

> Also, if P1 is running and the user manually starts zone 1 again for a different period of time, what should zone 1’s duration be?

Again: The recent action wins. That is, Zone 1 gets another time slot than P1.

> Without a clearly defined logic, the firmware will not have predictable behavior. I don’t think any one implementation can meet all users’ need. I’ve seen a lot of different requests for scheduler features, some of them conflict with each other. So I am afraid one firmware can’t fit everyone’s need. But the project is open-source so you can always modify the firmware in any way you want to fit your need.

Fair enough. I can totally understand your argument. Still thanks for listening.

I guess I will workaround then by buying better (faster with more water throughput) water dripping lines. I have some “cheap” (poor) ones from Gardena, will change to Rain bird with 2.3l/min. This will mitigate my issue.

[nachtigall]

> Well what you wanted would be a two-level grouping feature: parallel at the bottom level, and sequential at the top level.

Yes, exactly. I would need to be able to define multiple parallel groups like P1, P2, P3 and these groups would need to be sequential to others.

> In your case, you can always set all zones to the parallel group and then just use multiple programs to schedule different zones to run at different times.

Quite often I (or some less technical family member) also run manual schedules. I think this would not work as sometimes you have sprinklers too. Say I schedule manually the water drip zones (then 9 would run in parallel, which is too many) – or it would run together with a sprinkler (which needs 100% water and cannot share).

[nachtigall]

Hi Dave,
thanks. I think I will then just use https://www.diagrams.net/ (previously draw.io) which is open source and web based. It has lines and boxes etc. Though, I wished it also had some more specialized symbols for an irrigation plan like sprinklers and valves (though, it seems to have way too special symbols like hydraulic stuff like a “Gate Valve (Spring)”.

But I can “mis-use” some of the symbols for that. Will work for me. Thanks.

[nachtigall]

This is my apache config from /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default-le-ssl.conf

`
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<VirtualHost *:99999>
# The ServerName directive sets the request scheme, hostname and port that
# the server uses to identify itself. This is used when creating
# redirection URLs. In the context of virtual hosts, the ServerName
# specifies what hostname must appear in the request’s Host: header to
# match this virtual host. For the default virtual host (this file) this
# value is not decisive as it is used as a last resort host regardless.
# However, you must set it for any further virtual host explicitly.
#ServerName http://www.example.com

ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/html

# Available loglevels: trace8, …, trace1, debug, info, notice, warn,
# error, crit, alert, emerg.
# It is also possible to configure the loglevel for particular
# modules, e.g.
#LogLevel info ssl:warn

ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

# For most configuration files from conf-available/, which are
# enabled or disabled at a global level, it is possible to
# include a line for only one particular virtual host. For example the
# following line enables the CGI configuration for this host only
# after it has been globally disabled with “a2disconf”.
#Include conf-available/serve-cgi-bin.conf

# Proxy OpenSprinkler
# NOTE: Errors like this are normal, see https://opensprinkler.com/forums/topic/openspinkler-server-sends-back-rst-using-httptiny/
# [Tue Sep 21 08:39:13.280067 2021] [proxy_http:error] [pid 22540:tid 2911843360] (104)Connection reset by peer: [client 91.66.126.53:44360] AH01110: error reading response, referer: https://myhost.mydomainsite.org:99999/waterrunning/
<Location /waterrunning/>
AuthType Basic
AuthName “Restricted”
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/.htpasswd
AuthBasicProvider file
Require user my_user_for_extra_http_auth
ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8080/
ProxyPassReverse http://127.0.0.1:8080/
</Location>

# Addy by Let’s Encrypt
ServerName myhost.mydomainsite.org
SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/myhost.mydomainsite.org/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/myhost.mydomainsite.org/privkey.pem
Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>
`

[nachtigall]

Well, it is working for me (i.e. hosting OpenSprinkler using https with apache an a Raspberry Pi). The only thing, that I do not do is hosting the UI Assets on another server. I guess you are doing this for a certain reason like that you do not have internet access in your garden maybe? Sounds like this causes the error maybe… When you get the TypeError – do you also maybe have a 404 Not Found error in the Browser’s DevTools network tab?

I would try without hosting the assets on another server and see if that works. This way you can at least narrow down the bug/problem.

[nachtigall]

Is there a Merge Request or Issue on Github I could follow? I would also need the reordering (12 zones with OSPI) so that the (short running) sprinklers for the grass run prior to the (long running) vegetable / flower patches.

[nachtigall]

First question: is there a way to configure the listen address for OSPI to listen only on the localhost address? I don’t want to rely on a host firewall so I would prefer that the application control that. I want OSPI to be available only through the nginx reverse proxy and not the app port directly.

I try to achieve the same since I already reverse proxy opensprinkler’s 8080 behind a local apache. How can I make OSPI bind only to localhost, seems like there’s no config for this – anybody found a solution?

[Author]

Posts