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OSPi v1.4+ prototype has been ordered and should arrive in a few days. If it passes verification, we should have 1.4+ ready to sell in 1-2 weeks.
I couldn’t help smiling at your request 🙂 Is it because you couldn’t find out which valve a wire goes to? I am just trying to understand in what situations you need such a feature.
Given that the OSPi software now supports weather-based rain delay, you may want to try that out first. If that works for you, you can get away with rain sensor.
I just checked logging in concurrent mode, there doesn’t seem to be any problem, log data is written correctly. To be sure, is your device microcontroller-based OpenSprinkler (with LCD and buttons), or is it a Raspberry Pi-based OpenSprinkler?
‘Serial’ is Arduino’s built-in library. I’ve not used Arduino 1.5.7. I suggest you download Arduino 1.0.5. There may be compatibility issues betwen 1.0.5 and 1.5.7. You can have multiple instances of the Arudino program/folder.
Because the program’s end time has to be prior to start time, what you need to do is to split the program to two the first program will start somewhere before midnight (say 9pm), and end at 11:59pm. The second program will start at 00:00am (or perhaps later if you don’t want it to start right at 00:00), and end at, say 6am. Both programs will be set to water the selected station(s) for 15 minutes, and repeat every hour. This should achieve what you need.
The only OSBee product that has been released is the OSBee Shield for Arduino. The standalone OSBee is not available yet, mostly because I don’t have enough time currently to finish it up.
To turn on a station manually, you need to switch the controller to manual mode first:
http://:8080/?pw=opendoor&mm=1
then
http://:8080/sn1=1&t=0
This is because directly turning on/off a station is implemented as part of the manual mode operation. If the controller is in program mode, it won’t accept such commands. At least this is how interval program 1.x is implemented.OK. Thanks for posting the video. Helped a lot to see the problem. There are two possibilities I can think of:
1. The 12MHz crystal (for microcontroller) is not soldered well or defective, causing the system clock to slow down significantly.
2. There is an issue with RTC (either loose connection or defective chip) that causes the microcontroller to have difficulty reading the RTC.This is a rather unusual problem, you can send an email to [email protected] to arrange for support.
The only reason I can think of, if the RTC does not remember time when the power is off, is either a loose connection on the CR1220 battery, or the battery is plugged in reversely.
OK. Thanks for reporting. I wasn’t aware of the incompatibility with USB3.0. Will check and see if there is a solution somewhere.
While preparing a new OSBo SD card image, I came across this website which describes a method to compile the RTL8192 driver:
http://gencarelle.com/blog/2013/07/19/problems-with-rtl8188cus/
I gave it a try and it seems to work much better than the default driver provided by the system. I followed the instructions and compiled it under kernel 3.8.13-bone56. The custom driver is now integrated into the new OSBo pre-configured SD card image, available for download at:
http://raysfiles.com/osbo/osbo2.zip
Will see from user feedback whether this indeed works more reliably or not.A quick note that OSBo v1.1 is now available at:
http://rayshobby.net/cart/osbo
A new comprehensive user manual is also now available. See the product page above for link to the user manual. The OSBo pre-configured SD card image has also been updated, with the latest interval program v2 installed, and an updated RTL8192CU driver.First, I need to understand where you placed the full-wave rectifier. I assume you added it between COM and say station 1? If would be best if you can provide a sketch. Note that you should not replace the half-wave recfitier (used for 24VAC to 5VDC conversion) on the OSPi with a full-wave rectifier — this is because the control mechanism of OSPi requires a half-wave rectifier, if you replace that with full-wave rectifier, it is not going to work.
Second, it’s possible to directly replace a triac with an NPN transistor. The triac’s G, MT1, MT2 pins are functionally equivalent to an NPN transistor’s B, E, C pins. If you intend to only replace 1 triac with transistor, you may consider making use of the built-in relay instead (the relay is rated 250VAC/3A, however, I recommend only using the relay for low voltages, such as below 40V, because the PCB traces and the enclosure are not rated 250VAC).
Lastly, a question: what type of pump relay do you have? A lot of sprinkler pump relays operate on 24VAC, so I am not sure how you can get them to work by converting 24VAC to DC.
A while back I wrote a blog post about how to check out an earlier version of code on Github. Please check it here:
http://rayshobby.net/?p=5066Two things to check:
1. make sure your transformer outputs AC voltage, not DC. it’s sometimes confusing what ‘ac adapter’ means. strictly speaking, sprinkler transformers are ac-ac transformers (i.e. outputs AC voltage), whereas most other adapters (like USB, laptop adapters) are ac-dc transformers.
2. can you connect an actual sprinkler solenoid to test? where there is no load, the multimeter may pick up stray voltage (which appears as if the station is active). the stray voltage should be gone if an actual load is connected.Rain sensor port has been added since OSPi 1.2.
I don’t recall where I said this. Rain sensor is only added since OSPi 1.3. If you saw where I mentioned it in 1.2, let me know and I will correct it.
Does the system freeze or is it just that you can’t access it over the network? In the latter case (and assuming you are using a WiFi dongle), it may be the WiFi dongle’s driver that’s causing the issue.
@VBigger: the only reason that the RTC cannot ‘remember’ time is when the backup battery is under voltage or is not connected well. Of course, if the battery is plugged in reversely, that would also cause the same problem. Make sure the battery’s positive (+) side is visible.
OK, I’ve never tested logging when sequential option is disabled. Will take a look at it shortly and see what’s causing the issue. Thanks for reporting.
The preview calculates the program timing independently, so the modifications you made to ospi.py will not be reflected in the preview.
Sorry, I lost track on this thread. The voltages seem fine mostly, however, pin 23 and pin 24 (25MHz crystal) voltages are noticeably different from mine. Mine measures about 1.38V on both pins, while yours are considerably different. The problem might be in the 25MHz crystal. Please send an email to [email protected] to arrange for replacement crystal.
If you are not against using off-the-shelf products, check out my most recent blog post about how to use RPi to interface with a cheap wireless soil moisture sensor:
http://rayshobby.net/?p=9413
All that’s required is a 433MHz RF receiver connected to RPi. I am also working on decoding a few more such sensors and will publish the code soon.If you are into building your own soil moisture sensor, a good starting point is the Chirp (http://wemakethings.net/chirp/): it uses an ATtiny44 and capacitive probe to detect soil moisture level. I was actually working on building a soil sensor myself a few weeks ago. My solution is to use a similar capacitive probe as Chirp used, but a Schmidt trigger to form an RC oscillator, and use Arduino’s pin 5 (counter) to detect the oscillation frequency, hence calculating the capacitance. Now that I’ve found cheap off-the-shelf sensors, I kind of feel it’s a lower priority to build my own.
