Summer / Autumn 2017 Prototype Deployment

[hamishmb]

Okay.

Thanks for the update Penri

[Penri]

Hello

I was back at WMT this late afternoon and added three more stand-offs to the float switch column of stand-offs. This was enough to make the float float and lift the switch actuator (the white plastic disk) clear of the microswitch lever. I then opened the stop-cock and watched the switch actuator descend (slowly) until the microswitch lever was pressing down on the microswitch's body, I though I heard the click (I should have) but would not swear to it. After closing the stop-cock I set the SSR to manual and watched the switch actuator rise again until is was clear of the microswitch's lever, probably hearing the microswitch click again!
So everything appears to work, at least mechanically, as far as the float switch is concerned. It will be good to check the electrics and software next time.
I left the system with the SSR on Auto, the sump water level within normal bounds, the float switch actuator holding the microswitch lever down and stop-cock closed.
I didn't tune the float-switch to see if it was set as it's optimum level, that's probably best done when we can monitor the whole system in automatic operation

Hwyl

Penri

[hamishmb]

Excellent

[TerryJC]

All,

Attached are the Results that we copied from the two Pis this morning.

Here is a summary of what we did and the current status of the system:

• We downloaded these results as attached.
• We then deleted all of the software from the two Pis, including the old Results, and installed the latest version from Github. This contains Hamish's latest updates.
• We then restarted the two Pis and checked that both were running correctly (not an easy feat in view of the problems connecting to the Wireless AP. We need to resolve that).
• We then released water from the Butts to fill the sump using the manual flow valve.
• Once the sump had filled, we observed the Butts Pump starting and the level in the butts increasing.
• We then observed the Float Switch actuating (both physically and via the messages from the console), whereupon the Butts Pump stopped.
• We then observed the level falling in the butts until the Float Switch opened (again both physically and via the messages from the console).
• We shut off the flow of water from the butts to the sump.

All in all; a very successful test

[hamishmb]

Yay! Progress XD.

Could you post this in the meetings subforum though please so we can remember what happened if we need to look back?

Thanks,
Hamish

[hamishmb]

Okay, nothing seems very eventful in there to me

Shall we retire this thread and make a new one now that our deployment is effectively complete except for the plug and play connection for the new probe?

[TerryJC]

Well we could, or we could keep it going until all the prototype development is complete. If we retire it, then we should rename this 'Summer / Autumn 2017 Prototype Deployment' so that any further prototype work has it's own unique forum.

I have no preferences.

[hamishmb]

Update:

Penri's new probe was installed this morning, and I fixed a regression in the software. Something didn't make it to github when we fixed it earlier, but it's now there, so all is fine

Over the course of the morning, we tested the system and are confident that it's working just fine, so we left the butts valve half-open.

I'm now renaming this thread as you suggested Terry so we can archive it.

Hamish

[hamishmb]

Update 2:

Seeing as it's still autumn, I'll post this here rather than making a new post.

I went in to fix a problem with the system yesterday, but we're all okay now. Here are the logs from up to that point. Nothing seems to anomalous to me, and note that the errors you see in rivercontrolsystem.log have since been fixed by me and deployed on the Pis

It seems the formatting for the ControlSystem_Levels.txt file didn't go as I'd thought, though it was okay before (!?), so I'll fix this soon as well, but it is at least fairly readable

Hamish

[TerryJC]

Hamish,

Thanks. I was thinking of popping in to retrieve the results myself later today, but now I don't need to!

There's just one thing that I don't understand. At startup (0943:35 on the 24th), the file ControlSystemLevel.txt indicates that the system takes a while to settle and then returns OK for the Float Switch and at 0947 it indicates 700 mm for the sump. This is as I expected because that was pretty much what we saw when we were there.

However, the file riversontrolsystem.log flags a critical problem until 0947:48. Is that because the system is still settling? Clearly the level wasn't at 200 mm, as the log indicates, so do we know why it throws a wobbly for the first 5 minutes?

If it's a settling problem, then perhaps we should endeavour to log something to that effect until the system has stabilised.

Otherwise it's looking good.