Smart Sprinklers?

[JDuc]

Heads up: HA newbie here

Having said that, I'm looking at the Elk system as my basis for my HA.

I'm not just wanting to be able to program my sprinklers based on times, I want my sprinkler system to only run when it's needed. I'm looking at something along the lines of the RainBird ET manager or the Cyber Rain XCI.

Does anyone have any experience with these and integrating with the Elk system? Any feedback? Positive? Negative? Otherwise?

Any other options to look at other than these?

Appreciate any feedback that you can provide and thanks so much for this forum! I've already learned a ton just by reading.

 

[znelbok]

There is a driver that has been written for CQC (www.charmedquark.com) that uses a lot of data to generate smart watering schedules.

I dont think it will work with the M1, but there are some inexpensive controllers that it will work with to do what you want.

Jump on over to the CQC forums for a read
http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=8578

Mick

 

[drvnbysound]

Heads up: HA newbie here

Having said that, I'm looking at the Elk system as my basis for my HA.

I'm not just wanting to be able to program my sprinklers based on times, I want my sprinkler system to only run when it's needed. I'm looking at something along the lines of the RainBird ET manager or the Cyber Rain XCI.

Does anyone have any experience with these and integrating with the Elk system? Any feedback? Positive? Negative? Otherwise?

Any other options to look at other than these?

Appreciate any feedback that you can provide and thanks so much for this forum! I've already learned a ton just by reading.

Have you thought about how you are going to connect the sprinkler valves to said system?

Directly wired to relays on-board the Elk or a dedicated irrigation controller such as the Rain8 from WGL (http://www.wgldesigns.com/rain8pc.html) ??

While I am not 100% what all hardware it is compatible with, here is another software option: http://www.mcssprinklers.com/

 

[Michael McSharry]

The cyber rain will be your easiest install if it fits your parameters and expectations. If you want maximum flexibiltiy/configurabiltiy then mcsSprinklers will provide the most capability. There are Homeseer users that use the ELK relays for valve control and mcsSprinklers for the scheduling logic. mcsSprinklers without Homeseer communicates via RS-232, UPB, IP or X10 using an application protocol for the Rain8 family or xAP BSC protocol.

 

[nov0798]

What exactly do you mean by "only run when its needed"?

Are you trying to not have it run when its raining?

Do you only want it to run when the ground is at a certain moisture level?

 

[apostolakisl]

Just buy the Elk relay board and use Elk to directly control your sprinklers. I posted all of my rules on a thread here a few months ago and could even export them to you for direct import if you want. I have a rain sensor as well that I just haven't gotten to installing yet but it will hook up to a zone and I will write a rule to stop it from sprinkling when the zone is violated. I have 16 zones and there are about 40 rules total to make it work properly with all the bells and whistles.

Each Elk relay board can handle 8 zones.

 

[jkish]

There is a driver that has been written for CQC (www.charmedquark.com) that uses a lot of data to generate smart watering schedules.

I dont think it will work with the M1, but there are some inexpensive controllers that it will work with to do what you want.

Jump on over to the CQC forums for a read
http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=8578

Mick

The CQC irrigation scheduler can work with the Elk if you are using the digital outputs to control the sprinkler valves.

 

[ddennerline]

I purchased a Rain8Pro, but have not yet setup the sprinkler system. I like the idea of controlling sprinkler with Elk – especially because it easier to test /monitor them using a smart phone.

I have been trying to find a ET or moisture based system that can be integrated into Elk. I really hope someone would build a self-contained (read low-cost) ET system that uses serial communications to provide input information to HA controller. I have yet to find such a product. The closest I can find is a Hunter SolarSync or Hunter ET-sensor. From my research, the ET-based systems produce a “good-enough” calculation with the added benefit of not relying on a single in-ground sensor. In addition, the in-ground sensors have to be calibrated.

As an alternative, I believe it would be feasible to integrate either of these products into a Rain8Pro. These products use moisture sensors which mayproduce unstable readings depending on the quality of moisture sensor.

Signature Sprinkler Moisture Controller
S.Sense System

 

[apostolakisl]

I purchased a Rain8Pro, but have not yet setup the sprinkler system. I like the idea of controlling sprinkler with Elk – especially because it easier to test /monitor them using a smart phone.

I have been trying to find a ET or moisture based system that can be integrated into Elk. I really hope someone would build a self-contained (read low-cost) ET system that uses serial communications to provide input information to HA controller. I have yet to find such a product. The closest I can find is a Hunter SolarSync or Hunter ET-sensor. From my research, the ET-based systems produce a “good-enough” calculation with the added benefit of not relying on a single in-ground sensor. In addition, the in-ground sensors have to be calibrated.

As an alternative, I believe it would be feasible to integrate either of these products into a Rain8Pro. These products use moisture sensors which mayproduce unstable readings depending on the quality of moisture sensor.

Signature Sprinkler Moisture Controller
S.Sense System

d,

I would love to have a reliable ground moisture content measuring system, but after a fair amount of research came to the conclusion that it was impractical. There are so many micro environments throughout your yard with different soil composition, hours of sunlight, exposure to wind, and plant consumption that it ends up being too complex to create a system that is actually accurate enough to be worth the effort at all.

My system is to watch the plants and stick a finger in the ground. After a couple years of that I think I have the system tweaked pretty well.

 

[jkish]

d,

I would love to have a reliable ground moisture content measuring system, but after a fair amount of research came to the conclusion that it was impractical. There are so many micro environments throughout your yard with different soil composition, hours of sunlight, exposure to wind, and plant consumption that it ends up being too complex to create a system that is actually accurate enough to be worth the effort at all.

My system is to watch the plants and stick a finger in the ground. After a couple years of that I think I have the system tweaked pretty well.

FWIW, I've been running a ET based water balance system starting earlier this year and found it to work quite well.

It turns out that since you water a whole zone at a time anyway, then you just have to model each zone based on the most stringent conditions within the zone to make sure that everything within the zone get enough water. Some parts of the zone may get over-watered, but that issue exists within a zone even if you schedule manually.

 

[apostolakisl]

FWIW, I've been running a ET based water balance system starting earlier this year and found it to work quite well.

It turns out that since you water a whole zone at a time anyway, then you just have to model each zone based on the most stringent conditions within the zone to make sure that everything within the zone get enough water. Some parts of the zone may get over-watered, but that issue exists within a zone even if you schedule manually.

This is the issue as I see it. One zone may call for water after 3 days and another zone may not call for water for 4 or 5 days. But your system is not setup to water each zone as an independent entity. And it won't be consistent like that or you could just adjust the inches of water. For example, zones that are in sunlight areas will call for more inches on a set schedule. But what if it is cloudy three or four days. Now the sunny zone is like a shady zone and your system is going to overwater the sunny zone.

If any system is capable of handling this truly to proper efficiency, it would be an Elk. With Elk you could easily program each zone to be independent responding to an ET assessment strictly for that zone.

But trying to get this type of a system working for 16 zones I felt was just too much figuring.

 

[jkish]

This is the issue as I see it. One zone may call for water after 3 days and another zone may not call for water for 4 or 5 days. But your system is not setup to water each zone as an independent entity. And it won't be consistent like that or you could just adjust the inches of water. For example, zones that are in sunlight areas will call for more inches on a set schedule. But what if it is cloudy three or four days. Now the sunny zone is like a shady zone and your system is going to overwater the sunny zone.

If any system is capable of handling this truly to proper efficiency, it would be an Elk. With Elk you could easily program each zone to be independent responding to an ET assessment strictly for that zone.

But trying to get this type of a system working for 16 zones I felt was just too much figuring.

The CQC irrigation scheduler which I use and wrote does manage each zone independently. You can specify the parameters for each zone including soil type, vegetation type, sprinkler flow rate, sun exposure, slope, etc. The water balance is maintained for each zone based on rainfall received, weather forecasts, and evapotranspiraton. So far, it has worked well.

 

[roussell]

@jkish,

Woudl you mind sharing the raw code/logic/formulas for that so that those of us using other HA software could adapt it to our systems? I guess I'm mostly interested in the core ET calculations, which model did you use- Penman Moth?

TIA,
Terry

 

[jkish]

@jkish,

Woudl you mind sharing the raw code/logic/formulas for that so that those of us using other HA software could adapt it to our systems? I guess I'm mostly interested in the core ET calculations, which model did you use- Penman Moth?

TIA,
Terry

Yes, it is based on the Penman-Monteith equation. A good resource for the calculations can be found here: http://www.fao.org/docrep/X0490E/x0490e00.htm#Contents

I'm not sure if the ET calculation code from my driver would be too valuable as it is written in CML, uses CML library functions, and there isn't that much code involved with the actual ET equations. That said, if you still want to see it, send me an email via my profile and I can carve out what you are interested in and send it to you.

 

[apostolakisl]

The CQC irrigation scheduler which I use and wrote does manage each zone independently. You can specify the parameters for each zone including soil type, vegetation type, sprinkler flow rate, sun exposure, slope, etc. The water balance is maintained for each zone based on rainfall received, weather forecasts, and evapotranspiraton. So far, it has worked well.

Sounds like a nice system. I think I would get overwhelmed trying to account for the fact that you can't just look at things like sunny, windy, but which direction the wind is comming from, if it is sunny in the morning/afternoon only, etc. as residential yards are so full of obstacle to sun and wind from one direction but not another. Maybe all of those details just get averaged out in the end.

I think it is cool that you have it working.