over the past few days/weeks, i've been reading all about nodejs pool controller...the problem was that it has still been very difficult to find a pi4 in stock. this morning, i finally scored one from adafruit...so shortly i will begin my journey in earnest! i'm ordering the building automations card too, so that i can control the pump via rs485 - but my question is how the salt cell fits in.
i just swapped my intermatic timer out for a sonoff R2 basic to control the IC40, which has been working well for the past few days (aside from the fact that the clock still isn't synced with the pump, obviously, for things like DST changes or power outages). of course, ideally i'd like to keep them both synced and will eventually get a second rs485 cable to talk to the salt cell...but for now, that leads me to a few questions (to try to keep costs and effort down as much as i can for the immediate future)...
* do i need to control the salt cell via RS485 too or can i leave that as is running from the sonoff, and just use the pi to control the pump for now?
* if that's possible (leaving the sonoff to control the salt cell and just run the pump off of the pi for now), wouldn't that serve the same purpose since i'll now have control over the schedule from my network with an always synchronized clock, and i can just make sure i'm only turning the IC40 on when the pump is also turned on?
* do i gain anything by wiring the salt cell to the pi along with the pump, or am i safe to just make sure the schedule on the sonoff matches whatever schedule i set for the pump (like i'm already doing)?
from my reading, i know i don't want the pump wired to a relay since i'm controlling it via RS485...but i'm not sure how the salt cell fits into the equation to go along with it. ideally i'd like to have everything wired together, but i'm trying to figure out if i can save some money at the start before wiring the cell into the controller later.
i just swapped my intermatic timer out for a sonoff R2 basic to control the IC40, which has been working well for the past few days (aside from the fact that the clock still isn't synced with the pump, obviously, for things like DST changes or power outages). of course, ideally i'd like to keep them both synced and will eventually get a second rs485 cable to talk to the salt cell...but for now, that leads me to a few questions (to try to keep costs and effort down as much as i can for the immediate future)...
* do i need to control the salt cell via RS485 too or can i leave that as is running from the sonoff, and just use the pi to control the pump for now?
* if that's possible (leaving the sonoff to control the salt cell and just run the pump off of the pi for now), wouldn't that serve the same purpose since i'll now have control over the schedule from my network with an always synchronized clock, and i can just make sure i'm only turning the IC40 on when the pump is also turned on?
* do i gain anything by wiring the salt cell to the pi along with the pump, or am i safe to just make sure the schedule on the sonoff matches whatever schedule i set for the pump (like i'm already doing)?
from my reading, i know i don't want the pump wired to a relay since i'm controlling it via RS485...but i'm not sure how the salt cell fits into the equation to go along with it. ideally i'd like to have everything wired together, but i'm trying to figure out if i can save some money at the start before wiring the cell into the controller later.
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