IrrigationCaddy Driver

This driver controls IrrigationCaddy Irrigation Controllers over TCP (The IC uses Wi-Fi). It was built and tested using an W1_HA with an attached EXP-800, other interfaces offer differing levels of support for the API.

Revision History
1.0 The initial release of the driver
1.01 Fixed the Run Program command running the wrong program, added Program Progress variable

Configuration: The driver requires only the IP address of the IC unit and the number of zones to be used (always count zone 11, master or not). The IP address is generally displayed right on the units LCD display.

You can also enter names for the zones and they will be used to label the variables and commands in Integration Designer. You can check the box labelled 'Send Names to Caddy" and the names will be transferred to the Irrigation Caddy on startup. The variables that contain the names for the zones are taken from the device itself so the driver will use the names in the Caddy rather than the ones in the configuration file if there is a difference. The Caddy does not refresh the driver when names are changed.

Using Included Configurator Application

Included with the driver in the .zip file is an executable program called IrrigationCaddy.exe. Double clicking this launches an extremely simple application that will extract the zone names from an Irrigation Caddy and create an RTI configuration file that will load those names into your configuration.

To use this file enter the IP Address of the Irrigation Caddy into the box labelled ‘IrrigationCaddy IP Address”. You can find the address by using the display on the IC itself by selecting Network Info to show the IP Address. Clicking the ‘Get Zone Names’ box will create the configuration which can then be saved using the ‘Save Configuration’ button. The resulting file can then be loaded into an Integration Designer project by selecting the IrrigationCaddy driver on the driver tab of the processor properties and then clicking the Import Config button at the top of the page. The IP Address, the zone count and all zone names will be replaced with the contents of the configuration file.

Status (Variables/Events)

The driver provides variables for status of the overall system as well as the individual zones. It will show which zone is running, how long it will run, and how long the entire program will run. It also shows the status of the rain and water flow sensors.

There are driver events for the starting and stopping of each zone, as well as the beginning and ending of the program. Additional events trigger when the unit is turned on or off and when the rain starts and stops (or at least when the sensor says it does).

Control (Commands)

There are master on/off commands for the system and a way to start any program stored in the system. You can stop a zone while a manual program is running which will advance the program to the next zone, or you can stop the whole program.

Programs
The IrrigationCaddy supports 5 stored schedules, or programs. A driver command allows you to start any of them, although the variable for ‘Currently Running Program’ will always be 6 when a program is started manually. If ‘Program 6’ is running you can use the Stop Zone or Stop Program commands to move to the next zone or stop the whole program. You cannot stop the execution of a scheduled program except by stopping the whole system with the System Off command. This will essentially stop the scheduler. When turned back on the system will figure out where it should be and run any program that would have been running if the scheduler had never been turned off.

All the parameters of a program are editable in the driver. Changing the value in the driver does not send the change to the Caddy, it only changes the driver’s version of it. In order for it to be saved the user must execute the ‘Save Program’ command. A separate command exists (undo in the sample file) to reload the currently saved programming onto the panel, so if you’re editing a program and make a mistake you can hit undo (refresh) and the data will revert to the last saved version. This command actually reloads all the programming data for all the programs from the Caddy so if the programming is changed from the web interface or one of the apps this is the only way to get the data into the RTI system as the Caddy will not notify the driver that the programs have changed.

Each program has 5 possible start times that can be individually edited. Editing is done by individually adjusting the hours and minutes. These commands are always live but there is a separate command called ‘Start/Stop Editing a Start Time’ that simply sets or clears the ‘Editing Enabled’ flag for that Start Time. You can use this for visibility if you want to pop up some arrows key to increment and decrement the time. Besides using the Start/Stop command for editing that Start Time, any one of the other editing commands, whether for Odd/Even or a day of the week, will also clear that flag so that if you switch to edit something else the editing buttons for the time will disappear.

Editing the zone durations can also be done in several ways, you can increment them by a settable amount, or you can set them, which allows you to use a slider. The slider is also helped by the option to set and display the durations as a percentage of the maximum zone time, which is a number that is set in the IrrigationCaddy settings and read by the driver on startup.