This program is allows your Raspberry Pi to replace the rain bypass controller for your sprinkler system. It is written in Python 3.
This program started from http://www.thirdeyevis.com/pi-page-3.php by Scott Mangold. The original program was written for the weather underground and darksky APIs, both of which are no longer available. See Mangold's page for instructions. I made the following changes to his design:
- Changed weather API to Visual Crossing
- Added Google Maps API to get Lat / Lon
- Simplified the hardware to incorporate a pre-assembled relay rather than building one from components
- Reduced the number of LEDs required
- Changed how the configuration file works
- General code optimizations
- 1 Raspberry Pi with active internet connection and GPIO library installed (I used a Raspberry Pi Zero W and added GPIO Pins)
- 1 Raspberry Pi breakout board (many are available, you can also use a breadboard if you want a no solder option)
- 2 50-300 ohm resistors
- 1 single channel 3V relay module
- 1 Green led
- 1 Red led
- Irrigation controller with rain-bypass option
- Visual Crossing developer API account (free)
- Google maps developer API account (free)
- Open libraries and Config File
- Determine Lat/Lon from Google
- Get precip amount from Visual Crossing
- Set status
- Set GPIO Pins
Place file in directory where you want it to run, I use root for the instructions below
chmod +777 rain-bypass.py settings.ini
sudo nano /lib/systemd/system/rain-bypass.service
[Unit]
Description=Rain bypass script
After=multi-user.target
[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 /rain-bypass.py
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=300s
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable rain-bypass.service
systemctl status rain-bypass.service
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