Summary of Meeting 2017-10-31

[TerryJC]

Here is a summary of the points discussed this morning (not necessarily in the order discussed and includes some items discussed ealier but not documented at the time):

1. The first priority is to upgrade the current Butts installation to utilise the old Magnetic Probe. To achieve this, the following work needs to be done:
   1. Penri needs to upgrade the old probe to have the same kind of float as the new one.
   2. Terry needs to modify the Butts Pi Interface Board and wiring to:
      1. Provide 19 V to drive the Probe electronics.
      2. Remove the current 15-way D-Type receptacle and wire the Interface Board inputs to the receptacle half of a round industrial connector (as per the Sump Pi installation).
   3. Penri needs to provide both the round industrial receptacle and the cable half.
   4. Hamish will need to update the software so that buttspi can monitor two probes at once
2. Looking to the future, the current aspiration is to have two more Butts 'farms':
   1. One farm behind the Railway Room with a 'cascade' of three groups of barrels:
      1. These butts will be served by a single Pi, but be provided with sensors for each group of barrels.
      2. Sensor outputs will be converted to Binary Coded Decimal values to minimise the number of wires needed:
         1. Four wires to carry the BCD value.
         2. Three wires to allow up to 7 sensors to be addressed. This may need to become four wires, to allow for up to three sensors on each group.
      3. Each group of barrels will be higher than the previous group starting at the group nearest the Wendy House butts.
      4. Each group will be connected to the next using plastic pipes so that water flows under gravity from the highest group to the lowest (the Wendy House Butts).
      5. Gate valves, controlled by the Railway Room Remote Pi, will allow water to flow from the highest group to the next group down to ensure that the butts behind the Wendy House always have water to replenish the sump.
   2. Another farm behind the Gazebo with a supply for the gardeners: This will:
      1. Be fully isolated from the rest of the system, both hydraulically and electrically.
      2. Be monitored by using the existing WiFi network set up for the Audio Guide and Quiz.
3. In due course the Webserver Pi in the Railway Room store will be brought into the system to form the server for the Staff and Visitor GUIs.

If I have missed anything please post it here and I'll update the post.

[hamishmb]

Hi Terry,

1, d) I will need to improve the software so that buttspi can monitor two probes at once. This is likely to be fairly easy, I think.

2, a, ii, b) This may need to change, because from what I gather we will eventually want 3 probes at each site behind the railway room.

2, a, iii) The wendy house is the lowest set of butts right?

2, B, i) By hydraulically isolated you mean in terms of the water supply for the river system? Or some-piston/pump related thing?

All seems good except that. I hadn't realised how much we discussed!

[TerryJC]

1, d) I will need to improve the software so that buttspi can monitor two probes at once. This is likely to be fairly easy, I think.

Done.

2, a, ii, b) This may need to change, because from what I gather we will eventually want 3 probes at each site behind the railway room.

Done.

2, a, iii) The wendy house is the lowest set of butts right?

Yes, unless we are prepared to pump water from the Railway Butts to the Wendy House Butts.

2, B, i) By hydraulically isolated you mean in terms of the water supply for the river system? Or some-piston/pump related thing?

Yes, I simply meant the water.

All seems good except that. I hadn't realised how much we discussed!

That's why it's worth having a face to face discussion We could have thrashed this out in these forums, but it would have taken a lot more words (and would probably still needed to be summarised at the end to ensure that we all understood the same thing).

[hamishmb]

True

Thanks.

[Penri]

Hello all

I will not have the new float back for the original magnetic probe until at least the 16th Nov. I've have the cable looms completed by Tuesday 14th as agreed but will not be able the install the probe until I have the float.

Hwyl

Penri

[hamishmb]

Hi,

Fair enough, and it also gives me some time to add that functionality to the software.

Hamish