sendCommand repetition for Li-ion battery motor support about pi-somfy

[rbswift]

actually, here's my hack... it's a bit worse than I first thought lol....

< if shutterId == "0x888888": #battery operated motor seems to be a bit deaf!
< self.sendCommand(shutterId, self.buttonDown, 5)
< time.sleep(1)
< self.sendCommand(shutterId, self.buttonDown, 5)
< else:
< self.sendCommand(shutterId, self.buttonDown, 2)

[Nickduino]

You're right, sendCommand is called with two repetitions
self.sendCommand(shutterId, self.buttonStop, 2)

[rbswift]

Would it be possible to parameterise this resend value per blind rather than have it hard coded?

[MichaelB2018]

Finally got to do this and checked in a fix. See SendRepeat in the configfile. You can define it there.

[rbswift]

Thanks for the change. I need to set this individually, "per blind" though because the battery powered Somfy blinds need several more repeats to wake them up whereas the regular mains powered blinds do not. Is that possible for a future change?

[rbswift]

Actually I just tried this and even with 5 repeats the battery shutters still don't work. It seems they need the little 'sleep' in my hack comment above which is a bit crude. Any suggestions on how to implement this more efficiently? Perhaps a new flag in operateShutters.conf [Shutters] section to indicate which shutters need awakening?

[MichaelB2018]

you can try to add a delay of 1 second between retries and let me know if it works. Just open operateShutters.py and add the following at line 292:
time.sleep(1)

If it works, I can add it to the main branch.

[rbswift]

Thanks Michael, That seems to work. I'm not sure how long it takes the battery blind to go into sleep mode so will test again later but it's looking good so far

[MichaelB2018]

test it a few days and if it works we can add it to the project. Let me know. BTW would 1/2 second work too?

[rbswift]

Thanks. 1/2 second seems to be working too. I will definitely test and find the best option. Cheers

[rbswift]

I've been running this with time.sleep(0.25) for a few days not and it seems to work sell so perhaps that could be added to the next release? Many thanks.

[MichaelB2018]

thanks for testing. I checked in an enhancement.

[MarkGodwin]

So confused by this. The sleep is just slowing down the code that is computing the array to be sent - not while the command is actually being sent over the airwaves. So I don't know why this fix would help at all?

[rbswift]

@MarkGodwin yes I think you're right. I think the problem was likely addressed by increasing SendRepeat or perhaps something else even. My current config is working well so I'm reluctant to mess with it :)

[Nickduino]

Good point, @MarkGodwin

My current config is working well so I'm reluctant to mess with it :)

Could you comment out the sleep command and see if it still works, though?

[rbswift]

I just checked and it's already commented out in my operateShutters.py so I must have come to the same conclusion at some stage too.

I'm using SendRepeat=3 in operateShutters.conf

[MarkGodwin]

Yes, commenting it out didn’t cause me any problems either.