minor observations with 1.3.6 version about vdmot_controller

[harvey637]

some more feedback:
status icon: with error ther is an red error mark, thats good!
without error: no icon, just the square, where the icon should be :-(

Calibration: when will an automatic calibration start after reboot?
Manual calibration: status show "calibration" for some time, but nothing happens. After some time it goes back to "connected",
no open/close/idle or movment to calculated position, current stays at 20 mA (in the next 30 minutes or so ....)

I really would like to stand next to my valves and see them opening and closing in predictable time, eg 60 seconds after reboot ...

And a little question: it looks like the first movement is to the outside, the pushing element is moved away from the motor.
To me it looks not so good. A blocked valve is "always" ??? outside, the small nose is outside of the little channel to keep it from turning instead of moving in/out. So a calibration starts with moving this part even more outside. Without a detection of an endpoint it is "never" turned inside.
Starting the calibration to the inside makes it possible to hold the small nose to get back into the channel. the "inside" will always have an endpoint, when the moving part is completly inside at he end. So starting with this position should always find an endpoint, while the other endpoint might be difficult. Just my observations, maybe i am wrong. Just thinking ....

Found some info on the "windows" settings, ok.

cu
Harvey

[SurfGargano]

I found the icon issue on FF, Chrom and Edge works well.
Calibration after reboot starts when the first valve position is changed. (Initiated from the pi-controller or manual)

The first movement goes outside. When we changed to inside it can damage the motor if the pushing element is away from the motor. If it is away from the motor, pls. wait until the motor stops, then press assembly in the config section.

[harvey637]

thank you for the calibration info!

some more ideas: after some findings in my graphs (no response to api call) I found out in the mqtt status: WDT, which sounds like WatchdogTimer. Sadly no local log an no Info on the reason ...
In the GUI there is not hint about this.
Maybe it is an idea to put the last status in the detailed "status" page, on the right, below calibration?

Some thought on documentation: I guess, the "hour time" in calibration means to recalibrate after xxxx hours? hours=0 to ignore? Is hours a good scale to calibration, better as "days"? or larger number in hours ... any need to calibrate if NO movement (eg. in summer, lets say do calibration after xxx days WITHOUT movement) .... just thinking ....

by the way, I have reconnects every 2 minutes in mqtt, no big problem, only lots of log entries in iobroker :-(
My intervall is 60000 ms, publish interval an keep_alive at 45 secs, yes to publish on change ...

cu
Harvey

[SurfGargano]

hour time means time of the day. If you enter 0 , the calibration starts at midnight of the activated day.

If you set the interval to 60000 ms, the VDMot Controller checks every 60 sec if there are new values on mqtt. This will result in a long time response.
With keep_alive 45 seconds the connection will be closed aftrer 45 seconds after the last transmit, thats why after 2 minutes a reconnect occurs.

Set the interval to a smaller value ( I have 1000ms, results in a faster repsonse) and the keep_alive to a greater one. ( I have set to 120 seconds)

best regards Werner

[harvey637]

Hi SurfGargano
thank you for the answers, I am happy with the interval/keep_alive settings now, ok!

Calibration timing on the original homematicIP happened immedeately after reboot, so it was better predictable. (power off, power on, watch for the valves to move for calibration from 1 to 10).
With vdmot if I am in front of the valves I have not idea, when the first move will initiate the calibration. But this is my minor problem, may be I have to solve it with browser on vdmot on my mobile an manually set valve 1 to 1% :-)))

The info about "hour_time" is ok, but in contrast to the wiki. it says:
h - After choosen hours, all valves are newly calibrated by the controller.
Days - Choose the days, when all valves should be newly calibrated by the controller. Calibration happens at midnight.

Maybe a refresh on that info clarifies settings :-) I guess that hour_time is calibration time for every selected day ....

by the way.....

• how to reset counters (without full reset ...)?
• think about showing the "cr" (calibration retrys?), the "link" and the "controlactive" flags for each valve in extended status?

Now this is only in the json api-call...

happy easter!
cu
Harvey