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ginigma
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| Posted: May 03 2007 at 14:57 | IP Logged
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Is anyone using the Simplehomenet EZRain Irrigation Controller (Insteon compatible) with PowerHome?
If so,How long in operation?
Any failures that led to flooding or no watering?
Where is it located? E.g. completely indoors, garage (what's your climate?)
Pros & Cons
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twomble
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| Posted: May 03 2007 at 23:06 | IP Logged
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I have one. It's been up and running for about 2 weeks. I can't figure out how to get PowerHome to use it. All I've done is link some KPL's to it for now. I have it inside in the same panel as my alarm system.
It works ok, but their firmware needs more work. One thing that bothered me was a 3 1/2 hour power failure at my house that caused it to loose all the links to the KPL's. I don't know if this was just a glitch or if it will do it every time.
I would love to get PowerHome working with it. I'm sure I could do much more with it if I could manage the links and set up my own triggers and timers using PowerHome.
Edited by twomble - May 03 2007 at 23:07
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cmhardwick
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That's surprising about the powerloss wiping the memory. All of Smarthome's devices info is in non-volatile memory. The only time I've lost link records after a power failure is if the switch actually locked up for some reason afterwards and I had to factory reset it.
I'm watching this device with interest as I look towards irrigation at my home.
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ginigma
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| Posted: May 05 2007 at 17:10 | IP Logged
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Yes, That's disconcerting that it lost links after a power failure. But I don't think I'm going to use it like that. I will probably just have timed events in PH to water the lawn.
I was just replacing some broken heads this afternoon and realized that either my current timer is bad, or I have some bad valves, because multiple zones were coming on at the same time, and some zones were coming on even when all the zones were "off" on the timer. I guess I will have to get someone in to check the valves.
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ginigma
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| Posted: May 14 2007 at 19:17 | IP Logged
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How are people using/programming this? At first I was thinking of sending ON/OFF commands as timed events from PH. After thinking this may be a nightmare when changing the program, I think I am going to create the schedule using the EZRain configuration utility and then just call that program (which is stored in the ezrain memory) from PH.
Any other thoughts?
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twomble
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| Posted: May 14 2007 at 21:38 | IP Logged
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So far, I can not get PowerHome to use this thing. If I try to scan the links I get broken or missing links back. For now I'm just using it manually from buttons on the KPL's.
Edited by twomble - May 14 2007 at 21:39
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crisx
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| Posted: May 15 2007 at 16:45 | IP Logged
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I too am struggling with getting the EZRain and Powerhome to play nice. If anyone has it working, please post details.
Has anyone tried to upload timers to the PLC and still use the PLC with powerhome? That is probably my next step, but I don't want to screw anything up because I don't have a lot of time to fix anything I might break.
Hopefully, PowerHome will soon support the SimpleHomeNet devices natively.
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patrickm
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| Posted: June 09 2007 at 20:07 | IP Logged
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I've been using the EZRain for about a month now with Powerhome. It is a bit of a pain, but workable. First off, don't even think about the timers. I set the PLC realtime clock from the SALAD IDE at least a trillion times but NEVER got the PLC to trigger the EZRain program at the right time. Huge waste of time. It's bizarre that the EZRain has zone timers but no RTC itself.
I am running one EZRain program started by a Powerhome timed event and two valve zones directly with insteon commands due the inability to program a longer deadtime between valve openings in the EZRain.
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ginigma
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| Posted: June 16 2007 at 18:37 | IP Logged
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Does anyone know how to monitor an incoming valve change? I want to be able to trigger an email to myself if there's a valve change, so I know if there's a problem so I can aviod a flood. I don't completely trust the EZrain controller yet.
Right now it looks like PH can only monitor the lighting Insteon commands (on, off, fast on, fast off, etc.). The EZRain controller sends back a value of 64 in Cmd1 and another value in Cmd2, depending on which valve is open. There are also other commands which I'f like to monitor. It doesn't look like there's a way to monitor raw Insteon responses. Or is there???
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twomble
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| Posted: June 30 2007 at 15:27 | IP Logged
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We had another power failure in the house today. It was just a quick blip off and on (2 seconds or less). I lost all the links to the KPL's again. Either I have a bad unit or they have a bug. Now I get to run around the house and re-link all the KPL's.
fun fun
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dhoward
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| Posted: June 30 2007 at 22:21 | IP Logged
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twomble,
Why do you need to run around and re-link the KPL's? If you used PowerHome to do the linking and the link information is still within PowerHome, just go to the Insteon Explorer links tab, select the KPL, and click the "Rebuild" text. Just do this for each KPL and you should be good to go.
Dave.
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twomble
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| Posted: June 30 2007 at 22:37 | IP Logged
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Dave,
That's my problem. I don't know how to get PowerHome to setup links to the EZRain. The KPL's didn't lose the links, the EZRain did. At this point I have no idea how to get PowerHome to talk to the EZRain. Once I have all the links manually done I can tell PowerHome to scan the links (that takes hours in my house by the way). What PowerHome gets back is "New Spider Links" but they can't be verified on the EZRain. I get a bunch of "Link Not Found" problems when trying to verify links in the EZRain. Some of them say Verified, but some of them don't. Maybe I really do have a bad EZRain device.
Tim
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dhoward
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| Posted: June 30 2007 at 22:48 | IP Logged
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Tim,
Ive gotcha now. Makes sense why it was posted in this thread too  .
I will be getting an EZRain so I can better support the device. It would be nice if I could do the links programmatically like other devices. Ive been working with ginigma on getting the triggers working with the EZRain so hopefully I'll have the links going for you soon as well.
I have not had a chance to test it, but the "Manual Links" tab in the Insteon Explorer was made for devices like the EZRain in mind. However, it would only be able to create links between the PLC and the EZRain (if it works at all  ).
Dave.
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jbbtex
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| Posted: June 04 2008 at 09:09 | IP Logged
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I'd like to automate my sprinkler system with PH, but I have 12 zones.
Has anyone used two EZRain units for this? Is there another way besides Rain8 and an expander?
Edited by jbbtex - June 04 2008 at 10:39
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"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." - Gen. George S. Patton
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patrickm
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| Posted: June 04 2008 at 14:18 | IP Logged
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I had two EZRAIN hooked up for a while before I changed my valve arrangement. There were no issues.
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dopplertools
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| Posted: June 07 2008 at 23:15 | IP Logged
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Have been using several EZ-RAIN units for over a year. Located in garage in central Florida. EZ-rain systems work 80% of time - they occasionally randomly stop/lockup till manually reset. Also Insteon plc/plm's are totally unreliable here in Florida - in past year we hsve had 6 of them fail. Smarthome is building us a "custom" replacement for our most recent
failure - They claim there is a problem with plc/plms in Florida power grid. Because of total lack of reliability we had to abandon insteon/ezrain and installed conventional irrigation timers, as failure of insteon/ezrain irrigation systems caused our lawn to die while we were out of town on 2 week long business trip. This stuff is not reliable enough to be used for any type of critical irrigation application 
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patrickm
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| Posted: June 08 2008 at 00:13 | IP Logged
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I had lockup issues when I was initially trying to use the timer functions with the EZRain. I gave up on the timers and now use PH for timing and simple ph_insteon function calls. That has been working well.
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RichardL
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| Posted: June 15 2009 at 23:33 | IP Logged
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I am blowing the dust off my 2 EZRains and (like many other postings) cannot easily see how to use it.
There is one Insteon address to control 8 valves and/or 4 programs - not sure how this works. How have folks using PH controlled the individual valve times. If someone can show the commands and/or a summary of what they did, that would be great.
Thank you,
Richard
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grif091
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| Posted: June 16 2009 at 13:42 | IP Logged
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Just like a KPL in 8 button mode as far as control, a single Insteon address and a different group number for each output relay (zone). Timed Events would seem the most logical way to set up an irrigation schedule. I don't have an EZFlora but I do have several other SHN EZIOxx devices which work the same way as far as output control.
EDIT: SimpleHomeNet documents the Insteon commands that can be used to directly control the output relays (zones) if you are comfortable working with other than the normal Insteon On and Off commands. In the SHN Downloads section there is a document that contains the commands specific to EZFlora control.
Edited by grif091 - June 16 2009 at 14:27
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RichardL
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| Posted: June 16 2009 at 15:58 | IP Logged
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That makes absolute sense.
Just to confirm:
* I set up a group for each of the valves 2-8, like I set up the groups for each KPL button 2-8.
* I will use a timed event to trigger code to run the valves.
* The (VBS) code would look like:
intDelayTime = 300000 '5 minutes
rv = PH.Insteon("EZFlora-1", 17, 255)
rv = PH.Delay(intDelayTime)
rv = PH.Insteon("EZFlora-1", 19, 0)
rv = PH.Delay(100)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-2", "EZFlora-1", 17)
rv = PH.Delay(intDelayTime)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-2", "EZFlora-1", 19)
rv = PH.Delay(100)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-3", "EZFlora-1", 17)
rv = PH.Delay(intDelayTime)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-3", "EZFlora-1", 19)
rv = PH.Delay(100)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-4", "EZFlora-1", 17)
rv = PH.Delay(intDelayTime)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-4", "EZFlora-1", 19)
rv = PH.Delay(100)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-5", "EZFlora-1", 17)
rv = PH.Delay(intDelayTime)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-5", "EZFlora-1", 19)
rv = PH.Delay(100)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-6", "EZFlora-1", 17)
rv = PH.Delay(intDelayTime)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-6", "EZFlora-1", 19)
rv = PH.Delay(100)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-7", "EZFlora-1", 17)
rv = PH.Delay(intDelayTime)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-7", "EZFlora-1", 19)
rv = PH.Delay(100)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-8", "EZFlora-1", 17)
rv = PH.Delay(intDelayTime)
rv = PH.InsteonGroupCU("EZF-Valve-8", "EZFlora-1", 19)
rv = PH.Delay(100)
Does this look right?
A thought I may implement is to have a single KPL button to enable or disable the trigger, so I have overall control of the EZFloras.
I also have a rain sensor which I will look to build in.
Thank you for the help!
Richard
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Topic: EZRain Irrigation Controller
