Over The Air Updates April 2022

Version 2022-4-16

:spiral_calendar: Published May 02, 2022

Omega Water flow Meter

The Omega Flow Meter is a non-invasive ultrasonic water flow sensor.

The sensor attaches over a water pipe, and senses the amount of water passing through the pipe.

Online Documentation Page

Omega Flow Meter

The sensor can report flow as either a 4-20mA signal or as a number over a modbus channel, and the card can be configured to read either signal.

Flow Meter Card

Valworx Water Valve with Flow Rate Control

The Valworx Postional Flow Valve is a ball valve actuator for water flow control.

It offers water flow control through a 4-20mA input signal, and provides ball position with another 4-20mA output signal.

Online Documentation Page

Valworx Valve

The integration includes configurations for controlling flow based on 0-100% ball open position or based on requested water flow.

Valworx Card

If an accurate water flow input is provided from a sensor like the Omega flow meter (above), the card can be controlled by requested water flow rate. Based on this requested rate, the card opens the valve to the position required to maintain the requested flow.

Improved GrowNET Performance

Large installs were reporting longer than expected delays when polling GrowNET devices.

GrowNET is a modbus/serial protocol, meaning only one device can interact at a time.

When devices have several I/O readings and each reading takes an average of 200ms,
they can add up to a significant time for polling across a single GrowNET network.

This release made the following improvements for large GrowNET installs

  • Combined high/low priority queues into one so all messages have a chance at being processed.
  • Changed device polling to start XX seconds after last poll vs. every XX seconds. This improves load balancing for larger installs.

GrowNET deployments with over 10 or so devices are likely to notice this improvement.

Improved ADXi Failure Mode

If a GrowNET failure occurred while turning one of the ADXi peristaltic pumps,
there was a chance a pump could get stuck in that position until it’s changed
again by program.

The GrowNET failure is now being caught and re-tried on each 10 second poll, so
every subsequent 10 seconds it tries again until successful.

Peristaltic pumps like other GrowNET relays also have a hardware failsafe, so if
any GrowNET failure (as in the above) persists over 60 seconds, all relays
(pumps) are turned off.

This two-level failsafe is now activated for all relays - peristaltic pumps,
dry contact relays, and the 110v output module.

Improved multi-step task performance

In some cases, multi-step tasks queueud up next to other multi-step tasks could
have their step #1 fail to start due to the task starting before the prior task
had a chance to process all final messages.

Added a 5 second delay between tasks when multiple tasks are queued up, to allow
prior tasks to process their final messages before starting new tasks.