Winter Workshop 21/22

[TerryJC]

Whoops. I was still logged in as the administrator when I posted that.

[TerryJC]

I should be able to do it using the hardware Unit Test Software. I will have to kill the running riversystemcontrol code in each Gate Valve Pi, so that I can run the 'gate_valve.py' program. However, I wouldn't then be able to restart the riversystemcontrol until the water is transferred at the earliest.

Penri and I spent a bit of time this morning trying to open these valves and had some problems with Gate Valve 2; it would not stop hunting. I've now had a look at the status of the code in those three valves and identified that two out of the three had earlier versions of the software (presumably dating back to pre-lockdown; they haven't been run since then). I have now updated the code and will be able to repeat the exercise the next time Penri is on site.

[Penri]

Terry

Thanks for the swift actions this morning, what we were able to do has better balanced the water level in the Hanham butts (between barrel clusters 1 and 3 at the moment). When I’m back in on Thursday we’ll see if Valve 2 will play ball and perhaps also open up the Stage valve as well so I can manually route any captured water into the river.

[hamishmb]

Hopefully that will fix it. IIRC, we did update the tolerances at some point.

[TerryJC]

Penri and I spent a bit of time this morning trying to open these valves and had some problems with Gate Valve 2; it would not stop hunting. I've now had a look at the status of the code in those three valves and identified that two out of the three had earlier versions of the software (presumably dating back to pre-lockdown; they haven't been run since then). I have now updated the code and will be able to repeat the exercise the next time Penri is on site.

Unfortunately, the our-of-date code wasn't the problem; Valve V2 was exactly the same when we tried to open it yesterday. Penri was on site, so I shut the Pi down and Penri exercised the mechanism with the aid of a screwdriver. After a restart I was able to open the valve to 100%.

We found exactly the same problem with the Stage Butts Valve (V12). The fix was repeated and that valve is now set to 100%.

The current situation therefore is that Valves V1, V2, V3 and V12 are now fully open with the river software stopped. This will allow Penri to use the manual Ball Valves to capture as much water as possible during the current rains. The Sump and Wendy Butts Pis are operating normally.

[hamishmb]

Hmm, that's strange. Could this relate to the connector reliability issues that you recently encountered? I think back in the day we did test all the valves with the hardware unit tests, so they were working correctly at some point.

[TerryJC]

No. It's almost certain that the problem was that the valve was stuck in the housing owing to not being used for several years.

[Penri]

Once we got the valves moving they appeared to work as intended so I’m inclined to concur with Terry’s view that they were just stuck from lack of use.

[hamishmb]

Somehow I missed that part of the message. Glad they're working again.

[hamishmb]

I've made a lot of progress on the river control system. For more details, have a look here: viewtopic.php?p=6178#p6178

I'm nearing the end, finally. Next up is implementing the CLI to control devices. Once I've done that, I'll test everything again, and then deploy site-wide, so I can test the software control of the mains water solenoid and then integrate Patrick's temporary top up logic.

Should we make a new thread for general integration discussion - it's not early 2022 anymore?