SunTracker - with moving ghost

[krambriw]

I have made a new version you can download from the first post

When upgrading from the previous version, extract the files to the foreseen SunTracker plug-in folder

Starting EG, you will get error messages because the previous configuration does not match

- open settings for the SunTracker plug-in, click OK to save
- open settings for all defined SunTracker actions, click OK to save
- save in EG and restart EG
- now it should start without error messages

New functions/changes made

# Improved control & handling of on/off commands
- there was a certain situation during night when lights where not synchronized correctly

# Improved handling of weather data to avoid on/off "flickering"
- the changed functions works in such way that when time comes for decision, the weather condition is checked and if needed, lights are turned on earlier or later. As example, if it is cloudy and the lights are turned on 30 minutes before sunset, this status will stay even if it becomes sunny 20 minutes later. This is to avoid that light goes on and off too frequently

# Added settings to improve light control in the blue hour during the summer season
- this is a trial and needs real testing to see if it is working fine in reality. During the blue hour during the summer season, it is most likely so that you can wait a bit longer before you turn on the lights. This is especially true for us living up in the north but also for those living very much to the south. I expect this function to be tested during the upcoming summer and then we will see if it improves or not. For this function to work, there is now a setting for your summer season months

# Cleaned up and re-organized the GUI
- the GUI in the settings started to look like a mess so I tried to improve and organize the layout a bit

Best regards, Walter

[patlabor]

First of all, great plugin.

allready have a few ideas in mind where i can use this, but right now i am stuck getting that thing to work.
Have not any hardware yet but i am trying that thing out with some software.

was trying to set it up that i get an email when the sun goes down and one when the sun comes up. problem is i am rarely at home at sunup or sundown. so i cant wait around till an event is triggered and i have myself getting emails to see if it works.

right now i figured out that the OFF event is fired when the sun is up and the ON event is supposed to be fired when the sun goes down.

i just used those events to trigger the email plugin to send me a mail.

yesterday all day long it was sending mails telling me that the sun just came up. not just one, but every few minutes a new one. but for some reason the ON event was never triggerd. so while i stopped getting "the sun just went up" emails i never got any "the sun just went down" email.

how do i set it that i get ONE even when the sun COMES up, not all the time the sun IS shining. and how do i manage it to fire the sundown event?

thanks in advance.

[vuego]

Sounds like you have Synchronization activated. It's 15 or 30 minutes by default.

[patlabor]

seems like that syncronisation is the solution for the problem that i get the event every view minutes. cant try it now cause its allready dark and now there are not any events triggered anymore. sundown was at 2206, at 2200 i got the last entry from suntracker in the log (the OFF event fired) since then noting anymore.

i have removed the "sync required" checkmark and will see tomorrow if i just get one event about "sun up".

but still i dont know how to get the "sun down" event triggered"

[krambriw]

I think there is another plugin you should use instead that better serves what you are looking for. It is less complex but does exactly what you need

http://www.eventghost.org/forum/viewtop ... =10&t=1923

Best regards, Walter

PS It is sometimes hard to find all available plugins because they are basically spread in different places

- first you get the basic "collection" when you install EG
- more well-known or proven ones can be find in the "Plugin support"
- some new ones or "under construction" can be found in "Coding Corner" and "General Support"
After a certain time, the administrator takes care of moving the plugins into the "Plugin support" area and hopefully they will be included in the EG setup sooner or later

[patlabor]

thanks for the tip with the other plug in but that one is just not providing what i am looking for. for one thing its missing the moving ghost feature. suntracker is exactly what i am looking for.

what i am doing right now whit sending the mails at sun up and sun down is just to figure out how the plug in works before i spend real money in equippment to get the things set up.

i unchecked the syncronisation required checkbox, but now during the day its still firing the "off" event every 30 minutes.

and the whole night not a single "on" event was triggerd.

the plugin says sundown is at 2206 so is it not supposed to fire at least one "on" event at that time no matter what else i have set for the syncronisation option or the different on/off?

could it be that someting went wrong with the "installation" of the plugin?

[krambriw]

I see, happy you like it, somehow we will fix it. It might be that I will include an option that the plugin fires separate events for sun up/down. The rest can be used as today

Would that solve the issue?

Best regards, Walter


Edit: I have a modified version running in test since a while where I have added an action so you can activate the moving ghost feature with another event coming from a key switch or similar external equipment. In the next public version, this will be available

[patlabor]

Thanks again for the help,

i guess i misunderstand something about the plugin. i think its triggering an "off" event when the sun starts to shine and an "on" event when the sun goes down. plus all the fancy stuff that can be set with the various "on/off" timers/moving ghost settings.

right now its just firing "off" every 30minutes when the sun shines and stops doing anything when the sun goes down. i dont know its that what it is supposed to do?

my log looks like this:

Code: Select all

10:56:59 PM   ---> Welcome to EventGhost <---
10:57:00 PM   Autostart
10:57:00 PM      Plugin: Directory Watcher
10:57:00 PM      Plugin: E-mail
10:57:00 PM      Plugin: SunTracker
10:57:00 PM         Plugin started
10:57:00 PM   Main.OnInit
10:57:00 PM      SunTracker:  "Give suntracker a name"
10:57:00 PM         SunTracker:  "Sonne"
10:57:00 PM         SunTracker: GetContentsOfVariable
10:57:00 PM   Main.OnInitAfterBoot
10:58:02 PM   SunTracker Sonne: Daylight saving is TRUE
10:58:02 PM   W. Europe Daylight Time - Timezone
10:58:02 PM   Today is Wednesday. Sunrise will be at 0337 and Sunset at 2206
10:59:27 PM   System.Idle
10:59:49 PM   System.UnIdle
11:01:41 PM   System.Idle
11:04:45 PM   System.UnIdle
11:04:56 PM   System.ClipboardChanged
11:05:59 PM   System.Idle
11:06:12 PM   System.UnIdle
11:07:12 PM   System.Idle
11:17:20 PM   System.UnIdle
11:18:20 PM   System.Idle
11:19:02 PM   System.UnIdle
11:19:04 PM   Thread is terminating:  Sonne
11:19:14 PM   SunTracker: GetContentsOfVariable
11:20:02 PM   SunTracker Sonne: Daylight saving is TRUE
11:20:02 PM   W. Europe Daylight Time - Timezone
11:20:02 PM   Today is Wednesday. Sunrise will be at 0337 and Sunset at 2206
11:20:22 PM   System.Idle
11:20:43 PM   System.UnIdle
11:22:45 PM   System.Idle
11:28:56 PM   System.UnIdle
11:30:06 PM   System.Idle
12:00:01 AM   Today is Thursday. Sunrise will be at 0338 and Sunset at 2205
12:44:53 AM   System.RemoteConnect [u'']
12:44:55 AM   System.RemoteDisconnect [u'']
12:44:55 AM   System.RemoteDisconnect [u'Administrator']
12:44:55 AM   System.RemoteConnect [u'Administrator']
12:44:55 AM   System.ClipboardChanged
1:14:02 AM   System.UnIdle
1:14:02 AM   System.RemoteDisconnect [u'Administrator']
1:15:01 AM   System.Idle
3:48:02 AM   Main.nn OFF
3:48:02 AM      E-mail: Send e-mail: Sonne geht auf
3:48:02 AM         E-mail: Send e-mail: Sonne geht auf
3:48:02 AM         Enable: E-mail: Send e-mail: Sonne weg
3:48:03 AM         Disable: E-mail: Send e-mail: Sonne geht auf
3:48:12 AM   E-mail.Sent u"Patrick Jungbluth <[email protected]>: Sonne geht auf"
4:18:02 AM   Main.nn OFF
4:48:01 AM   Main.nn OFF
5:18:02 AM   Main.nn OFF
5:48:01 AM   Main.nn OFF
6:18:02 AM   Main.nn OFF
6:48:02 AM   Main.nn OFF
7:18:01 AM   Main.nn OFF
7:48:02 AM   Main.nn OFF
8:18:01 AM   Main.nn OFF
8:48:02 AM   Main.nn OFF
9:18:01 AM   Main.nn OFF
9:48:02 AM   Main.nn OFF
9:58:30 AM   System.RemoteConnect [u'']
9:58:32 AM   System.RemoteDisconnect [u'']
9:58:32 AM   System.RemoteConnect [u'Administrator']
9:58:33 AM   System.ClipboardChanged
10:02:18 AM   System.UnIdle
10:03:39 AM   System.Idle
10:12:47 AM   System.ClipboardChanged
10:18:01 AM   Main.nn OFF
10:18:59 AM   System.UnIdle

and here is a screenshot of my configuration

http://picpaste.com/screenshot_2.jpg

hope that helps

[krambriw]

I made a new version that has the new functions described below.

Before upgrading, take screen shots or make notes of your current SunTracker configurations, I can't make the configuration compatible with the previous version

# General events for sunset/sunrise can now be triggered if enabled, see screen shot below
If you only need this function, the plugin takes care of it and you do not need to configure any actions at all

# I have added a global MovingGhost variable and related actions that allows you to set a global MovingGhost function to ON or OFF. As example you could have a key switch for your house that turns the function ON/OFF. Any other input device of your choice can of course be used as long as they generate ON/OFF events that are activating the macros where the actions are placed
As you can see from the screen shot below, you can select if the SunTracker action shall be
- running MovingGhost function locally (as before)
- running MovingGhost function globally and controlled by actions (i.e. the key switch or something else)
So you can have a couple of them running locally independent and some globally controlled if you like

[patlabor]

fianlly i got it working.

downloaded the new version and sundown sunrise was working like a charm out of the box, when i configured the rest it works like it is supposed to, got my FS20 PCS yesterday and have it working allready, now i am just waiting for the first sundown to see it working for real (outside of activating an action manually)

just have one question. how is the weather condition stuff working, the log just says "Google weather data not aviable" every 11 minutes, when i check manually i instantly get a "condition report" over google. could it be that my cityname contains an ├╝ (u umlaut) and the plugin cant handle "non standart" letters?

[krambriw]

Good to hear!
I created a bug in the weather stuff and I'm working to fix it asap...until then you will have those logs

The normal operation would (when the bug is fixed) be that lights will be turned on at sunset and off at sunrise but if you have set a time for weather correction, the times will be adjusted depending on the actual weather (if it is clear you can wait a bit to turn them on, if it is cloudy we need to turn them on a bit earlier etc)

Umlaut should not cause any problems, the plugin is supporting utf-8

To use only the sunset/sunrise events, you do not need to create any action, the plugin is generating those itself

Best regards, Walter

[krambriw]

New version uploaded. The weather data compensation works again

[vuego]

Is it possible to use weather time compensation also for the GetContentsOfVariable action?

I'm using SunTracker to control the color mode of the projector - bright during day and cinema mode after the sun sets.
- I've got a macro that changes color mode when SunTracker's event executes (for when the projector is powered on during sunset).
- I use another macro that query GetContentsOfVariable right after powering the projector on (to set the desired color mode in case it was powered off during SunTracker's event).

The problem is that GetContentsOfVariable will return True between SunTracker's early event (due to weather) and the actual sunset which mean I miss both triggers if I power the projector on during this time span.

What do you think?

[krambriw]

Hi, let me think about it, I assume its possible. Eventually add a new action with for this. I bit busy this week though, re-building some stuff in the house (new heat pump installation)

Best regards, Walter

[vuego]

Thanks. Another option could be to add another event (one early event with weather time compensation and one normal).
I'm happy either way