The Problem: I live in CA where we are having ongoing water issues. I have a large number of irrigation circuits, now mostly converted to drips. There are a few, however that have high usage rates ( 12- 15 gallons per minute ) for a short periods of time.

 

I am running into many issues with the drip circuits being compromised due to dogs, wildlife etc. When this happens usage may go from a normal rate of 2 to 4 gallons a minute up to as high as 16 per minute. Drip circuits run a long time. We are now also being told to water only overnight when we are asleep.

 

My Setup: I currently have a flume attached to my water meter. I manually look at each circuit the next day after it runs and compare its usage to what is “normal”. Setting Flume alerts does not work due to the few circuits where high usage is normal. Therefore some circuits may run a number of times, wasting a large amount of water, if I don’t get around to checking them for awhile.

 

For over year now. I have been requesting that the 2 companies work together to add something like this.

 

When Rain Machine turns a circuit on it notifies Flume. It would send the circuit name, run time, and expected usage in gallons per minute. All that info is stored in the RainMachine DB. The flume would monitor this and issue an alert if usage was out of some limit. There is a lot more that could be done but lets stick with this for today.

 

I have had no success with either company. Hence this post.

 

I recently purchased a Polisy for other reasons. I have it up and running along with the node servers for both Rain Machine and Flume.

 

My Goal: I am trying to see if I can get any of this implemented using ISY and the node servers. I am new to this so please forgive me for any ignorance you see in my questions.

 

Questions/Issues I see.

 

1. It appears I would have to setup polling rates for both of the node servers to be every minute in order for this to work. One to see a circuit come on and two to get the right flow rate. I don’t think that is desirable for a variety of reasons. I only need this to happen for a few hours a day.

 

      Is it a reasonable request, to ask for the node servers to implement different time of day polling rates. For example, only between midnight and 4 AM when watering is happening.

 

2)   RainMachine API side.

 

a) is the status variable for each circuit reliable enough for this to work.

 

b) is there any chance of getting the value in GPM for each circuit from it.

 

c) I see that the node server can only connect to 1 controller. I have 2. I asked a question regarding this and was told that with polyglot v3 it might be possible to run 2 copies of the same node server which would fix this. Is this correct.

 

 

3) Flume API side

 

a) Is it possible to trigger a Flume alert from a node sever.

 

b) Can flume send alerts to a node server.

 

 

4) ISY side….. I am not an experienced programmer have done simple ones.

 

a) Is this too big of a task to take on given the ISY programming available. I would need to setup 21 circuits. Each would have to have a field for expected and actual water usage. The 2 would have to be compared each time a circuit went on. Alerts would need to be sent when out of range.

 

b) Are emails the only way to send alerts still. It appears so, from what I see. Ideally I want a push notification to my mobile device.

 

5) Should this maybe be done as its own node server?  My gut feel says yes.

 

a)  I suspect there are API variables for each product, that I don’t know about, that would make this task easier. I also suspect the needed math and arrays would be easier to work with in a node server than in ISY. This is way out of my league. I would be willing to work with  a developer to make this happen. I see that with V3 it may be possible for the developer to make money.

 

If you read through all this thanks for your patience

 

Steve

50 minutes ago, stevehoyt said:

The Problem: I live in CA where we are having ongoing water issues. I have a large number of irrigation circuits, now mostly converted to drips. There are a few, however that have high usage rates ( 12- 15 gallons per minute ) for a short periods of time.

 

I am running into many issues with the drip circuits being compromised due to dogs, wildlife etc. When this happens usage may go from a normal rate of 2 to 4 gallons a minute up to as high as 16 per minute. Drip circuits run a long time. We are now also being told to water only overnight when we are asleep.

 

My Setup: I currently have a flume attached to my water meter. I manually look at each circuit the next day after it runs and compare its usage to what is “normal”. Setting Flume alerts does not work due to the few circuits where high usage is normal. Therefore some circuits may run a number of times, wasting a large amount of water, if I don’t get around to checking them for awhile.

 

For over year now. I have been requesting that the 2 companies work together to add something like this.

 

When Rain Machine turns a circuit on it notifies Flume. It would send the circuit name, run time, and expected usage in gallons per minute. All that info is stored in the RainMachine DB. The flume would monitor this and issue an alert if usage was out of some limit. There is a lot more that could be done but lets stick with this for today.

 

I have had no success with either company. Hence this post.

 

I recently purchased a Polisy for other reasons. I have it up and running along with the node servers for both Rain Machine and Flume.

 

My Goal: I am trying to see if I can get any of this implemented using ISY and the node servers. I am new to this so please forgive me for any ignorance you see in my questions.

 

Questions/Issues I see.

 

1. It appears I would have to setup polling rates for both of the node servers to be every minute in order for this to work. One to see a circuit come on and two to get the right flow rate. I don’t think that is desirable for a variety of reasons. I only need this to happen for a few hours a day.

 

      Is it a reasonable request, to ask for the node servers to implement different time of day polling rates. For example, only between midnight and 4 AM when watering is happening.

 

2)   RainMachine API side.

 

a) is the status variable for each circuit reliable enough for this to work.

 

b) is there any chance of getting the value in GPM for each circuit from it.

 

c) I see that the node server can only connect to 1 controller. I have 2. I asked a question regarding this and was told that with polyglot v3 it might be possible to run 2 copies of the same node server which would fix this. Is this correct.

 

 

3) Flume API side

 

a) Is it possible to trigger a Flume alert from a node sever.

 

b) Can flume send alerts to a node server.

 

 

4) ISY side….. I am not an experienced programmer have done simple ones.

 

a) Is this too big of a task to take on given the ISY programming available. I would need to setup 21 circuits. Each would have to have a field for expected and actual water usage. The 2 would have to be compared each time a circuit went on. Alerts would need to be sent when out of range.

 

b) Are emails the only way to send alerts still. It appears so, from what I see. Ideally I want a push notification to my mobile device.

 

5) Should this maybe be done as its own node server?  My gut feel says yes.

 

a)  I suspect there are API variables for each product, that I don’t know about, that would make this task easier. I also suspect the needed math and arrays would be easier to work with in a node server than in ISY. This is way out of my league. I would be willing to work with  a developer to make this happen. I see that with V3 it may be possible for the developer to make money.

 

If you read through all this thanks for your patience

 

Steve

Im not surprised either company is doing what you ask of them. Financially it doesnt make sense for either one to spend the time or money based on a singular request. It would make greater sense for them to come out with a product and package it into 1 and resale vs working with someone else which doesnt provide any financial gain for the work.

While I use Rain Machine, my needs for it with the ISY are minimal since it does what I want without the ISY. I dont use flume at all. With that said, as long as both systems report to the ISY what you are looking for, then you can program to accomplish what you want. The best thing you can do is connect both of your systems to their respective nodeservers and see what information you can glean from them.

Email is not the only way to receive notifications. There are nodeservers for that. Since you've decided to embark on this journey, knowing your system is paramount. I'd peruse the nodeserver store to see what works best for you.

V3 does allow for developers to get paid for their work which is probably why and when most of the really good stuff will come out. If the author of the rain-machine nodeserver said a feature is coming, id say it's true since they would know (its their work after all).

I have not seen where nodeserver polling is dynamic so I do not believe that its possible. You could reach out to the author and ask them directly if it is. If possible, I dont see it happening before V3.

As long as the ISY can see the information you're looking for, I dont see it being to much to ask of the ISY. Thats what its here for. As long as the ISY has all the information that you need, yes it is possible to receive notifications.

If flume's and rainmachine's api does not have what you're looking for then a nodeserver cannot help. You may be able to reach out to a developer and see if he will build a nodeserver for you but that will probably come at a cost to you financing it directly.

If no one has responded to your other post, you should delete that post since it adds to confusion

Edited December 12, 20213 yr by lilyoyo1

To answer the question about running multiple copies of the rainmachine node server on PG3.  That is true.  PG3 will allow for multiple copies of the same node server to run so you would be able to support both controllers.

It is also possible to run two copies of the same node server on PG2, but you would have to manually install one of the copies and give it a different name.  When PG2 installs a node server from the store, it uses the node server name as the location to do the installation (hence you can only install it once from the store).

You might be able to do something with the Flume and Rainmachine nodeservers as they are, but it will depend on a couple of things:

• The Flume nodeserver -- the value of "GV1 - Current Interval Flow", and how often it updates in the nodeserver
• Know what's the expected water flow for each zone

If the Flume nodeserver (I don't have it, so I don't know what data is produced and how often it changes) pushes updated data to the ISY in any sort of a regular basis, and you know the flow rate of each of your zones, then it's relatively simple to write ISY programs to notify you or shut off the zone if the flow rate is too high.

I know that Flume states that they can give you data "minute by minute", so if that's the case, and the nodeserver captures it, it should be simple to set this up.

You might try this:

Turn off all other running water, then start your irrigation zones (in good working repair) and capture the water flow for each one by looking at that water flow in your Flume app as each zone is running (hopefully this a value that is captured by the Flume nodeserver).

Once you have that value, you could write a simple program like this:

Sprinkler Test - [ID 0004][Parent 0001]

If
        'RainMachine Controller / Zone 11 - Drip Zones' Status is Running
    And 'FlumeWater / Current Interval Flow' > 10 

		// just guessing at a value here - maybe a bit higher that what your 
		// Flume reports is the normal flow for this zone
 
Then
        Send Notification to 'Default' content 'High Water Usage'
        Set 'RainMachine Controller / Zone 11 - Drip Zones' Stop
       
Else
   - No Actions - (To add one, press 'Action')

You'd probably want to let the water normalize for each zone before examining the data, but that's relatively easy to accomplish.

Yes, what you want can be done with the Flume nodeserver, I had a rudimentary method I was using with Rachio and Flume before my water company replaced my meter with one that doesn't work with Flume. Also, you can use the notification nodeserver and Pushover to get push notifications.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

Thanks to ALL for your replies with the good information. It is appreciated.

I am going to try and put a small test together and see what happens. I have plenty of time before serious watering begins next spring. 

My main concern, unless I am misunderstanding how the 2 node servers work, is that they are based on polling. So in order for this to work, I will need 1 minute polling set 24 hours a day for all 3 devices. i.e 2 rain machines and the flume. 

The amount of network traffic, both locally to my Rainmachines and remotely to Flume that this would generate concerns me. Am I misunderstanding something.

My suspicion is, somehow I must have a push alert from Rainmachine which would trigger a query to flume. At first blush not knowing much about API's and taking a quick look at the 2 companies API's, I don't think they allow push alerts. Without  this, I think the project is dead in the water. We will see what my test shows.

I hope to get a hold of each node server developer and get their feelings.

JimboCA and JIm Larsen please contact me if you are able too. I am willing to put some money toward this project. Our penalties in the drought can easily be $10 to$20 for each day I don't catch a leak. Thanks

Jimbo above with Rachio and flume. I would interested in any more details of your experiment before your water meter got changed.

 

Thanks again all

 

 

 

 

27 minutes ago, stevehoyt said:

Thanks to ALL for your replies with the good information. It is appreciated.

I am going to try and put a small test together and see what happens. I have plenty of time before serious watering begins next spring. 

My main concern, unless I am misunderstanding how the 2 node servers work, is that they are based on polling. So in order for this to work, I will need 1 minute polling set 24 hours a day for all 3 devices. i.e 2 rain machines and the flume. 

The amount of network traffic, both locally to my Rainmachines and remotely to Flume that this would generate concerns me. Am I misunderstanding something.

My suspicion is, somehow I must have a push alert from Rainmachine which would trigger a query to flume. At first blush not knowing much about API's and taking a quick look at the 2 companies API's, I don't think they allow push alerts. Without  this, I think the project is dead in the water. We will see what my test shows.

I hope to get a hold of each node server developer and get their feelings.

JimboCA and JIm Larsen please contact me if you are able too. I am willing to put some money toward this project. Our penalties in the drought can easily be $10 to$20 for each day I don't catch a leak. Thanks

Jimbo above with Rachio and flume. I would interested in any more details of your experiment before your water meter got changed.

 

Thanks again all

 

 

 

 

The Rainmachine nodeserver has short enough polling values by default, but they are changeable when you configure it.  Generally, whenever a watched node changes state, the values in the nodeserver and ISY are updated, regardless of polling, so there's no need for you to do anything other than write an ISY program that watches the irrigation zone.  I don't have a Flume, so I can't comment on that. 

I wouldn't sweat the network traffic these devices create.  I have a great many more nodeservers than these things, and my ISY handles the load just fine.  When the entire installation moves to Polisy, then I suspect it will be difficult to overwhelm the network stack with nodeservers unless they are badly misconfigured.  All of this traffic will happen on the ethernet port.

Polyglot v3 (which only runs on the Polisy) already has the FlumeWater and Rainmachine nodeservers available for download at a cost of $10 for FlumeWater and $15 for Rainmachine. 

If you want to get the attention of the developers, than you'll have to tag them in your response, like this: @Jimbo and @glarsen

Quote

b) is there any chance of getting the value in GPM for each circuit from it.

The RainMachine API does offer a variable by zone which reports GPM or M3/hour.  I think it is a calculated number  that is based in data you input to the RM when you set it up.  I can take a look at it see if it's of any value, adding the data to the nodeserver is trivial.  But, it will be after New Year's before I will be able to get to it most likely.

5 hours ago, stevehoyt said:

My main concern, unless I am misunderstanding how the 2 node servers work, is that they are based on polling. So in order for this to work, I will need 1 minute polling set 24 hours a day for all 3 devices. i.e 2 rain machines and the flume. 

The amount of network traffic, both locally to my Rainmachines and remotely to Flume that this would generate concerns me. Am I misunderstanding something.

Don't worry about that, it's a tiny amount of data

5 hours ago, stevehoyt said:

My suspicion is, somehow I must have a push alert from Rainmachine which would trigger a query to flume. At first blush not knowing much about API's and taking a quick look at the 2 companies API's, I don't think they allow push alerts. Without  this, I think the project is dead in the water. We will see what my test shows.

IMO, the only way is to have the ISY monitoring Rainmachine and Flume, then have it send a notification.  It'll be a lot of programs but after getting one to work properly creating all the others would be simple.  You could use the Notification Nodeserver to send push notifications with the Pushover service.

5 hours ago, stevehoyt said:

JimboCA and JIm Larsen please contact me if you are able too. I am willing to put some money toward this project. Our penalties in the drought can easily be $10 to$20 for each day I don't catch a leak. Thanks

Jimbo above with Rachio and flume. I would interested in any more details of your experiment before your water meter got changed.

If there are enhancements needed to Flume, just let me know.

My program was very simple, if we were not at home and a water was being used, and Rachio was not currently watering then I got a notification.  This worked well for me since I was trying to catch a stuck sprinkler valve or broken or leaking pipe inside or outside while we were traveling, since it always seems to happen when we are gone...  I did want to make it smarter, but not an option now without a major plumbing change.

 

Hi,

I'm a developer at RainMachine and I remember something similar was mentioned in a meeting. We've contacted Flume to understand what can be done for a better integration between RainMachine and Flume but, if I remember right, you can't set anything via Flume API (thresholds or alerts). What we added recently is the API call to retrieve flow meter counters and also be able to ingest flow meter counters from an external service. This is described here: https://rainmachine.docs.apiary.io/#reference/watering/wateringflowmeter

This probably won't help you directly with what you want to do but might help you in your integration.

 

@npavel

Glad to hear that you rain machine folks are watching this thread. Hopefully the discussion you had in your meeting was a result of my input. In any case, if you have not seen it, I have my request documented in your forum titled "Ideas and product enhancements"  entered Oct 5th. There is a similar request by Tim Frock dated Oct 20th. 

I took a look at the API ref you mentioned. It seems if each Rainmachine zone, in addition to the GPM that I define, could have a field for actual GPM it might be a start. You could get actual GPM from flume while the zone was running.  I could then set a trigger for GPM "out of range". Just an outsiders thoughts. As mentioned above, see my entry in your forum. I go a bit further with my request ideas.

 

Thanks

 

Edited December 15, 20213 yr by stevehoyt

GLarsen 

I believe it would go a long way to making the ISY programming easier, if a new field was added to each zone that contained the GPM. Right now, as you mentioned, I currently manually enter the GPM by zone. If you could provide that value it would save me the duplicate work of setting up 21 ISY variables, one for each zone. I  have 2 HD 12's with 21 zones active between them. 

Then in theory, correct me if I am wrong, I could have a program for each zone which

1) Check for status change to running

2) Check flume sensor after waiting for circuit to stabilize ( in my case 3 minutes is my worst case ) 

3) if flume rate >= GPM from data provided by  "rain machine new variable" + fudge factor

4) take appropriate action text email whatever. 

Thanks

PS It would even be better to have a node server which which took the necessary functions from both flume and Rainmachine node servers. and combined them. I am not sure if you and Jimbo work together. In any case, I would be willing to support this effort with some money if need be. 

4 hours ago, stevehoyt said:

It would even be better to have a node server which which took the necessary functions from both flume and Rainmachine node servers. and combined them.

@stevehoyt, to get the attention of people in this forum, put an ampersand (@) prior to their user name.  Otherwise, you're just hoping they'll pay attention to the forum you're posting in.

I think a simple ISY program could do what you're considering.  No need to combine the nodeservers.  This is exactly what the ISY does and does very well.  I do something similar (with the Rainmachine nodeserver and WeatherFlowPoly nodeserver) when the wind or temperature values go outside of norms (shut off irrigation in high wind, or provide extra irrigation to newly planted areas in hot weather).  The ISY is the glue between the two nodeservers.

@Bumbershoot I will give it a try Thanks for the tip on names. I wondered how to do it.

@glarsen@npavel

Just found out how to get your attention via an ampersand. Please see my notes above to you both. Thanks

Edited December 15, 20213 yr by stevehoyt