04-07-2023, 11:02 PM
Hi Ramana, for what I can see with the custom rules they look good to me. The temperature will swing 0.5 degrees between on/off and if it ever hits 80 degrees based on the 3rd rule it'll send you alerts. For now there is no "dashboard" alert, I'll be adding a panel where they show up.
That's interesting what you did with the ATO, looks like it should work ok, best to let it cycle when you are there to make sure. Also for the first while check the logs to make sure things are looking good. One thing to note on the temp sensor rules, it's possible in the log you see a bunch of repeats saying it turned off the heater. This is because if the temp hits 78.5 that rule will run turning it off, if the temp teeters on 78.4 - 78.5 the off rule will continue to run every time it hits 78.5 even though the heater isn't actually on. If I don't forget I'll have that fixed next release. It's harmless doing that, just clogs up the log and can be confusing.
For the schedules outlets 1, 2 and 6 will always be on. I see you staggered them 5 minutes but that won't help any as they will never turn off. If you reboot the controller at 10:00pm it'll work but that's unlikely. Anytime after 10:10pm they will all come on as you experienced but I did thing of a way to fix that if you have a spare sensor port.
Either connect a switch or a jumper to a sensor port like this float switch example. If you used a switch you could manually turn them off and when you flip switch to turn back on they would startup with the 5 minute intervals. As long as the switch is on they would always run.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F95a...lvlouvq7ae
To do this delete the schedules and create 2 custom rules if you use a toggle switch. If you just use a jumper so it's always on you only need the on rule. Write them like this. When the controller starts up it'll check the status of the switch and run on of the rules. If you have an order to turn them off you can adjust the off rule with switching timers.
![[Image: rules28.PNG]](https://www.robo-tank.ca/pictures/screenshots_app/Updated_Version/rules28.PNG)
Dashboard:
Looks clean, can you provide the user the ability to change the background from dark to light.
Yeah at some point it'll be fully customizable but this will take some time as there's lots of other things ahead.
Allow users to add other graphs, e.g. ATO on/off.
There will be ATO, heater and dosing charts along with custom in the near future.
How can we change the scale of the graph? I see an option but not sure how it works.
You can only change the view range from 1 hour to 90 days using the buttons when you hover the chart name. The MA text box is the moving average, if you play with that you'll see it update.
Rules:
I am not able to edit a rule that I have created.
Can't edit today, have to delete and recreate.
How does the rule work - e.g. I have my ATO pump set to go OFF if the water level is low in the ATO. If the tank level sensor is low, will it trigger the ATO pump? Will the system check for all rules to see if there is a conflict and how will it respond? (As I was writing this I realized that I need to create a new rule if tank level is low for 5 min then send an alert). Would be great if we can setup a reminder for the alert to resend email after a set interval and repeat for x number of times.
When you read out the rule it'll do exactly as it says. Just remember if you have something turning something on you'll need to create something to turn if off, could be a schedule turns on, rule turns off. At this point it doesn't check for conflict so do make sure there are none.
Scheduling:
It is fairly simple. Have not played with the more complex ones. For now I have setup schedules to turn ON my - return, wave maker and skimmer around 10:00 pm daily. Since my tank is only 24G AIO, I sometimes turn OFF the return and skimmer when I dose chemicals. I am able to edit the schedules. Since there is no startup schedule, I plan to replicate the same device turn ON steps once every 4 hours, so that in the event the system reboots the equipment will come ON. Would be great if I turn ON/OFF multiple devices in one schedule, I tried to select multiple devices but I could not. Also, the ability to copy schedules and edit them.
I will be addressing some of these issues with scheduling in near future, the rules I posted above should solve the skimmer issue. There's actually a bug in v6.6 when editing a schedule, if it isn't a dosing pump schedule it won't update, program actually will crash but start back up in 3 seconds. Someone pointed this out so I have it fixed for v6.7. For now you'll have delete and recreate like custom rules.
Calibration:
PH calibration was easy and was able to do it fairly quickly.
Great.
Temp calibration - noticed that it is missing. Since I use the DB probes, I coated mine with liquid plastic to avoid corrosion. The means I need to calibrate the temp sensor to compensate for the extra layer of plastic. Would be great if you could add something.
This will be added with the heater system, quite a few ask about this.
System:
I noticed that there is currently no option to backup the system setting. This has saved me a couple of times in the past when I was tinkering the reef-pi and testing Robo-Tank. I was able to quickly revert back to the old configuration and restore the settings if the SD card died. Please try to make this a priority upgrade if possible. If there are other ways to accomplish this let me know the process to save a backup and restore a backup.
This will be something I'll be adding, just so much to do but it is important. I'm going to have an auto backup system.
Sensors:
Adding them was fairly easy. It would be great if you could show the current status of the sensor on the screen where we sit each individual sensor. During the setup for ATO, I had to go between screens to see the status since the - invert logic option is available.
Yeah more for later. :)
Thanks for your feedback.
That's interesting what you did with the ATO, looks like it should work ok, best to let it cycle when you are there to make sure. Also for the first while check the logs to make sure things are looking good. One thing to note on the temp sensor rules, it's possible in the log you see a bunch of repeats saying it turned off the heater. This is because if the temp hits 78.5 that rule will run turning it off, if the temp teeters on 78.4 - 78.5 the off rule will continue to run every time it hits 78.5 even though the heater isn't actually on. If I don't forget I'll have that fixed next release. It's harmless doing that, just clogs up the log and can be confusing.
For the schedules outlets 1, 2 and 6 will always be on. I see you staggered them 5 minutes but that won't help any as they will never turn off. If you reboot the controller at 10:00pm it'll work but that's unlikely. Anytime after 10:10pm they will all come on as you experienced but I did thing of a way to fix that if you have a spare sensor port.
Either connect a switch or a jumper to a sensor port like this float switch example. If you used a switch you could manually turn them off and when you flip switch to turn back on they would startup with the 5 minute intervals. As long as the switch is on they would always run.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F95a...lvlouvq7ae
To do this delete the schedules and create 2 custom rules if you use a toggle switch. If you just use a jumper so it's always on you only need the on rule. Write them like this. When the controller starts up it'll check the status of the switch and run on of the rules. If you have an order to turn them off you can adjust the off rule with switching timers.
Dashboard:
Looks clean, can you provide the user the ability to change the background from dark to light.
Yeah at some point it'll be fully customizable but this will take some time as there's lots of other things ahead.
Allow users to add other graphs, e.g. ATO on/off.
There will be ATO, heater and dosing charts along with custom in the near future.
How can we change the scale of the graph? I see an option but not sure how it works.
You can only change the view range from 1 hour to 90 days using the buttons when you hover the chart name. The MA text box is the moving average, if you play with that you'll see it update.
Rules:
I am not able to edit a rule that I have created.
Can't edit today, have to delete and recreate.
How does the rule work - e.g. I have my ATO pump set to go OFF if the water level is low in the ATO. If the tank level sensor is low, will it trigger the ATO pump? Will the system check for all rules to see if there is a conflict and how will it respond? (As I was writing this I realized that I need to create a new rule if tank level is low for 5 min then send an alert). Would be great if we can setup a reminder for the alert to resend email after a set interval and repeat for x number of times.
When you read out the rule it'll do exactly as it says. Just remember if you have something turning something on you'll need to create something to turn if off, could be a schedule turns on, rule turns off. At this point it doesn't check for conflict so do make sure there are none.
Scheduling:
It is fairly simple. Have not played with the more complex ones. For now I have setup schedules to turn ON my - return, wave maker and skimmer around 10:00 pm daily. Since my tank is only 24G AIO, I sometimes turn OFF the return and skimmer when I dose chemicals. I am able to edit the schedules. Since there is no startup schedule, I plan to replicate the same device turn ON steps once every 4 hours, so that in the event the system reboots the equipment will come ON. Would be great if I turn ON/OFF multiple devices in one schedule, I tried to select multiple devices but I could not. Also, the ability to copy schedules and edit them.
I will be addressing some of these issues with scheduling in near future, the rules I posted above should solve the skimmer issue. There's actually a bug in v6.6 when editing a schedule, if it isn't a dosing pump schedule it won't update, program actually will crash but start back up in 3 seconds. Someone pointed this out so I have it fixed for v6.7. For now you'll have delete and recreate like custom rules.
Calibration:
PH calibration was easy and was able to do it fairly quickly.
Great.
Temp calibration - noticed that it is missing. Since I use the DB probes, I coated mine with liquid plastic to avoid corrosion. The means I need to calibrate the temp sensor to compensate for the extra layer of plastic. Would be great if you could add something.
This will be added with the heater system, quite a few ask about this.
System:
I noticed that there is currently no option to backup the system setting. This has saved me a couple of times in the past when I was tinkering the reef-pi and testing Robo-Tank. I was able to quickly revert back to the old configuration and restore the settings if the SD card died. Please try to make this a priority upgrade if possible. If there are other ways to accomplish this let me know the process to save a backup and restore a backup.
This will be something I'll be adding, just so much to do but it is important. I'm going to have an auto backup system.
Sensors:
Adding them was fairly easy. It would be great if you could show the current status of the sensor on the screen where we sit each individual sensor. During the setup for ATO, I had to go between screens to see the status since the - invert logic option is available.
Yeah more for later. :)
Thanks for your feedback.
