relay with espimatic or EspEasy

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This is actually a spin-off of this topic.

I have this relay:
http://www.dx.com/nl/p/arduino-2-channel-relay-shield-module-red-144140

In Espimatic I had this config:

I didn’t change a thing on the nodemcu and simply flashed Esp Easy R139 onto the nodemcu and upon startup I set it to

However, no matter what I configure, when setting the value 1 to gpio 15 it switches the heating off and when sending the value 0 on gpio15 it switches the heating on. If I set “inversed” to on it still does this.

I also tried other combinations but it also swithes to when sending a 0 value, and it switches off when sending a 1 value.

I have the idea that I overlook something, but what?

@Harry-van-der-Wolf i use similar relay configured as a normal switch (inversed).

I did try that as well, with or without “active low/high” with or without “pull up”, with or without “inversed” and many other combinations. I have been trying combinations for over 2 hours.
And still I could be doing something wrong.

So can you specify which settings you used next to normal switched inversed?

Why are you configuring it as a switch instead of relay ?

@Harry-van-der-Wolf HI, It’s by the wiring card. When LOW state relay is energized and vice versa.
Set it as a switch input in ESPEasy is nonsense. It is output.

Just turn commands. I have in the MQTT plugin swapped On and Off values.

Info for relays/switches for Esp Easy: http://www.esp8266.nu/index.php/Relais and http://www.esp8266.nu/index.php/Switch

@Koffienl: EspEasy does not have a relay option. Only a switch option.
@Wutu: EspEasy only knows “Switch Input” options, and I do know it is output. I just though as we are talking about setting a gpio high or low it wouldn’t matter. On another espeasy I have a PIR motion sensor as switch input which works just fine. And as @jopiek mentions: As normal input switch works fine for him (and I tried his setting as well, and will try it again tonight.).

And with regard to the swapping of On and Off values: I tried that but the valve button in Pimatic, set from the status command, has the wrong status in that case. Which means I need to write some shell like extension to the already grep/awk extension for the json output from the EspEasy to swap that in pimatic as well.

I have already searched the espeasy forum but can’t find anything either.

@Harry-van-der-Wolf do you use the Pimatic plug in from Espeasy GitHub? In C-22 a part is missing compared to the original one. This part is for sending switch status to Pimatic. Maybe this is causing the problems.

@Harry-van-der-Wolf this is where you find the original plugin with the setswitchstate part. https://forum.pimatic.org/topic/2001/esp-easy-pimatic-controller-plugin.

@Harry-van-der-Wolf I use PIR and water level sensors as inputs too. But the relay is OUTPUT. In ESPEasy not need to configure the outputs!
What exactly bothers swap the 1 and 0 in command?

EDIT: You can also use the NC involvement. Then the relay off when 0. I’m so involved with the aquarium filter. Shutting down only very rarely and is not worth to hold relay is on.

@Jopiek: I did not know about the restapi “thing” missing. I will check the current code with the original code. But in this situation the pimatic restapi is not used (at least not by me). The Esp Easy REST-api is used. I use the commands

Off:    http://<ESP IP address>/control?cmd=GPIO,15,0
On:     http://<ESP IP address>/control?cmd=GPIO,15,1
Status: http://<ESP IP address>/control?cmd=status,gpio,15 | grep state | awk {'print $2'}

As mentioned I expanded the status command to get the 0/1 status out of the json message.
Do you use the restapi? How?

@Wutu: As such I don’t care whether the 0 and 1 are reversed. But as mentioned I need to invert the status command as well to show the correct status in the screen.
And what do you mean with “In ESPEasy not need to configure the outputs!” Do you mean I remove my input switch as device and simply send 0 or 1 to the EspEasy?

@jopiek said in relay with espimatic or EspEasy:

@Harry-van-der-Wolf do you use the Pimatic plug in from Espeasy GitHub? In C-22 a part is missing compared to the original one. This part is for sending switch status to Pimatic. Maybe this is causing the problems.

I did a quick “diff -u” between the two files (_C009.ino and _C022.ino) and now I see that the below mentioned part is missing in the new code:

-                 case SENSOR_TYPE_SWITCH:
-                 {
-                         pimaticSetSwitchState(event, 0, UserVar[event->BaseVarIndex]);
-                         break;
-                 }

That needs to be added then to the code. I will test and do a pull request.

@Harry-van-der-Wolf I use the same commands to set the state of the switches. Because it is setting the gpio directly you have to use 0 for on and 1 for off. If you use the rest API you can get the status of the switch sent back to Pimatic. Make sure the name of the switch in Espeasy and Pimatic is the same. One feature of Espeasy is that you can give a boot state to the switch. Important for a thermostat. You can find this under hardware. Here you can give a low or high state. If you do not mark it as inversed use high otherwise low. Another feature you can find under tools advanced. Connection failure threshold. If the ESP looses connection it will reset and if you have set the bootstate the thermostat will be in the off position (safe position). Important because in case of Pimatic or wifi problems you have to stop the heater. The room temperature I measure with a mysensors temperature sensor (battery powered). If this one is not updated every 5 minutes it also turns of the heater.
As @wutu said you do not have to mark it as inversed but for easy understanding if you also have normal operating switches (sonoff) it is better to inverse them.

@jopiek Thanks for your extensive answer.
However, @wutu mentioned that I don’t need a switch device at all, especially not as it is an input switch (as far as I understood from his answer).
Based on your first post I assume you have configured the input switch, just like I did.
Like:
IDX => some number (above screen capture mentions 0, but I had 245. However, I thought this was only for Domoticz)
Pull Up: checked (or not?)
Inversed: checked
Switch type: Switch
Send boot state: ?? (I thought this was not to set the boot state, but to send the boot state. So to simply send the state it is in upon (re)boot)

(The reason I’m doing is is because the espimatic was again 1 hour offline this morning and then suddenly reappeared. Beats me)

@Harry-van-der-Wolf IDX does not matter for Pimatic only for Domoticz. Can be anything except 0 I believe
Yes send the boot state means it will send its state to Pimatic. Setting the boot state you will do in the hardware screen.
Maybe a stupid question but what kind of power supply do you use for the ESP?

Thanks for your answer. I misunderstood your boot state answer.

I do use a good “certified” 2A power supply, not a cheap one. I don’t know which brand.

Tonight the next session to get the EspEasy running.

@Harry-van-der-Wolf You can also switch the state during query:
curl http://<ESP IP address>/control?cmd=status,gpio,5 | grep state | awk {'print $2'} | if [ $? == 0 ]; then echo "1"; else echo "0"; fi

@Harry-van-der-Wolf 2A should be sufficient but be aware there are many differences between the micro USB cables. The cheap ones from Action for example do not even give 0.5A and can cause strange behaviour. If it is only a relay and temperature sensors that you need Itead has some nice solutions for it with the sonoff devices. Only need to solder 4 pins on them and replace the firmware with Espeasy. Afterwards the firmware can be updated OTA.

What you are/were essentially trying to do is use GPIO 12 both as input AND output at the same time, which will give you (obviously) a hard time.
If you just want to activate(/deactivate) the relay from ESPEasy, you just need to set the output of the corresponding pin (gpio 12) to 0 (most relay boards need the pin to be pulled to ground to enable). Example via http: http://ipadress-ESP/control?cmd=GPIO,12,0 or MQTT: send a message to topic /ESPEasy_name/gpio/12 with value 0 (or 1 to disable the relay).

If you want to wire up a hardware switch to the ESP to be able to swich the relay as well, that is also possible, but then you will need to use another pin, define it as a switch input and use the rules to switch on/off the relay.

@Rene-Arts it is only a relay output not an input and it works very well. Description in Espeasy is confusing.

@jopiek It might be just me, but I don’t get what is confusing about it. There essentially is nothing to configure when you want to hook up a relay. Just hook it up and set the corresponding (output) pin to 0 or 1. Only when you want to define the pin state right after (re)booting you need to select “output low/high” in the hardware tab. Nothing more to it

http://www.esp8266.nu/index.php/Relais