SIP Installation at Austria

[SteveH]

I would like to thank Dan for the creation of SIP which provides an solid and extendable platform for a custom sprinkler controller.
I’am located at Austria (Europe) nearby Vienna and using SIP to control the irrigation system of my private backyard. The installation has 5 zones for lawn watering supplied by the public water supply and 2 zones for flower beds supplied by an rainwater cistern and a submersible pump. The controller and master valve is located within the basement of my house.

Hardware:
• Beaglebone Black
• Wired Ethernet
• Custom BBB IO Board
   o 5V Supply Regulator for BBB
   o Realtime clock with backup battery
   o 8x 24V Valve Driver Outputs (SolidState, galvanic  isolation)
   o 4x 24V Digital Inputs (galvanic isolation)
   o 24V Output (galvanic  isolation)
   o 2x 12V Relay Drive Output
   o 1x12V Safety  Relay Drive Output  (GPIO has to be toggled to keep output active)
   o 4-20mA Sensor Input (galvanic  isolation, switchable 24V sensor supply)

• 1x Cistern Pump Relay
• 1x Relay for 24V transformer supply (controlled by safety relay output)
• 1x Master Valve (Rainbird)
• 7x Zone Valves (Hunter)
• 4-20mA Liquid Level Pressure Sensor (mounted inside cistern)
• 12V DC supply for BBB IO Board
• 24V Comatec Transformer
• Buttons on control box and within the backyard to enable the master valve and cistern pump (connected to 24V digital inputs)

Software:
•  Custom minimal buildroot linux image,  stored on BBB eMMC
•  rootfs within RAM , only the SIP data directory is stored on an eMMC ext4 partition
•  NTP time synchronisation
•  Custom SIP GPIO control modul based on libgiod
•  HTTPS webinterface access by using HAProxy (running on firewall)

Added Features
•  Physical buttons to pressurize the backyard water-tap (master valve/cistern pump) for 90min 
•  Display cistern water level on SIP web interface (value in %)
•  Watchdog functionality within custom SIP Python GPIO control modul to disable 24V valve supply in case of software fault

[dan]

Hi Steve,

Thank you for the detailed description of your set up. Very nice.

You have built a nice compact controller and have done a lot of customization.

I especially like the fact that you are using rain water for part of your irrigation. Bravo!

Dan

[Noschvie]

Hi Steve
you can share the IO board with other users?
Thanks, Norbert

[aorchid]

Steve,

I am trying to run SIP with a BBB as well, not sure if it works straight out of the box. I have thus far not been successful. Can I ask if it worked with your relay out of the box? Did you have to do any custom programming?

Thanks, Aric

Hi Steve
you can share the IO board with other users?
Thanks, Norbert