I received an Automation & Irrigation hat for Christmas. I have an 8-relay board that I've connected. During the test (Settings tab, Acutator Test) - all of the relays perform the test except Relay1_8. There is a quick blue blip on the counter, then it turns yellow for a fraction of a second and back to zero.
On the Hardware Settings tab, it's configured for GPIO 20. I've made no changes to the hardware settings after using the v11 dropdown preset HW Config.
The only other item I have connected to the Hat is a BME280 sensor, which is working OK.
Is there something I can do to get relay #8 working? Or to test further?
Thanks.
ok, this is a feature of the system, in the home page it is possible to quickly disable/enable the relay by clicking over the "V" or over the "X". Just need to click over it and it will toggle from "X" to "V". That's explain all.
I know that feeling, it happened to me many times :). Anyway happy to know that the issue is solved.
Boy, do I feel stupid. I obviously missed that in the documentation. Nice feature.
Another thing I just noticed today is this X to the left of relay 1_8.
I did check this with my VOM and there is 0 ohms from the relay1_8 signal pin and Pin 38 (GPIO 20) on the Raspberry Pi Zero W, so the hardware looks correct.
It appears to me now that the software knows that GPIO20 is not available. Wouldn't the X next to relay1_8 indicate that for some reason this GPIO is not available?
I've set the test time longer (10 seconds, etc) and tested all the relays. All but #8 activate correctly. The bar moves up each second until 10 seconds pass and then the relays shut off. Here's a video of what it does. Hopefully the link works.
I checked relay #7 and it operates as expected.: 3.27v when off and .06 when activated.
Relay #8 doesn't do a thing. Could the Automation & Irrigation board be bad or made wrong? As you said, if the other relays are operating correctly but #8 isn't, it shouldn't be a software problem.
Any suggestions?
Hello, it is unlikely that there is a problem in the SW or configuration as the same procedure is used to activate the different relays and if the other relays works should work also for the relay1_8, then it seems to be more on the hardware side.
Anyway next Monday I'll run a test to be sure there is no issue from SW side.
For the voltage testing you can set a longer activation time like 10 seconds in the drop down menu, you should see the blue bar to go from 1 to 10 in the 10 seconds. As the relay logic is negative the voltage go to around zero when the relay activates.
Actually it is normal to see a orange color in the bar for a very short period, this indicates the delay in the activation, that in your case should be negligible.
Better to make the voltage test also for a working GPIO to check if the voltage changes as expected.
I measured the voltage on the GPIO20 pin on the Automation & Irrigation hat. It doesn't change when I tell relay 8 to activate. It stays at 3.26v.
I also removed the 8-ch relay module and measured the voltage across GND and GPIO20 and there is no change when activating it in the Hydrosys4 GUI.
If the voltage doesn't change, and the GUI does that really quick pulse of movement but then stops, it's like the software knows this isn't working.