My new automation system.

BTW. Sequent is also coming out with new relay hats too. They have pluggable slots for the relay wires. If you are doing actuators those new relays are so much easier to use. I am going to have pick up some of those.

I just read up on that automation board and it looks great. It has a watchdog board built in, which I already bought, but it still looks cool enough that I may have to pick it up. It also has the 485 built in.
 
BTW. Sequent is also coming out with new relay hats too. They have pluggable slots for the relay wires. If you are doing actuators those new relays are so much easier to use. I am going to have pick up some of those.

I just read up on that automation board and it looks great. It has a watchdog board built in, which I already bought, but it still looks cool enough that I may have to pick it up. It also has the 485 built in.
The new relay hats went orderable last week. I picked one up. Haven't gotten an order shipment email yet though :( EAGERLY awaiting the automation board. I really dig the analog sensors I picked up from seller Burgessworld on Tindie.com but having a single card that lets me use the 24V P/S, 10V capable analog inputs for sensors, a watchdog, and RS-485 is even more awesome.
 
Now that we're back into pool season, I finally have nodejs-poolController working and am working on getting it integrated with my node-red setup. The advice here has been very valuable.

@cmc0619, I'm curious if you're able to parse the status info from the intellflo to give you any useful information? I see it pulling everything in the payload, I'm just a little unsure how to extract the data I would want.

@el duderino I had some time to make you an example. This is based on the nodejs-poolcontroller 5.3 code. Apparently it's all going to change in 6.0 which I've been messing with but for now this is a flow that polls the status of pump 1 and toggles it. (If off -> On, If On -> Off) Import this into your flow and check it out! Keep in mind I don't have a Intelli* but the nodejs-poolcontroller lets me poll things anyway so I'm reasonably sure this will work. Also, you'll need to change the IP addresses of the web calls to your own IP address. You can probably use 127.0.0.1 if it's all running on the same pi

[{"id":"6b473864.c23c28","type":"tab","label":"Intelliflo","disabled":false,"info":""},{"id":"e2a2549c.2e2c88","type":"http request","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"Pump Status","method":"GET","ret":"obj","paytoqs":false,"url":"http://192.168.199.103:3000/pump","tls":"","proxy":"","authType":"","x":330,"y":60,"wires":[["1c6a6219.0503be"]]},{"id":"bf477c60.2458","type":"inject","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"","topic":"","payload":"Push button to go","payloadType":"str","repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"onceDelay":0.1,"x":140,"y":60,"wires":[["e2a2549c.2e2c88"]]},{"id":"3301db19.05e2e4","type":"http request","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"Run Pump","method":"GET","ret":"obj","paytoqs":false,"url":"http://192.168.199.103:3000/pumpCommand/run/pump/1","tls":"","proxy":"","authType":"","x":330,"y":120,"wires":[[]]},{"id":"3f05f67e.766aba","type":"inject","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"","topic":"","payload":"Push button to go","payloadType":"str","repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"onceDelay":0.1,"x":140,"y":120,"wires":[["3301db19.05e2e4"]]},{"id":"88f0911b.cc0e6","type":"http request","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"Stop Pump","method":"GET","ret":"obj","paytoqs":false,"url":"http://127.0.0.1:3000/pumpCommand/off/pump/1","tls":"","proxy":"","authType":"","x":330,"y":180,"wires":[[]]},{"id":"a2b7462a.e23dd8","type":"inject","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"","topic":"","payload":"Push button to go","payloadType":"str","repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"onceDelay":0.1,"x":140,"y":180,"wires":[["88f0911b.cc0e6"]]},{"id":"1c6a6219.0503be","type":"switch","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"Switch - Toggle Pump","property":"payload.pump.1.currentrunning.mode","propertyType":"msg","rules":[{"t":"eq","v":"off","vt":"str"},{"t":"eq","v":"on","vt":"str"}],"checkall":"true","repair":false,"outputs":2,"x":610,"y":80,"wires":[["3301db19.05e2e4"],["88f0911b.cc0e6"]]}]
 
Hey guys...great progress on all fronts. I am impressed with the ease at which you add/change items...both software and hardware. Cliff (cmc), it seems that you are rebuilding your system from bottoms up. I love the hardware and am very jealous of those relay/analog hats.

Kato, do you have a build thread yet or are you still exploring your options? I have lost track of some of the threads that I was eyeing before my long trips. I suppose I just need to spend a few minutes and peruse through a bit more thoroughly.
 
Ok Cliff the progress you are making on the Intelliflo is inspiring me. I am going to order one this week. Leslies is offering free installation and I might as well bite the bullet. While the tech is there I am going to have him install a T connector right before the pump so I can start measuring the temperature. Right now I am manually cycling on the heater from my phone for the spa which works but it would also be nice just to set a temp.

Jon, my build thread is in my signature below. Pretty much a copy of Cliff’s system. Been running since early December with no problems. It does not do any monitoring of anything but lets me run all the pool equipment and switch from pool to spa. I also used the Alexa integration that NodeRed has so that I can turn on the spa. I want to expand on that so that I can ask Alexa what the pool temperature is. You too can come over to the dark side as well. The hardware is on a few hundred dollars.

Cliff, let me know what you think of those new relay boards. Apparently they will switch up to 125v and 8amp. Those relays might be powerful enough to run the power to the SWG and the heater, and then I can eliminate those secondary ASI relays. Don’t have a real need to just a cleaner design.
 
Hey guys...great progress on all fronts. I am impressed with the ease at which you add/change items...both software and hardware. Cliff (cmc), it seems that you are rebuilding your system from bottoms up. I love the hardware and am very jealous of those relay/analog hats.

Kato, do you have a build thread yet or are you still exploring your options? I have lost track of some of the threads that I was eyeing before my long trips. I suppose I just need to spend a few minutes and peruse through a bit more thoroughly.
Welcome back @jonpcar ! Where did you trip to? I took the wife and kids to Iceland right before the pandemic. Beautiful there!

Yesterday, I pulled all the equipment off my pad to lay a real concrete pad for my pump/filter so I guess you could say I am rebuilding from the bottom up! :D I've never poured concrete before. This is gonna be terrifying! Ohhhh the things we do to make a pretty pool equipment area...
 
Ok Cliff the progress you are making on the Intelliflo is inspiring me. I am going to order one this week. Leslies is offering free installation and I might as well bite the bullet. While the tech is there I am going to have him install a T connector right before the pump so I can start measuring the temperature. Right now I am manually cycling on the heater from my phone for the spa which works but it would also be nice just to set a temp.

Jon, my build thread is in my signature below. Pretty much a copy of Cliff’s system. Been running since early December with no problems. It does not do any monitoring of anything but lets me run all the pool equipment and switch from pool to spa. I also used the Alexa integration that NodeRed has so that I can turn on the spa. I want to expand on that so that I can ask Alexa what the pool temperature is. You too can come over to the dark side as well. The hardware is on a few hundred dollars.

Cliff, let me know what you think of those new relay boards. Apparently they will switch up to 125v and 8amp. Those relays might be powerful enough to run the power to the SWG and the heater, and then I can eliminate those secondary ASI relays. Don’t have a real need to just a cleaner design.

I'm just using the tools out there written by smarter people. I really want an Intelliflo but I ended up getting needs over wants this season so the new MPV and SWG wiped my budget for that. :/ I did have some water leakage into my pool pump electrical compartment though. Kinda hoping it corroded something and won't start up this season (haven't tried yet), which will turn a new pool pump into a need. ?

I did pick up an Intellivalve though. Those nodejs-poolcontroller guys are actively working on getting it going on RS-485. Hoping to see them crack that nut soon. Would be nice to just sent a 1 thru 12 and have the actuator go to that spot vs the traditional actuator model . If I recall correctly your heater is a different brand but like mine in that you can set the max temp on the heater for a pool and SPA mode. You could switch to that in the meantime?

I have no doubt they'll do what they say they'll do but I'm going to stick with the little relay/big relay model. Except for my lights, all of my equipment is 230V anyway, so I still couldn't use them directly off the hat. Something about mains power going through the relay hat, even though they're clearly engineered to handle it, just scares the farts right outta me!
 
Ok Cliff the progress you are making on the Intelliflo is inspiring me. I am going to order one this week. Leslies is offering free installation and I might as well bite the bullet. While the tech is there I am going to have him install a T connector right before the pump so I can start measuring the temperature. Right now I am manually cycling on the heater from my phone for the spa which works but it would also be nice just to set a temp.

Jon, my build thread is in my signature below. Pretty much a copy of Cliff’s system. Been running since early December with no problems. It does not do any monitoring of anything but lets me run all the pool equipment and switch from pool to spa. I also used the Alexa integration that NodeRed has so that I can turn on the spa. I want to expand on that so that I can ask Alexa what the pool temperature is. You too can come over to the dark side as well. The hardware is on a few hundred dollars.

Cliff, let me know what you think of those new relay boards. Apparently they will switch up to 125v and 8amp. Those relays might be powerful enough to run the power to the SWG and the heater, and then I can eliminate those secondary ASI relays. Don’t have a real need to just a cleaner design.
Also,
Been meaning to ask you... How did you wire up your Intellivalve? They want you to use it with one of their Intelli* panels so I haven't been able to find the generic wiring diagram for it. Is it white is common and you switch 24v power between red and black? I've got it powered on with white and black so far on my test bench (playing with the RS-485 signals), but I feel like the thing would momentarily shut off if I'm switching the power between the red and black wire.

EDIT: Nevermind I did this crazy thing called search and found the answer from when you asked the question. ?
 
Cliff, my wife and I visited New Zealand, Australia, and some other countries around the Indian Ocean including South Africa. It was a combo of some cruises and land trips. Had a great time, but I think we were very lucky...future international travels are out for us in the next year.

Yesterday, I pulled all the equipment off my pad to lay a real concrete pad for my pump/filter so I guess you could say I am rebuilding from the bottom up!

I have some pictures of when I did that...

 
Cliff, my wife and I visited New Zealand, Australia, and some other countries around the Indian Ocean including South Africa. It was a combo of some cruises and land trips. Had a great time, but I think we were very lucky...future international travels are out for us in the next year.



I have some pictures of when I did that...

Oh, I'm so jealous! That is awesome! Australia is on my bucket list. We got lucky too. Our Iceland trip was over Valentine's day weekend. Got back and the world ground to a halt after that.

How timely! I'm checking out that thread now.
 

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Cliff, let me know what you think of those new relay boards. Apparently they will switch up to 125v and 8amp. Those relays might be powerful enough to run the power to the SWG and the heater, and then I can eliminate those secondary ASI relays.

Personally, I would be careful about using these arduino/raspberry-pi relay boards to switch higher voltage/amp equipment, despite their amp ratings. I’ve had one of those relays stick and would hate for that to happen on one of my chemical pumps (drain the whole tank).

I will use two levels (a 2nd layer of industrial relays) and even with that will have a precaution of an additional industrial relay “in series” to the power supply for the chemical pumps as an emergency shutoff...to be used if the sensors detects a stuck/bad condition for the industrial relays. I suppose the “in series” method could also be done with the smaller relays as a simpler, and easier, safeguard without using two levels of relays.
 
Ok, I currently have my hats firing off the ASI relays for my 120v components now so its easier to leave well enough alone.

I would love it when we can just send a signal to the intellivalve and tell it what position to be on.
 
BTW, here's what the controller looks like this year. Busbars galore = less wires all over the place. Ignore the dangling buck converter on the right. It takes 24V to 5V and will be going away when I get the SM piHat that has that functionality on board. I still have to put my sensor blocks back in too. Will probably live right where the buck converter is sitting. Oh and the pi will sit either right or left of the bundle there on the middle rail.

 
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I don't have an intelliflo yet but it doesn't look too bad. The RS-485 cable is two wires. Should plug into the two ports on the adapter pi adapter. Then you start the nodejs software with npm start. Then you go to http://yourpiaddress:3000 and you should get a web menu and if all was done right you should have a web page with some info on your pump in it.

Fortunately, nodejs-poolController let's me run without having the actual unit. On the node-RED side I crafted up something that pulls the data into a formatted Node-RED object that you can and do useful things with. Hopefully it'll be a good starting point for you.

Ok, I took our a spare Pi so I could mess around. Installed NodeRed and finally got Nodejs 5.3 pool controller installed and running. It took me quite a while to figure out you need to run NodeJS 10 not 12. Also imported your flows. Looks pretty simple. So if I went to a browser and just ran the start pump url command that would be it. That is what your flows in NodeRed seem to be doing. So I can just take that whole list of commands from the PoolController and choose which ones I want to use in NodeRed.

Obviously nothing is working other than getting the index screen since I dont have an Intelliflo yet. But this looks really cool. The readme has a whole set of pump commands that I can just embed in my flows. Seems too good to be true.
 
I had nodejs-poolController working on my Intelliflo for several months, being controlled via NodeRed and Home Assistant. Worked great. Had a power failure last week, and have since lost control over the pump. Need to troubleshoot once again. I've ordered a new rs485 to USB adapter, and hoping it's as simple as that.
 
Ok, I took our a spare Pi

Spare Pi...You are my kinda person! :D


So if I went to a browser and just ran the start pump url command that would be it. That is what your flows in NodeRed seem to be doing. So I can just take that whole list of commands from the PoolController and choose which ones I want to use in NodeRed.

Obviously nothing is working other than getting the index screen since I dont have an Intelliflo yet. But this looks really cool. The readme has a whole set of pump commands that I can just embed in my flows. Seems too good to be true.

That's it! Paste the commands into a web request and do a GET. You can also get more involved with it. If you drag a debug node out and connect the output of Pump Status you can see all the pump info you have access to. I included them below. So if you wanted to make a rpm gauge, for example, you'd pull out a gauge dashboard node and point a function at it to return msg.payload.pump."1".rpm and it'd display it on a nice pretty graph (code for that is at end of this msg) The code won't work right now because rpm returns rpmnotset since we don't have pumps yet. But if you had an actual pump you'd have a RPM gauge that reflected what the pump said its speed was. Pretty cool!

I pulled the trigger on a Superflo VS the other day so I'll have to live vicariously through you guys for the next decade. Given I now have 16 relays (take THAT Intellicenter 10i!) I'm just going to burn 3 of them to switch between a few pre-set speeds. Since I don't have anything special on my pool it didn't make sense to pay the extra 500 bucks

Fields returned from nodejs pump status command:
{"pump":1,
"name":"namenotset",
"type":"typenotset"
,"time":"timenotset",
"run":"runnotset",
"mode":"modenotset",
"drivestate":"drivestatenotset",
"watts":"wattsnotset",
"rpm":"rpmnotset",
"gpm":"gpmnotset",
"ppc":"ppcnotset",
"err":"errnotset",
"timer":"timernotset",
"duration":"durationnotset",
"currentrunning":{"mode":"off",
"value":0,"remainingduration":-1},
"externalProgram":{"1":-1,"2":-1,"3":-1,"4":-1},
"remotecontrol":"remotecontrolnotset",
"power":"powernotset"
}


-- Start Node-Red Export:
[{"id":"6b473864.c23c28","type":"tab","label":"Intelliflo","disabled":false,"info":""},{"id":"e2a2549c.2e2c88","type":"http request","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"Pump Status","method":"GET","ret":"obj","paytoqs":false,"url":"http://192.168.199.103:3000/pump","tls":"","proxy":"","authType":"","x":330,"y":60,"wires":[["1c6a6219.0503be","3604ff11.1c9ba","70ae77c2.f14498"]]},{"id":"bf477c60.2458","type":"inject","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"","topic":"","payload":"Push button to go","payloadType":"str","repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"onceDelay":0.1,"x":140,"y":60,"wires":[["e2a2549c.2e2c88"]]},{"id":"3301db19.05e2e4","type":"http request","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"Run Pump","method":"GET","ret":"obj","paytoqs":false,"url":"http://192.168.199.103:3000/pumpCommand/run/pump/1","tls":"","proxy":"","authType":"","x":330,"y":120,"wires":[[]]},{"id":"3f05f67e.766aba","type":"inject","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"","topic":"","payload":"Push button to go","payloadType":"str","repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"onceDelay":0.1,"x":140,"y":120,"wires":[["3301db19.05e2e4"]]},{"id":"88f0911b.cc0e6","type":"http request","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"Stop Pump","method":"GET","ret":"obj","paytoqs":false,"url":"http://127.0.0.1:3000/pumpCommand/off/pump/1","tls":"","proxy":"","authType":"","x":330,"y":180,"wires":[[]]},{"id":"a2b7462a.e23dd8","type":"inject","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"","topic":"","payload":"Push button to go","payloadType":"str","repeat":"","crontab":"","once":false,"onceDelay":0.1,"x":140,"y":180,"wires":[["88f0911b.cc0e6"]]},{"id":"1c6a6219.0503be","type":"switch","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"Switch - Toggle Pump","property":"payload.pump.1.currentrunning.mode","propertyType":"msg","rules":[{"t":"eq","v":"off","vt":"str"},{"t":"eq","v":"on","vt":"str"}],"checkall":"true","repair":false,"outputs":2,"x":610,"y":80,"wires":[["3301db19.05e2e4"],["88f0911b.cc0e6"]]},{"id":"70ae77c2.f14498","type":"debug","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"","active":true,"tosidebar":true,"console":false,"tostatus":false,"complete":"false","x":810,"y":180,"wires":[]},{"id":"96924c3b.030dc","type":"ui_gauge","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"","group":"cb094c81.df18c","order":1,"width":0,"height":0,"gtype":"gage","title":"RPM","label":"units","format":"{{value}}","min":0,"max":10,"colors":["#00b500","#e6e600","#ca3838"],"seg1":"","seg2":"","x":790,"y":260,"wires":[]},{"id":"3604ff11.1c9ba","type":"change","z":"6b473864.c23c28","name":"","rules":[{"t":"set","p":"payload","pt":"msg","to":"$number($trim(payload.pump.\"1\".rpm))","tot":"jsonata"}],"action":"","property":"","from":"","to":"","reg":false,"x":500,"y":220,"wires":[["70ae77c2.f14498","96924c3b.030dc"]]},{"id":"cb094c81.df18c","type":"ui_group","z":"","name":"Home","tab":"a6c58704.bdabf8","disp":true,"width":"6","collapse":false},{"id":"a6c58704.bdabf8","type":"ui_tab","z":"","name":"Chemicals","icon":"dashboard","disabled":false,"hidden":false}]
 
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I had nodejs-poolController working on my Intelliflo for several months, being controlled via NodeRed and Home Assistant. Worked great. Had a power failure last week, and have since lost control over the pump. Need to troubleshoot once again. I've ordered a new rs485 to USB adapter, and hoping it's as simple as that.

Keeping my fingers crossed that's all it is!
 
Keeping my fingers crossed that's all it is!
So far, it doesn't appear to be. I'm really at a loss. If you remember, I had issue initially and then one day it just started working when I restarted the pi and/or pump. I really have no idea. At this point, I'm hesitant to use it in production (obviously), and may start looking for other options, like Pentair IntelliCom 2 managed by more relays.
 
@cmc0619
Thanks for the great read, and fabulous documentation. Did you get the new board from Sequent? You mentioned it having 0-10V analog inputs. In searching
I only find this: IO-PLUS Stackable Card for Raspberry Pi, which lists Eight 12-bit A/D inputs, but on the specifications tab shows them still as 0-3.3V.
Just wondering if I am looking at the wrong board, or if the 5V board from Tindie.com would still be required to read sensors (i.e. no hand-made voltage divider requirement).
 

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