C Touch and irrigation

We are about to put together a 12 zone irrigation system using a 12 way relay and touch screen. I am reliably informed that there is an irrigation template for the touch screen . . . . . . . . . .somewhere!

 

Template

What type of touch black & white or color, also ctouch now known as PICED
The color ones will have an irrigation system set up built in, lets u do things like.



Irrigation can be implemented using Schedules, but it is much simpler to use the in-built Irrigation Manager. Irrigation Control is not available for Black and White C-Touch projects.

Typically it is necessary to activate various solenoids for particular times to ensure that everything receives the correct amount of water. Different parts of a garden may need different amounts of water, which may change depending on the time of the year.

There are a few terms used with regard to Irrigation Control which need to be defined :

? Irrigation Zone : This is a load which can be controlled by the Irrigation Controller. It is generally a solenoid which controls water flow.
? Irrigation Program : This is a sequence of events, corresponding to switching on each Irrigation Zone for a selected amount of time. It may be desirable to have one Irrigation Program for watering gardens which is activated once per week, and another for watering lawns which is activated every three days. It may also be desirable to define different Irrigation Programs for different seasons (e.g. shorter watering cycles during winter).

? Master Load : This is like an Irrigation Zone, except that it is on during the entire Irrigation Program. For example, a pump or master solenoid may need to be switched on as the Irrigation Program commences and stay on until the program completes.
? Valve Types : A Level Control valve (solenoid) stays on only while the voltage is applied to it. A Pulse On / Off valve needs a pulse applied to one connection to open the valve and then another pulse applied to a different connection to close the value.

? Zone Delay / Overlap : The zone delay is the delay between zones which may be needed to give the valves time to close properly. The Zone Overlap is when the next zone starts before the previous one has completed. This can be used to reduce water hammer.
? Rain Delay : A rain delay is a Schedule which is used to enable the Irrigation Control at some time in the future. This is normally used to disable the Irrigation for a few days after it has rained, and then re-enable it later.

 

C Touch

We have the B&W screen others not YET available in the UK.

So can some one help me out here I have two LIVE customers that have requested irrigation on their existing CBUS networks.

I am happy creating the screen menus and pulling in some relays but dont want to get bogged down with programming for menus to set timer sequences etc.

Surely thishas been done before perhaps someone has a CTouch file I could uses as a starting block.

Why introduce irrigation as standard on the colour and not the B&W?

Whats the price of the Colour screen - is there any indication when it will be available in the UK?

 

The colour C-Touch runs a processor and memory many times more powerful than the B&W. The core of the colour C-Touch is the smame code used in the Schedule Plus / Home Gate PC based products.

The colour C-Touch is not shipping anywhere yet. not sure onthe expected release date.

 

C-Touch

There is a basic template in the examples section of the B&W c-touch software. But this probably wont do what you want.

We have a few Colour touch screens on order and have been promised any day now but who knows............

 

irrigation on black and white touch screen

Ive have used B&W touch screen.You will have to schedule automaticaly.but you need a on schedule and a off schedule for each valve.with 12 zones thats on and off ,so you will use 24 schedules for each season.it doesnt take long to gobble up your 100 schedules in ctouch b&W . i used a manual timer for each zone to give zones a manual hit.and tied a rain sensor in with the logic of the relay.Hope this is some help

 

ctouch irrigation

Like Nick says you have to set lots of schedules although i only use on per valve.
So behind each of the day boxs is a schedule - and if i have multple zones and bore pumps i stagger the start times in the schedules for each zone.
I also provide a manual overide and a 5 and 10 watering cycle
only problem with the b&w version is when user wants to change start times but changed them to be + - sunrise and sunset times.

dave

 

The new Black and White C-Touch firmware will support severl concepts which may be of help :
1. Scenes with pulses. This can be used to create a cascade effect to run the multiple zones.
2. Schedules based on sunrise / sunset times.
3. Special functions which open the scene and schedule editors

 

Darren

Darren
item 1 does that mean have scene 1 pulse scene 2 etc with each scene being a different zone ??


dave

 

Yes. It isn't an ideal way of doing it, but at least it is an option.