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RayKeymasterSean is right: in firmware 2.1.3, each station has an attribute called ‘Activate Relay’. You can also set the relay pulsing time in ‘Edit Options’ — the idea is: when relay pulsing is 0, the relay will stay on as long as the station is on; when relay pulsing is a positive number, it will pulse when the station turns on or off (to simulate button presses).
Support for relay has been removed in the upcoming firmware 2.1.4 — primarily because the relay has been removed from all current and future versions of OpenSprinkler hardware.
April 27, 2015 at 11:04 pm in reply to: request for enhancement — wireless remote integration for on and off #37172
RayKeymasterSorry, we have no plan to implement this, because those remotes are not open-source and we would have to reverse engineer the signals to find out their encoding patterns, In addition, if they change their encoding patterns you will have to redo everything again. This will be a fun DIY project, but we have no plan to integrate it into the standard firmwares.
RayKeymasterIs there any reason you added -D (i.e. not erase flash)? Can you remove that option and try again?
RayKeymasterWe are wrapping up firmware 2.1.4, which has added support for 2 independent master stations. If you need 4 master stations, you can either use ‘parallel stations’ to achieve the effect of 4 masters (the downside is that you will have to manually set the master station run time), or you can use two separate controllers.
RayKeymasterThe firmware only records one average water level per day. So today’s record will probably appear tomorrow.
April 25, 2015 at 8:03 pm in reply to: Can I invert the output of OSPi in software ? Driving active low logic #37112
RayKeymasterSome relay boards are ‘active high’ and some are ‘active low’. The default logic of OSPi is ‘active high’, so you will need to use relays boards that are ‘active high’.
To reverse the logic in software, go to the ‘apply_all_station_bits’ function, and simply reserve the bits that are being pushed to the shift register.
RayKeymasterWell, I honestly have no idea. I know for sure the sprinklers_pi program works with OSPi’s shift register. I have never tested it with direct GPIO outputs. The source code is all there, so perhaps you can add some debugging code to help find out what’s happening. By the way, make sure you are running the program with root permission — GPIO operations require root permission.
RayKeymasterI apologize that upgrading firmware on OS 2.1 has been so difficult. This has not been an issue I anticipated at all when designing OS 2.1. The initial firmwares on all OS 2.1 units were flashed through the USB port, using the bootloader, so we know it worked at least upon the time of testing. We’ve also tested the driver on all major operating systems. But I guess computers differ, and we don’t have the resources to perform wider testing (other than using the computers we have). That’s why from OS 2.2 we’ve changed to use a USB-serial chip and optiboot bootloader, which seems to have much less issues. In any case, I am just explaining the background. For any user who can’t upgrade their OS 2.1, we offer upgrade service free of charge.
RayKeymasterTo change to a fixed time, you need to first un-select sunrise or sunset (think of it as a checkbox), then input a fixed time.
RayKeymasterSamer has already implemented the California Water Restriction and this will become available when firmware 2.1.4 is released. We are finishing up this new firmware and have been working on internal testing. Hopefully it will be released in a few days.
Regarding WaterSense: getting the certificate requires implementing ET-based water adjustment algorithm, and I assume the approval process will take several months, so I don’t foresee this to be completed within the next few months. Sorry.
RayKeymasterIt is. Please note that we haven’t updated the pre-configured SD card image to support RPi 2 yet. So for the moment if you use RPi 2, you will need to install software yourself. For Dan’s Python interval program, instructions are at:
http://rayshobby.net/mediawiki/index.php/Python_Interval_Program_for_OSPi
For the Unified OpenSprinkler Firmware, instructions are at:
https://opensprinkler.com/forums/topic/announcing-opensprinkler-unified-firmware-2-1-3-for-avrrpibbblinux/
RayKeymasterThat is correct.
RayKeymasterCan you export the configuration as a file and attach it here? The configuration you posted contains double quotes that the importer does not recognize.
Just by looking at your program settings, it seems you’ve set the programs to run at sunrise or sunset time, is that correct? Because sunrise/sunset times vary on a day to day basis, the start time will change every day.
RayKeymasterDo you happen to have an AVR ISP programmer (like USBasp, USBtiny, or any other type of ISP programmer)? If so, you can directly upload firmware through the 2×3 ISP pin headers, and bypass the bootloader. If not, you will probably have to ship it back to us so we can check it for you.
RayKeymaster@Johan, you are right that being able to set a proper name for the RF stations would be nice. The current way is a hack (i.e. using the normal station name to store the hex code), and it’s really because there is not enough EEPROM space to store a lot of additional data. However, it should be totally possible to store the data in the SD card. We will be adding this support at some point in the future.
RayKeymasterWe currently only have an OSBee Shield for Arduino. Within the US, 24 VAC valves are still pretty standard and common to find, so the 24 VAC version of OpenSprinkler will still be our main product. DC latching solenoids (which is what OSBee is designed for) are most suited in battery-powered controllers. But because our focus is on web-based controllers, which are pretty power hungry, they have to be powered from a wall adapter and batteries won’t be sufficient. This defeats the purpose of choosing latching solenoid valves. So unless if you can’t source 24 VAC valves (which may be the case for International markets), there is no strong reason to use latching solenoid valves.
April 22, 2015 at 4:57 pm in reply to: No zone activation after upgrading to new 2.1.4 firmware #37018
RayKeymasterI am aware of an UI bug that causes it to cache external IP and try to connect through your external IP. As a result, solenoid actions are being significantly delayed. Samer can probably explain the details, but here are my observations:
1) this bug seems to only trigger when I am using Chrome browser, and when I am using Safari or Firefox it seems fine.
2) Clearing Chrome browser cache/history seems to solve the issue at least temporarily (but it may start caching the external IP again).Let me know either of the above makes any difference. This bug has been fixed and will be released in the next UI update.
RayKeymasterThe first thing is to check whether the controller is getting the correct sunrise/sunset times. To do so, click on the weather icon at the homepage, and the sunrise/sunset times displayed for today is the one that the controller returns. If that does not look right, that means the controller is not able to query the sunrise/sunset times correctly.
RayKeymasterI don’t think there is anything else you need to change.
As a sanity check: you can change the pin definition back to 15, recompile and run the firmware. When it sends a signal, you should hear the relay making a noise. If not, I suspect the 16-digit HEX code you entered is not right — the firmware will detect if it’s a valid code, so if it’s not exactly 16-digit long, or if any character is not a hex code, it will not recognize it as a valid RF code.
April 22, 2015 at 10:26 am in reply to: Announcing OpenSprinkler Unified Firmware 2.1.3 (for AVR/RPI/BBB/LINUX) #37005
RayKeymaster@JohnC, the software doesn’t depend on the existence of OSPi hardware. So it shouldn’t make a difference whether you have OSPi plugged in or not.
Support for relay has been dropped because since a few months ago we’ve removed the built-in relay from OSPi circuit boards — it’s a rarely used feature so we’ve decided to remove it.
RayKeymasterJust to make sure I understand: did you build the circuit yourself, or did you buy a DIY kit from us? The part we used is 24AA02E48 — a small SOT23-5 part. We call it the MAC address chip, because it has pre-flashed globally unique MAC address. But you are right that it is an EEPROM.
If removing the EEPROM works, you can just leave it off. The only purpose of this EEPROM is to provide a real MAC address. The firmware is designed such that if this chip doesn’t exist, it will use software defined MAC.
RayKeymasterIt depends on the specific command. For the /jc command, if the password is correct, it returns JSON data of controller variables. If the password is incorrect, it will return an error code. For other commands (such as /cc) which are GET commands to change controller variables, it always returns an error code (with 1 indicating it has succeeded and any number other than 1 indicating an error). The list of error code is in the source code:
https://github.com/OpenSprinkler/OpenSprinklerGen2/blob/master/server.cpp#L74
RayKeymasterA useful tip is that if you have a cheap computer speaker you can place it close to the transmitter — when it transmits, the speak often picks up the signal and you can hear some sort of beeping sound. Probably not all speakers will pick up the signals, so try your remote control first and see if the speaker can pick it up. Then try OSPi. If there is no actual signal sent out from OSPi, you should check if +5V and GND are wired to the transmitter correctly. Also, after you modified the source code, and recompiled, you should restart RPi to effect the changes.
The computer speaker trick can also allow you to identify if the simulated signal roughly matches the original signal. Specifically, the pitch you hear is correlated with the signal timing — the slower the signal, the lower pitch you will hear.
April 21, 2015 at 8:11 am in reply to: No zone activation after upgrading to new 2.1.4 firmware #36976
RayKeymasterHmm, it’s hard to imagine that a firmware upgrade would disable the valves. To begin, when you say firmware 2.1.4, you mean Dan’s Python interval program, is that right? The unified firmware doesn’t have version 2.1.4 yet.
RayKeymasterJust to make sure: the battery holder is soldered at the correct orientation, right? Also, I forgot to ask you: did you check the time displayed on the LCD screen, and is that time also stuck at Wed?
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