[Ray]

Mac 10.8 and above introduced a security feature that disables many downloaded apps. Just turn the feature off and try again. See details here:
http://www.baldengineer.com/blog/2012/11/22/how-to-fix-arduino-is-damaged-and-cant-be-opened/

The GUI software is written in Processing, which uses Java. The main advantage of using Processing is that it’s easy to write code, and the application is naturally cross-platform.

[Ray]

Sure, sounds good. MPSA13 and A14 are interchangeable, so either should be fine.

[Ray]

I was also taking a look at your blog about the relay board but if I understand correctly I would still have to replace the Triacs anyway, Is this correct?

Not necessarily. If the relay board is of ‘active high’ type, you just need to solder a wire from the gate of the triac (basically the shift register output) of each channel to the relay’s data pin. The blog post shows replacing triacs by transistors because the relay board I was using is of ‘active low’ type. So the transistors serve as inverters to reverse the logic.

It is also a little unclear for me how the relay board works as there seems to be more outputs then inputs.

Typically each relay channel has three pins on the input side: VCC (e.g. 5V), GND, and data pin (connected to microcontroller, or in this case, a shift register output pin); and three pins on the output side: NO (normally open), CO (change over), NC (normally closed). At resting position, CO and NC are connected; when relay is activated, CO and NO are connected. To put everything together: first, one wire from each solenoid should come together and go to the COM (common) terminal; then, the other wire of each solenoid can go into the relay NO pin. Finally, the CO pin of each relay is connected to GND. This way, when the relay is activated, it completes the circuit from 24V AC common wire -> solenoid -> ground (which is tired to the other wire of 24V AC). Hope this makes sense.

[Ray]

First of all, the Arduino programs should be pretty easy to adapt to RPi by using wiringPi. In particular, the Arduino RC-Switch library works with wiringPi, and it provides a lot of powerful functions. Note that Rich’s sprinklers_pi program is written in wiringPi.

Now, since Dan’s interval program is written in Python, you will need to convert the code to Python. It’s also fairly straightforward. Below is an example: connect the RF transmitter to +5V, GND, and GPIO pin 17 on RPi, and you need to modify the signal (signature and command) to fit your specific remote socket.

#!/usr/bin/python



import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

import time



SEND_PIN = 17



SIGNATURE = 0b0000111101010101



COMMAND = 0b11110001



DELAYSHORT = 160

DELAYLONG = 500



OVERHEAD = 0 # overhead time (in us) for calling GPIO.output and time.sleep. If 0 doesn't work, try 125



def ookPulse(on,off):

GPIO.output(SEND_PIN,True)

time.sleep((on-OVERHEAD)/1000000.0)

GPIO.output(SEND_PIN,False)

time.sleep((off-OVERHEAD)/1000000.0)



def pt2262Send(signature,command):

for k in range(0,16):

for i in range(0,16):

if((signature>>(15-i)) & 0x1):

ookPulse(DELAYLONG, DELAYSHORT)

else:

ookPulse(DELAYSHORT, DELAYLONG);

for i in range(0,8):

if((command>>(7-i)) & 0x1):

ookPulse(DELAYLONG, DELAYSHORT)

else:

ookPulse(DELAYSHORT, DELAYLONG)

ookPulse(DELAYSHORT, DELAYLONG)

time.sleep(.005)



def main():

GPIO.cleanup()

GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)

GPIO.setup(SEND_PIN,GPIO.OUT)

while True:

pt2262Send(SIGNATURE,COMMAND)

time.sleep(5)



main()

[Ray]

OK, interesting, I think this is the first time I see 24V DC non-latching valves. The user manual seems to refer to both 24V DC and 24V AC coil voltage, I assume this means two different types of solenoid?

Anyways, if you’ve already invested in the DC valves, you can modify the OpenSprinkler circuit by replacing the triacs with transistors like MPSA14. You won’t need the flyback diode any more because all current versions of OpenSprinkler have per-channel transient voltage suppressor (TVS) or MOV (these serve as surge voltage protectors). You can also use a relay board in conjunction with OpenSprinkler, but it will be much more bulky.

[Ray]

What cables are you referring to? The cable that connects main controller to expansion board? Or RJ45 (Ethernet cable)? Or the green screw terminal blocks?

[Ray]

my logging software reported some activity,

what logging software do you use? Also, do you know your OpenSprinkler’s firmware version? Prior to firmware 2.0.3, the controller does not save the operation status in EEPROM. Therefore if the controller restarted (for example, due to power outage), the operation will reset to ‘enabled’. From firmware 2.0.3, the operation status is stored in EEPROM, so it will preserved.

[Ray]

The current system operates 20 zones with solenoid operated diaphragm valves. These 20 valves are 24Vdc 0.3 Amp.

do you know the model number / link to the valve? The first thing is to make sure these are indeed DC valves. Also, whether it’s latching or non-latching. If you can tell me more about the specifications of the valves, I can give you better advice.

[Ray]

Very impressive. I am so glad OSPi now has such a polished UI. A big thank-you to Jonathan and Dan for working on this!

[Ray]

So I followed these steps and I am still not able to get the Edimax Nano connected reliably at all times. The only reliable solution is to use a powered USB hub. When using the powered USB hub, the WiFi works perfectly fine with no disconnection. I think it’s more of a hardware problem (either the 24V AC to 5V DC power conversion, or the PCB design of the BeagleBone Black), and not so much of a software problem.

[Ray]

The RF transmitter can be directly soldered to the GND-VIN-A3 pinouts on the left of the Ethernet jack (the pinouts are labeled ‘RF’).

There are no direct pinouts for the DHT22 sensor, however, you can use any of the available pins in the general pinout area (above the LCD) to interface with DHT22. All you need is VCC, GND, and any available data pin, for example IN2.

When programming in Arduino, you need to provide the digital pin number. I am listing the digital pin numbers below:
A3 : 28
IN2: 2
A05: 26
A06: 25
A07: 24
RXD: 8
TXD: 9

[Ray]

Thanks for the suggestions.

1. Could the Updater be made to resize, the Log section is very small and it’s difficult to read the output.

Good point, I just updated the program to use bigger fonts.

2. Is there a way to customise/remember the HW version you have? Not everyone has the latest HW and it would be nice to have your own hardware selection come up first every time you run the Updater.

Unfortunately there isn’t a good way to do this through hardware yet — there is no signature byte or something in the EEPROM that stores the hardware version. That’s why the firmware updater includes hardware descriptions (such as the terminal block color) to help identify the hardware version. In the future we should put a sticker at the back of the enclosure printed with the version number.

3. In the README file you explain everything you need to get things going but you never say where the exe or bat file is to execute, could you update the README file to make things a bit clearer for the ‘not-so-technical’ people out there.

Well the README.txt stores information that will be displayed when you click on ‘README First’ button on the updater. So it assume you’ve already run the program. I thought it’s fairly obvious that the executable program is in the subfolder named application.win32 and similar.

[Ray]

Just a quite note that the latest OSPi v1.3 has a built-in mini-relay (rated at 120V/2A) which can be used for garage door control. The three relay pins are mapped out on the PCB (NO–normally open, CO–change over, NC–normally closed). A related thread is here:
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=490

[Ray]

Looks correct to me. Now, there are some differences between wiringPi’s pin numbers vs. the BCM GPIO numbers:
https://projects.drogon.net/raspberry-pi/wiringpi/pins/
on OSPi 1.3, the rain sensor is connected to the TXD pin (the 4th pin on the right column of P1), and relay is RXD pin (the 5th pin), depending on whether you are referencing wiringPi’s pin number or BCM GPIO numbers, it could be either 15 or 16.

[Ray]

You need to set the number of zone expansion board in the Options. It defaults to zero. Once you set the number of zone expansion boards, you should see, on the home screen, a total of 16 stations instead of 8.

[Ray]

– Reliability: raspberry PI work on linux system, arduino version use programmed microcontroller. I suppose that a monotask program is more reliable that a full OS. Am i in wrong? Is it possibile to prevent critical issue like flooding for unclosed pump?

I think this really boils down to software design. There are tons of modern gadgets built on embedded Linux and they are very reliable. I did receive some reports about SD card corruption issue on the Pi, which is rare but exists. So at the moment the arduino-based version is probably more reliable, but I think the pi-based version can be improved to have similar reliability.

– Heat dissipation: this point depend on the first one. Raspberry pi works at higher temperature and the enclosure doesn’t help it. Somebody have tested it in critical environments?

I haven’t done any critical testing under high temperature myself. RPi generally dissipates more heat because of its current consumption. This could be a problem during the summer particularly if the controller is placed outside under the sun.

[Ray]

Yes, working on this and should get it done within a day or two.

[Ray]

The 5V power circuitry on OSBo has a PTC fuse followed by a 5.6V zener diode, which function as over-current and over-voltage protection. So it should be fine. The only thing I am worried about is if the pins are arranged differently on the two versions, you may end up shorting some pins to ground, which could damage those pins on the Beagle.

[Ray]

To be honest I don’t know. I have to do some research on the differences between the white and black versions, most importantly, whether the pin layouts are the same. If anyone know the answers, please feel free to speak up. Thanks.

[Ray]

1.3 is already out and shipping. Sorry that the product code hasn’t been changed. Will fix it right away.

[Ray]

I took a quick look at some Arduino GSM shields, and I think it’s not straightforward to use them directly with OpenSprinkler. These shields pretty much all use the serial interface, which means the commands and data are all sent through serial. This is different from how OpenSprinkler interfaces with its Ethernet controller, so there will be considerable changes in software to make it work.

[Ray]

The backup battery is used for the real-time clock (RTC). It does time keeping even when the controller is off or the Internet connection is down.

Typical 24V AC sprinkler solenoids need power to stay on. When power is down, they will turn off and hence no water will flow through the valves.

[Ray]

The LCD backlight and contrast are only available on the controller when you enter Setup Options (by holding button B3 while turning on the controller). These are not available on the web interface. You can check the user manual for details:
http://rayshobby.net/?page_id=3775#setup

[Ray]

Coming back to this thread: it occurred to me that it could also be that the fuse just got broken due to mechanical reasons. As long as the VIN-GND and VCC-GND resistance values are acceptable, you can replace the fuse with a wire and test again. If you need a replacement fuse, contact [email protected] and we can arrange to send you a replacement fuse.

[Ray]

Yes it supports model A. The difference between A and B is that A does not have Ethernet jack and controller. The screw hole locations are the same with model B.

[Author]

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