I tested this for a bit manually and of course seemed to work, but manually i cant recreate the machine actually moving and such, since we have a newer washer, the machine does tend to stop to sense before it continues or moves on to the next step of the wash.
I was trying to implement some sort of boolean flag so that before it starts, the flag is false, once it starts, then set it to true and base the rest of the logic on that flag, once the machine has stopped moving for a given period, then reset to false so we have a clean start for the next time the washer is used.
Can anyone see anything wrong with this logic in the picture?
Also, how can i create a variable of some sort so that we arent getting notifications every so many minutes. I was playing around with the flow object to see if i could setup a variable in that fashion, but not having luck incorporating it. The timer in the picture is just there to check that movement has been detected for a certain amount of time, which indicates the machine is on and running. So the point of the variable is to insure that the machine is in fact doing laundry and not someone touching the machine or looking thru clothes thats been laid out on top of it.
Ive never watched the machine during the whole cycle BUT, i know that onces it starts the cycle, it does a slight spin i guess to sense the amount of clothes, then stops, few seconds later, it starts to fill up with water, then does these small short slow spins before it finally starts the overall washing process. During each step of the cycle, it makes occasional stops and then starts again, so its not like the old school washers that once it starts spinning and filling that it just continues until the timer is done.
The node for the washer is running is as follows:
And for the Rate Limit node you mentioned, is that something i need to install / configure as i dont find that in the list of my available nodes?
I think MAYBE my 5 minute timer should be in front of the “AND” node? dont know
So do you think that a delay node would help? If so where in the flow would I insert that node?
My background in programming is mostly c# so when we want to stop executing a certain loop if criteria’s are met, we typically setup a Boolean variable outside out loop defaulted to false, once in the loop we set it to true once key logic is met, which then exits the loop and continues to move thru the logic, is that not possible in node red?
I ask, due to the small intermittent stops that the machine does during the overall cycle, because I don’t know if the load is going to be a quick wash, which is around 20 minutes and the long wash which I believe its around 1hr and 30 minutes for heavy loads.
I think the biggest hurdle for me is that the machine stops moving for chunks of time during the cycle, so if that restarts the timers, then I could potentially get notifications when its not really done.
