Sprinkler System - Melnor RainCloud

@tchellomello

Thanks for your work on this. LOVE it for my existing value. Got a second valve unit now and did not realize this component only worked for the one. Would love to assist any way I can to get it working with multiple valves.

I’m not a very good programmer, so your existing code is way above my understand… but if you can point me in the right direction I’m willing to contribute however works best!

The integration broke last week due to a set of significant changes Melnor made to their API. I’ve fixed the module itself and the fix was accepted into HA last night. Should be out in 0.92.

Moving forward I’m hoping to add support for multiple valves and multiple controllers. If anyone has a spare they’d like to donate or something let me know. I’ve only got 1 controller and 1 valve at the moment.

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Is this working in 0.92? I’m getting an invalid config error when I add this to my configuration.

It should work in .92. Can you post the exact error from the dev log as well as your configuration for the integration?

I used this configuration:

raincloud:
  username: YOUR_USERNAME
  password: YOUR_PASSWORD

and here is the error that I’m getting:

I am getting the same error message as ryry623

@vanstinator I’m getting the same failure in the raincloud component as well using 0.93.1. The log shows the same data as the “Rain Cloud Setup” error posted above.

Unable to connect to Rain Cloud service: 500 Server Error: Internal Server Error for url: https://wifiaquatimer.com/get_cu_and_fu_status?controller_serial=<redacted>&faucet_serial=<redacted>

My configuration is:

configuration.yaml:
  raincloud:
    username: !secret raincloud_id
    password: !secret raincloud_pw

binary_sensors.yaml:
  - platform: raincloud

sensors.yaml:
  - platform: raincloud

switches.yaml:
  - platform: raincloud

This worked for around a year before the Melnor website change back in March. Hasn’t worked since.

Thanks for your help!

The latest version you can see is version 0.0.7; version 0.1.0 fixed this for me. I think this has @vanstinator changes. I pulled this in by temporarily overlaying a pull of the component from trunk/master. If you’re not familiar, stick with me, and make a backup of your config before you begin:

  1. backup your config directory (ICYMI)
  2. mkdir /tmp/rain
  3. cd /tmp/rain && curl -LO https://github.com/tchellomello/raincloudy/archive/master.zip
  4. unzip master.zip
  5. mkdir /your/config-dir/custom_components
  6. mv raincloudy-master/raincloudy /your/config-dir/custom_components/
  7. (Home-assistant web UI) check your config and restart

At step 4, it’s important that the created custom_components dir is in the same folder as your configuration.yaml file. This is in your configuration folder, if that’s not obvious – it’s a bit strange so I point that out redundantly.

tep 5 creates a component “rainclouds” in “custom_components” version 0.1.0 that eclipses the current 0.0.7.

I’m using the python venv setup/configuration on a Raspberry Pi. I tried doing the above and more specifically in step 5, ran the following command:

mv raincloudy-master/raincloudy /home/homeassistant/.homeassistant/custom_components/

However, after restarting the HomeAssistant service, I still get the same error: “Unable to connect to Rain Cloud service: 500 Server Error: Internal Server Error for url: https://wifiaquatimer.com/get_cu_and_fu_status?controller_serial=redacted&faucet_serial=redacted

Thoughts?

One other thing - I tried this both with the master ZIP you linked (which I believe is still 0.0.7) and the 0.1.0 work in progress feature/multiple-units branch (https://github.com/tchellomello/raincloudy/archive/feature/multiple-units.zip).

Neither fixed the “Unable to connect to Rain Cloud service: 500 Server Error: Internal Server Error for url: https://wifiaquatimer.com/get_cu_and_fu_status?controller_serial=redacted&faucet_serial=redacted” error.

Any ideas?

I thought this was just me, because I have two valves.

I did notice that if I browse to the URL, and exclude the %0A2, I get a valid JSON response.

Yup, you’re exactly right. I have the same setup (one controller, two valves) and am getting the same issue with the %0A2 being appended to the faucet_serial= variable. Removing it generates a valid JSON response.

I shared my findings on the Raincloudy team’s Github here: https://github.com/tchellomello/raincloudy/issues/41#issuecomment-509028266

Has anyone setup automation’s based on weather in HA yet ? If so care to share ?

I have the same issue with %0A2…anybody have any idea when this will be fixed on the actual integration?

Not related to the fix, but i ran a melnor raincloud for a little over a year. I had spotty service with it and it would sometimes open random zones that had nothing ever in them. I also had problems with two hose zones falling off of sync. HASS would only support one faucet. So what i did was bought a used rachio gen2 on ebay for 50$ and some rainbird valves. Plumbed them to my hose bib and just ran wires to the rachio. System works flawless and the gen2 rachio weather skip is pretty bad ass. Very happy with its. I had $200 invested in the Melnor system that offered nothing for automation based on weather and all said and done with the rachio, valves and pvc i maybe have $100 total for 4 zones with expansion to 8. Plays great with HA too.

I would be interested in something similar for Netro Sprinkler. I didn’t find any solution for it.

Can you share the exact detail of the valves? I’m worried that, yeah, I can google, but looking for exactly what you have to replicate your results as closely as possible. I’d prefer a non-custom-wifi, local-polling replacement for Melnor, so I’m looking for things that are known to work as a stronger base of experimentation.

Is this integration broken for anyone else? Mine hasn’t worked since I had to send it to them to have them change the firmware.

I’ve taken over as the sole maintainer of this project. As it’s a web scraper I’ll be deprecating the official integration and moving to a customer_component going forward. You can find more details here Custom Component: Melnor Raincloud

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