Mark Sanctuary

The hard part about text vs face to face on working this out is we could not understand the demeanor of each other and what was being said. So let me apologize if i was rough around the edges in how I expressed myself. This is something I am trying to work on and I guess I sill have some work to do. This looks like a great hashed out definition of what was discussed and to put together! So do we want to test case it in spreadsheet form and see how it works?

The concrete was tongue-in-cheek. That's why I added it. ha ha

Dude don't be literal on the sample count thing, it can be anything, I just picked every 5 minutes as a base, no worries. I am sure the ISY can handle storing 1,000,000 if we wanted, pseudo code is suppose to be just the over view idea not writing the actual code. Append list is from my tcl background, it just means add the last sample to the end of the array list. What I am saying is store all samples then divide them by the total samples.

My thought is reset at 24:00:01 and start over. Monthly average is less granular than daily and won't ebb-and-flow with our tracking as well. Since we are going to be having a incremental count of the deficit it should ride up and down with daily ET.

So lets recap where we are at in the algorithm at this point... Sample_Rate = every_5_minutes Sample_Count = 288_samples = (1440_minutes / Sample_Rate) Evapotranspiration_Sample_List = append_list (Evapotranspiration_Sample) Daily_Evapotranspiration = Evapotranspiration_Sample_List / Sample_Count This code gets us to the Daily Evapotranspiration variable. This variable is a 24 hour snapshot of 288 samples in the day and is averaged. This data will be used at 11:59PM along with Rain Today for irrigation runs. Soil_Absorption_Factor (sand 1, loam_sand 0.83, sandy_loam 0.67, loam 0.58, clay_loam 0.33, silty_clay 0.25, clay 0.17, concrete 0) This code gets us to the Soil Absorption Factor variable. This variable is a factor of soil type to adjust the efficiency of soil absorption. User intervention required. Daily_Water_Deficit = Daily_Evapotranspiration - (Rain_Today * (Soil_Absorption_Factor / 100)) This code gets us to the Daily Water Deficit variable. This is the amount of water that needs to be replenished for the day. Irrigation_Requirement = Irrigation_Requirement + Daily_Water_Deficit This code gets us to the Irrigation Requirement variable. This is the amount of irrigation that is required to replenish for the day. It is incremental so it can collect for days if necessary for lower deficit days. Days would be skipped until the Irrigation Requirement met the irrigation output threshold. ISY programs callback needed for resetting this variable. Did I miss anything?

From what I understand with drip irrigation a shorter run time is not suggested because of the capillary action does not have enough time to spread the water. The guy at the nursery in the irrigation section (keeping in mind I don't know his experience) says drip should run for no less than 1 hour to allow proper capillary action. He is also the one that said for my sandy soil I might want to increase my dipper size to 1 GPH to help with this because the faster flow helps sandy soil spread the water wider from each emitter.

I have been studying that screen capture of the spreadsheet. I see now that it is varying the days run not the irrigation station run time... I think I see now what your trying to do with the incrementing deficit and why you want to be able to reset it from a program. This would be much less programs to create.

Lets discuss ET over time... ET when collected at a weatherbug sampling is the picture of what is coming out of the plant and soil at that exact moment in time. Several samples are several moments in time. So which would give us an idea of what has left the plant and soil for a day? ET average would give us an average of what has come out of the plan at a single moment in time. ET average = (s1 + s2 + s3 + s4 + s5) / 5 ET sum would give us a total of all the slices in time which would be an idea of what has left the soil and plant for the day. ET sum = s1 + s2 + s3 + s4 + s5 ET peak would be the highest point in the day. ET peak = s1 > s2 ... etc I think the formulas that we are looking at are using ET from a single moment in time so average seems like the correct choice. I think we want to know what has happened for ET over the last 24 hours because we are thinking each day we are going to evaluate the water deficit each day and run accordingly. Maybe this could be an option for the user to adjust? Sample length = 1440 minutes Peter, does this agree with what your thinking?

I am not an expert in this, actually learning as we go... but I am not sure if this is how Soil Absorption fits into this formula. Should this be Allowed Depletion which is calculated from the Soil Type Factor and the Depletion Depth? Allowed Depletion = (Root Depth x Soil Type Factor) / Wilting Point Daily Water Deficit = Daily Evapotranspiration - (Rain Today * (Allowed Depletion / 100)) Humph. Wait Soil Absorption has to do with how much of the rain was absorbed. Where is the formula for Soil Absorption based on rainfall? Looking...

I agree lets go with a single variable for now for this. But as an example... my front yard must have been dirt that was brought in at some point to raise the front yard because its the most beautiful Sandy Loam. The backyard however is a beach, heavy in the sand department, and then 1 to 2 feet down its hard pan. When I run the front yard drip all the soil is nicely damp, however the backyard will have areas that are very dry. For now I can adjust run times in the programs and I am switching all the emitters over to 1 GPH to address the poor capillary of sandy soil. This is a must have. I would love both rain and ET to be a rolling 24 hour snapshot, I start my irrigation at 11pm because of how early we have to get up the next day. With a rolling snapshot of these variables midnight start times would not be required, but this may not be possible with rain being already accumulated for us. I am not an expert in this, actually learning as we go... but I am not sure if this is how Soil Absorption fits into this formula. Should this be Allowed Depletion which is calculated from the Soil Type Factor and the Depletion Depth? Allowed Depletion = (Root Depth x Soil Type Factor) / Wilting Point Daily Water Deficit = Daily Evapotranspiration - (Rain Today * (Allowed Depletion / 100)) Looks good. Agree. Yes. The length of each station run time is the part I see all this improving on with using ET. I would like to see this automated in the case of if Irrigation Requirement is low then the valve run time would be lowered too. I have an idea of how this would look but it does require several programs per station to do it. I will put together the programs I am thinking of and post them next so we can discuss them. Agree. The user should not have to be concerned by how many days, the frequency of those days, and how long the run time should be, because this can all be taken care of by using ET.

Thank you Michel! I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. At least the idea is out there now and maybe someday in the future it may be viable for UDI to build. I think it would even work as a separate module you could sell for $50 to customers, I certainly would buy it. After all to get this type of functionality from any of the separate irrigation boxes out there that do this cost over $300. Peter, I will answer your post in a bit, I have to help get the family out the door and want a bit more time to understand and read it over.

Here is what I was thinking that you and I hammer out the conception of this module, the math, the algorithms, and all the sourcing to the documentation, then we might be able to get Michel to buy into doing it. I can tell you from my experience in the software field that implementing a preplanned design is much faster than doing it from scratch. Personally I don't want a hack for this since it will save my money with less water and it will be more reliable too. With a preplanned design coding the algorithms would take a few days, GUI work would take a few days, and debug plus testing is done buy us users. Michel what do you think? We will do all the heavy lifting and you implement the design?

The more I read the more I wonder if we really need Plant Type in this setup because the ET is already figuring an average for this so soil type may be enough.

I have done some updates to the GUI idea above...

Here is an example I came up with for the WeatherBug GUI tab...

Perfect!

Also I was talking with my friend Mark from Johnson Controls about what we are working on and he mentioned he could give us some help on these formulas since this is what he is experienced in and does it all the time.

Peter, Lets hash out the details here in this same thread then when we agree on the solution then send them over to Michel. Pseudo code, variable names, reference links, length of tracking, etc. Michel, No not the "Scene Status issue" again!

You know really we are going to need the ability to do math and inject variables into the wait/repeat loops in ISY programs in order to do any major magic with this stuff otherwise its going to be ugly. Lots of separate programs to bracket the many different levels of irrigation runs.

I was thinking daily runs if the "Irrigation inches" are above a determined threshold, then using a "every other day" schedule for the lower rate Evapotranspiration. Lower Irrigation inches rate (ie. 0.05 to 0.25) Sun Tue Thu Sat 1hr 1hr 1hr 1rh Higher Irrigation inches rate (ie. 0.25 or greater) Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1hr 1hr 1hr 1hr 1hr 1hr 1hr Really if we want to get serious then we would need Michel to design the complete Irrigation module that all someone would have to do is point the module to the INSTEON EZFlora, set the crop types (ie. grass/plants/trees) and soil types (clay/loam/sand) settings for each zone/station and the ISY would do the rest.

Yes, sorry my children were asking me questions at the same time I was typing so I just pressed the send button so I could pay attention to them hence the funkness...

I think doing the math for Irrigation inches now is much easier and quicker than waiting for the floating point math to be added to programs. I vote for doing it and just adjusting the length of runtime in the wait statement in the program.

peterd covered just about everything I am thinking of so I am "liking" his last post. One note I can build a javascript webpage for Michel after we land on a solution that would help the user figure out their runtimes based on what the ISY puts out so we would not need to send them to an outside edu website for calculating the runtimes. I actually have done a rough draft this webpage idea based off this link. http://irrigation.wsu.edu/Content/Calcu ... -Times.php

Then if "rain today" is the total then no change there. Is rain accounted for in the Evapotranspiration equation? If not then we need to subtract the rain because it has done part of the job of replacing the water that has gone away. You know Gods big sprinkler system in the sky. Temperature: 72.8 F High Temperature: 73 F Low Temperature: 58 F Feels Like: 73 F Temperature Rate: 2.6 F Humidity: 49% Humidity Rate: -0.02 inches/h Dew Point: 53 F Wind Speed: 3 mph Average Wind Speed: 1 mph Wind Direction: NNE Average Wind Direction: NW Guest Speed: 13 mph Gust Direction: SSW Rain Today: 0.04 inches Rain Rate: 0 inches/h Light: 94.5 % Light Rate: 0 %/h Evapotranspiration: 0.4001 inches/day Irrigation: 0.3601 inches/day<---- Add this so we don't have do ugly bit integer logic math in the programs.

I am not suggesting we replace the current line of Evapotranspiration in the weatherbug but rather add another line below Evapotranspiration called Irrigation inches. This way both type of data would be there for some that may just want to use evapotranspiration only for their scheduling. Temperature: 72.8 F High Temperature: 73 F Low Temperature: 58 F Feels Like: 73 F Temperature Rate: 2.6 F Humidity: 49% Humidity Rate: -0.02 inches/h Dew Point: 53 F Wind Speed: 3 mph Average Wind Speed: 1 mph Wind Direction: NNE Average Wind Direction: NW Guest Speed: 13 mph Gust Direction: SSW Rain Today: 0.04 inches Rain Today Average: 0.04 inches/day<---- Add this if rain today is not an average. Rain Rate: 0 inches/h Light: 94.5 % Light Rate: 0 %/h Evapotranspiration: 0.4001 inches/day Irrigation: 0.3601 inches/day<---- Add this so we don't have do ugly bit integer logic math in the programs. ...