Hi Angelo,
I looked at quite a few automated greenhouse type systems prior to finding yours. It is the best package I found by far. Excellent software.
When I build my next one I’ll order a board from you…good price and would save me a ton of time.
I have a couple questions about software settings that I could not find the answer to on the forum.
1. I have one light that I would like to run on an 18 hour on 6 off cycle. I cannot seem to figure out the correct settings under Automation -Light to make this happen. I do not want this automation to be sensor based.
2. Similar issue with with a fan that I would like to run 24 hours a day. (I could just plug it in but would like to keep my options open for possible changes to that schedule in the future)
3. I have a second fan I would like to run on a temp sensor basis most of the time but possibly run like item 2 above during certain hours. Is there a way to do this?
I purchased a couple of these in April to use with TerrariumPI (on github by theyosh). https://www.tindie.com/products/next_evo1/universal-ac-mains-dimmer-mpdmv41/ They are pretty well documented and a huge improvement on Pi’s built in PWM. If you have the time can you take a look and see if these are something you might want to integrate? I would like to use one in the future as a fan speed controller and I have just started teaching myself python.
Again, great software. Thank you very much for sharing.
-Ryan
Hi Ryan,
Regarding the activation of the Fan/Light without sensor, there are mainly two ways to do it.
1) You can use the "wateringPlan" schedule by dedicating one schema to it. So for each day of the week you provide the starting time and duration of the Light ON (duration can go above 60 minutes). You can also use the monthly water drops multiplier to change the ON/OFF ratio for different months if useful.
2) You can use the "timetrigger" virtual sensor. This is meant to be used for actions that repeats periodically during the day. For example switching the fan for 2 minutes every 10 minutes. But it can also be used to for continuous activation of the relay for example setting the duration of the action for 15 min every 10 minutes. In this case the relay will be always on in the time range assigned.
Below a configuration example:
Activation for 360 seconds (6 minutes), Every 5min. In the day time between 4:00 and 20:00. In this case the Trigger is set every 5 min, this value can be changed in the HardwareSetting page.
The Case 3 with mixed scenario, controlled with Sensor but also enabled for a specific time, is a little tricky. I think it can be a combination of "wateringplan" schedule for the fix part and the "automation" setting for the part that is activated using the sensor. The two can work together to achieve the result.
For the automation based on sensor you can refer to this post:
https://hydrosys4.wixsite.com/hydrosys4forum/forum/sw-and-settings/setting-up-automation
Finally regarding the Hardware you indicated, I see that it accepts as input a PWM signal at low voltage. The system uses the PWM output for the Servo connection, anyway after few seconds it will stop the PWM so some change to the SW would be needed.
You can try to modify the "Servo" procedure in the HWcontrol.py file to make some testing.
Regards,
Angelo