[Tonyhome]

@ray wrote:

Anyways, once I discovered this, I immediately switched to use Arduino SD, because it provides much better support, including large SD cards, sub-directories, and support for both FAT16/FAT32. Lately I’ve started using the SdFat library, which is what Arduino SD is based on but offers more flexiblity and leads to smaller code size. So that’s what gets wrapped into firmware 2.0.7, which I just announced in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=758

This is great!
I was expecting OpenSprinkler hardware to be able to support fully-featured SD library.
This also allows serving scripts and WEB pages directly from SD card.

[Tonyhome]

@ray wrote:

This is a limitation imposed by the tinyFAT library:
http://www.henningkarlsen.com/electronics/library.php?id=37
tinyFAT is a very compact SD card library, produces code that’s considerably smaller and consumes less RAM than the standard Arduino SD library. I’ve tried the Arduino SD library (you may have noticed that the earlier versions of the source code had a macro define to switch between tinyFAT and Arduino SD), but it consumes too much resources that I fear would eat into the other planned features.

Thanks Ray. What do you think about installing 1284p instead of 644 to have enough RAM (and more flash) for OpenSprinkler?

1284p has 16K RAM – 4 times more than what you have right now, and it is also pin-compatible.

BTW, I posted my mod on Github: https://github.com/tony-osp/OpenSprinkler-experiments/
Also I started small blog to capture my OpenSprinkler experiments: http://tony-osp.dreamwidth.org/

[Tonyhome]

@ray wrote:

Note that firmware 2.0.6 for OpenSprinkler (not OSPi) has added support for logging onto microSD card. Please check the relevant post here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=692

Thanks Ray, this is helpful. I’m using OpenSprinkler fork based on 2.0.

I have a quick question for you – why there is a limit of 2GB on microSD card and FAT16? Standard Arduino SD library seems to handle well big cards (I’m using 32GB card) and FAT32 with no problems. Is it a hardware or software restriction?

[Tonyhome]

Adding logging is possible on 2.x hardware – it AtMega644 has enough resources to add it and the board has SD card slot.

I’m running my own modified version of OpenSprinkler software on a regular Arduino Mega hardware, and I added SD card-based logging. When I added it in, SD card support consumed additional 1.2K of RAM, but Mega has enough resources for it. OpenSprinkler 2.x hardware has sufficient RAM as well.

Unfortunately my modified software version will not work directly on the original OpenSprinkler hardware due to different Ethernet controller – I’m using standard WizNet5100 while OS uses a different one. But the same mod (adding logging) can be done on a regular OS version as well.

[Tonyhome]

@rszimm wrote:

I just uploaded the latest build. You can get it here : http://stuff.intelligent-isi.com/sprinklers_pi/sprinklers_avr-1.0.0.tar.gz

It’s built with either the Visual Micro plugin for Visual Studio, or else the version 2012-05-23 Arduino.mk makefile on a linux platform (what a pain in the ass that thing is..)

Hi Richard, thank you for posting the code.

I tried to compile the code using VS2012 + Visual Micro, but I’m getting compile errors related to SdFat. Which version of the library are you using for this project?

***Update***

I got it compiled. One of the files had (unnecessary and problematic) reference to SD.h, and since I had this library in my standard Arduino installation it was picked up, messing up SdFat32 files.

One question I have – it seems that this version of the code does not have any support for the local LCD. Is it the case? And what is used instead?

Thanks!

***Update 2***

I got it all working, it appears that this firmware version does not have local LCD/buttons support and the UI is strictly via the WEB browser.
I’m thinking to experiment with it a bit and maybe add local LCD/buttons support, or maybe I will just stick with the original OpenSprinkler for now.

[Tonyhome]

Hi Dave,

thank you for your work. And also big thanks to Ray for all his effort with OpenSprinkler!

I was able to put together my own OpenSprinkler setup in no time using your code and recommendations. Works great on MegaR3 + Ethernet shield + Freetronics LCD shield. I’m not using RTC but as long as the system is online it does not really matter.

I’m planning to make some code changes, to add monitoring of environmentals (temperature, humidity) with datalogger and maybe add water flow meter. Also I’m planning to make the controller serve static HTML content from its SD card instead of the Ray’s hosted version, to enable HTML editing and UI extensions. Since Mega has a lot more resources it is feasible and should be fairly straightforward.

Do you know by any chance if somebody was doing similar mods?

Also I’m using this sprinkler controller with a mix of the regular 24VAC valves and Orbit DC (garden hose-type) valves, using pretty simple circuit on the top of the standard relay shield. If anybody is interested I can post details.

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