Home automation

ford50killa

Member
Join Date
Sep 2016
Location
Texas
Posts
16
I’m looking at automating my house. My question is my dpinkler system. If it has been rating the past few days, I want it to gather the latest rainfall info. Can you think how I would do that? I want a tan I can compare to. If the rainfall is more than an inch in the last 3 days, then it not need to active my sprinklers. Can any of you advise me on how to get this info into a register.
 
I'll start off that if I arrived at a home with a PLC, I'd make a heavily discounted offer or simply move on. PLC's are expensive to maintain and I would not want to have my wife as the production manager on a Tuesday night complaining something isn't working as asking "is it fixed yet?"


Have you considered collecting that data yourself with a vessel where you can measure the volume and automatically empty it by opening a valve?



Is there an online service that provides this data for you? If so, perhaps a networked Arduino or Raspberry pi or some server you may have already collecting and transmitting this to the PLC?
 
You haven't told us what PLC you are working with or going to work with.

I have used Node Red before to get local weather station data into a Groov Epic. As cardosocea alludes to, that is WAY overkill for home automation, though.

I believe you can use Node Red on a Pi though.
 
I did something very similar a few years back and it's still chugging along well!

Check out this thread, in post #38 I give a brief run down of how I get the hourly/daily weather data. This was in Australia, using the Australian weather bureau, so my approach won't be a direct cut-and-paste for you, but it might help get the ball rolling!
 
Look for (or make) an analog output rain gauge with a controlled dump valve.


Watch the collected level in the gauge and log it, if it gets too full empty it and keep counting.
 
I second the Node-Red application.
You can get a refurbished desktop PC from Staples for a couple hundred bucks. Node-Red will handle any Automation you can throw at it and gather the data you want from the internet.

Node-Red is really great for talking to a CLCK PLC from Automation direct, just to keep it cheap when looking at I/O. Raspberry PI will do it to, but I much prefer to run things on PC than on PI.
 
Hi, I have worked quite extensively on my home automation using a PLC.

I bought this to measure temp, wind, rain, humidity. Might be a little overkill for your application, but you can just buy the rain bucket.

6322C: Cabled Vantage Pro 2™ ISS
https://www.davisinstruments.com/pages/vantage-pro2

I wired the sensors directly to my PLC inputs and it has been working out very well. When wired up in this fassion, you do not need to purchase the HMI.

It took a lot of coding to trend the wind direction, but I soldiered on and it was a totally worthwhile learning experience.
 
Start reading about Home Assistant, it can integrate almost anything on the market.

Getting weather data is pretty easy, making an automation to turn on sprinklers based on past weather data is easy to do, you can even integrate Node-Red into it as well if you dont like the YAML programming.

Its a more sensible and cheaper solution than having a PLC somewhere in the house.
 
Hi,

In my opinion, a good PLC for home automation is SIEMENS LOGO if you do not need many outputs.

At home I added an Arduino MEGA that communicates with the LOGO via MODBUS TCP. Now my inputs and outputs are extended using the Arduino MEGA pins.

Best Regards
Konstantin Kolev
 

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