Trying to get a button on LCD2004 to display other data Topic is solved

[RonkA]

Hello, all.

I'm trying to get a lcd display to work with Domoticz.

IMG_20221223_134503.jpg (49.41 KiB) Viewed 4555 times

It's an 2004a display working via I2c on a ESP8266 board running ESP Easy getting updated every 20 seconds.
Sofarsogood...
The problem i get is this; sometimes the first line is not displaying and gives a blank line instead.
It gets worse if i send more items to the display;

I use the 'openurl' command to send the text, because it cannot send space's to the display i have to use underscores instead of space.
The more elegant way is to send the lines in parts to the correct place in the line;
For the top line i would send "gebruik" from position 2, then send "huis=<value>" from position 5.

So 2 times to send 1 line to the display, repeating for the other lines is a lot of extra times sending to the ESP board at once.

This is the part of the script responsible for getting the text to the display:

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commandArray[35] = {['OpenURL']="http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,1,2,Gebruik_huis=".. math.floor(consumption_p).."W" }
commandArray[36] = {['OpenURL']="http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,2,3,Zonepanelen=".. math.floor(solar_p) .. "W" }
commandArray[37] = {['OpenURL']="http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,3,5,KWH_meter=".. math.floor(consumption_tot).."W" }
commandArray[40] = {['OpenURL']="http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,4,2,"..HM.."" }

Gives this in the log:

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2022-12-23 14:33:41.185 Status: EventSystem: Fetching URL http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,2,3,Zonepanelen=5W after 0.2 seconds...
2022-12-23 14:33:41.185 Status: EventSystem: Fetching URL http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,3,5,KWH_meter=760W after 0.2 seconds...
2022-12-23 14:33:41.185 Status: EventSystem: Fetching URL http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,4,2,14:33__Fri_23_Dec after 0.2 seconds...
2022-12-23 14:33:41.185 Status: EventSystem: Fetching URL http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,1,2,Gebruik_huis=765W after 0.2 seconds...

Even these 4 commands give this strange order in the log and sometimes results in a loss of line ..

Is there a way to get the next send-command to pause for say 50ms to finish the action?

Greets Ron.

[zicht]

Hi Ron

Introducing a wait would slow down all your lua action including domoticz itself.

1. You can read return values with io.popen to run a curl. then make diffrend scripts with a number in their name.
They will be fired after eachother and each script will make domoticz wait to end the script= having a return value

2. Maybe a better way to write values to a file outside domoticz
and have there some actions done , if needed with the wanted wait ?

I write some text files and send them by curl in a timed script every minute to another device (basucaly the same concept)

3. another way is using a device fired script, but ony send data on fixed seconds
eg. if 0<seconds<10 then action 1 , if 11<seconds<20 then action2 and so on.
You need to be aware that when nothing changes the scipt is not fired. Thats why i suggest to take a 10 sec window

i use this mechanism to do some actions twice a minute.

Be aware that you can slow down domoticz siginificant by wrong lua use and you can even create nasty loops.
For that reason i am using python or powershell a lot to avoid timing issues.

I hope to give you an idea on how to solve your problem ...

[RonkA]

Thanks for the reply, the problem i have with python (and dzVents) is that my Domoticz runs on synology in docker and i am not able to get these type of scripts to work -Yet...- (NOOB am I)

One thing i have sort of managed to clear up,

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commandArray[20] = {['OpenURL']="http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,1,2,Gebruik_huis=".. math.floor(consumption_p).."W" }
commandArray[21] = {['UpdateDevice'] = dummymeter_id14 .. "|0|" .. math.floor(nettot_terug) .. ";" .. (nettot_terug/1000)}
commandArray[25] = {['OpenURL']="http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,2,3,Zonepanelen=".. math.floor(solar_p) .. "W" }
commandArray[26] = {['UpdateDevice'] = dummymeter_id15 .. "|0|" .. math.floor(nettot_verbr) .. ";" .. (nettot_verbr/1000)}	 
commandArray[30] = {['OpenURL']="http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,3,5,KWH_meter=".. math.floor(consumption_tot).."W" }
commandArray[35] = {['OpenURL']="http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,4,2,"..HM.."" }

I just stuck 2 other commandArrays inbetween these and result..

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2022-12-23 19:28:05.878 Status: EventSystem: Fetching URL http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,1,2,Gebruik_huis=2351W after 0.2 seconds...
2022-12-23 19:28:05.880 Status: EventSystem: Fetching URL http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,2,3,Zonepanelen=0W after 0.2 seconds...
2022-12-23 19:28:05.882 Status: EventSystem: Fetching URL http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,3,5,KWH_meter=2351W after 0.2 seconds...
2022-12-23 19:28:05.882 Status: EventSystem: Fetching URL http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,4,2,19:28__Fri_23_Dec after 0.2 seconds...

But still sometimes missing 1st line, so maybe the cause is something else.
It's irritating but not live-threatening..

[RonkA]

Little update;
The missing 1st line of the text is solved.

After looking in the log of the ESP8266 i found that the 4 lines i send from Domoticz are received in random order every time, so it doesnt matter if the order of sending is off.
Searching on i found the following:

display2004.jpg (18.9 KiB) Viewed 4503 times

Notice the cross, what that meant is that the line was not empty, it contained a 'space' and this line was printed every 60 seconds..
So clearing the line solved this problem..
Sending more than 4 lines at once still gives dropouts of text on the display so sending every word is still not an option.

The other problem; sending spaces to the display,'<ip>/control?cmd=LCD,1,1,hello everybody' displays 'hello',
Spaces cannot be a part of the message so for the space i use % 20 but gives the same outcome as above.

Looking at the log in ESP8266 the message received is 'hello everybody', the correct sentence, so the problem lies in the display software..
To get it to work i use underscore as space so '<ip>/control?cmd=LCD,1,1,hello_everybody' displays 'hello_everybody', not that pretty but it is what it is..

[bewo]

Hi RonkA,

I don't know if tips are still necessary but an idea to pause the command would to NOT use the OpenURL-command.
The nicest way would to use "curl" but the tool isn't included in the standard-Synology Package. An other way is to use wget.

So you could do something like:

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URLcall = "wget -q -O- http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,"
Line_1 = "1,2,Gebruik_huis="..math.floor(consumption_p).."W"
Line_2 = "2,3,Zonepanelen="..math.floor(solar_p).."W"
Line_3 = "3,5,KWH_meter="..math.floor(consumption_tot).."W"
Line_4 = "4,2,"..HM
Pause = ' && sleep 0.3 && ' -- Wait for 0.3 Seconds

os.execute(URLcall..Line_1..Pause..URLcall..Line_2..Pause..URLcall..Line_3..Pause..URLcall..Line_4)

This would fire this example command (i've set the calculated values to 1234):

wget -q -O- http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd, ... huis=1234W && sleep 0.3 && wget -q -O- http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd, ... elen=1234W && sleep 0.3 && wget -q -O- http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd, ... eter=1234W && sleep 0.3 && wget -q -O- http://192.168.178.220/control?cmd=lcd,4,2,1234

In this way you should also be able to send words to the right position if there really really really is no way to send an space.
You've written "% 20" in your last post. Is this only an typo?
If it isn't an typo: The code for the space is %20 without an space. So for example if you would write "Gebruik huis" you have to send "Gebruik%20huis" without any spaces.

[zicht]

Hi

Take a look at https://www.domoticz.com/wiki/LUA_commands

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commandArray[#commandArray + 1]={["<sensor or command like open url>']='something AFTER 23'} 
commandArray[#commandArray + 1]={["<sensor2 or command2 like open url>']='something AFTER 46'} 

could do the trick, but i did not test it .... so you have to try....
AFTER sets a delay of x seconds to execute the command array line
the commandarray thingy is because it can do only one thing at once, newly with the same name will be overwritten in the array.
So two similar need to have their own specific line in the array.... Hope it makes sense. Difficult to explain in englisch

This is not the case for openurl right now however it can be handy in future to know the possibility

[bewo]

Hi zicht,

Ronka is already using the array of commands...

He uses
commandArray[28] = ....
commandArray[29] = ....
commandArray[30] = ....
commandArray[35] = ....
and so on. In this way the order is easyliy recognizable. But you have to pay attention at programming.

Your posted command does the same. It begin's with the first command in array at position "0" and calculate.
#commandArray ist the actual sum and then plus 1.
So the following
commandArray[#commandArray + 1] = ....
commandArray[#commandArray + 1] = ....
commandArray[#commandArray + 1] = ....
commandArray[#commandArray + 1] = ....
results in:
commandArray[1] = ....
commandArray[2] = ....
commandArray[3] = ....
commandArray[4] = ....

[RonkA]

This post is now obsolete, i found a workaround to display wat i wanted in the 1st place.

display.jpg (102.68 KiB) Viewed 4426 times

I use the ESP to display the static text in the lines so this can have the spaces without problems.
Because the ESP erases the whole display with the static text every refresh the interval is now set to 600 seconds.
The values are blank at this moment but this is for max 20 seconds before Domoticz sends the new values.
The 4th line has the date comming from the ESP, the time comes from Domoticz.

display2.jpg (152.26 KiB) Viewed 4426 times

[RonkA]

Another update; Now the workaround is obsolete..

I found the answer to the <%20> probem;
When i was trying to get ℃ to display, I looked in the ESP/tools/system variables to see what the url encoded value would be.
What I found is that <%c2%b0> would get the right caracter, only i got a different caracter displayed.
So i searched and found a caracter matrix for the lcd 2004:

Knipsel.JPG (81.11 KiB) Viewed 4403 times

The right hex value to get the little o caracter is Binair 11111101= %FD..and this works as it should.
In the matrix are some emty caracters, i chose binair: 11111110= %FE.. and there is the space..
All the workarounds are not necessary anymore.

But then i wanted an upgrade: other lines with data after a buttonpush.

I have added a phisical button to the esp, set it up so it registers in Domoticz and with some help from openai got a dzVens-script working to display other textlines with other values.

I will start another threat for the next part: viewtopic.php?t=39787