Toro Sentinel - Water Management System

Toro Sentinel - Water Management System

Toro Sentinel is a Water Management System used by the Exterior Team to manage the irrigation system on campus.  There are 2 Sentinel servers; 1 in Athletics that is not managed by CPFM and 1 in the Irrigation office of CPFM.  We have nothing to do with the Athletics install.

The server in CPFM is a physical unit located in the Irrigation office, Building 128, Office 102.  It has a USB>Serial cable that is connected to the Toro Radio Transceiver.  The Toro Radio Transceiver connects to an antenna in the Irrigation office.  It provides radio communication with satellites in the field and relays transmissions from users via UO Issued radios.  The Vantage Pro weather console is connected via USB.  The physical weather station is mounted to the roof of Building 132.  The weather station and software are used by Sentinel to calculate rain and sun values to determine watering schedules. 

The physical computer is headless.  All interaction is via RDP to the server.  This needs to be done via the FS RDP Gateway, as it is not publicly accessible.  

After any restart, the Sentinel server has to be logged on to with the FS-Sentinel account (password is in the safe).  You have to logon as this account, so the database and weather station report correctly.  If another user logs in, they do not see the database or the weather station.  It is no big deal to logon as yourself to perform maintenance (FS-Sentinel is NOT a local admin), but for normal operations, FS-Sentinel needs to be logged in.  Once logged in, the Weatherlink software will start first and then Sentinel.  Weatherlink has to start first, so that Sentinel can see the weather station.  The user has to stay logged in, as neither software runs as a service.

The good thing is that, Sentinel is just a central coordinator and scheduler.  The server can be down for a while, especially in the winter, and not have any adverse effects.  The satellites out in the field do all of the heavy lifting.  If the server is down, the satellites just keep doing whatever they were last told to do.  They can keep about 30-45 days’ worth of reporting data (success/failure, weather at that time, etc.) before they would start overwriting it. 

NOTICE - Current issues:

As of 4/28/20, the current Sentinel machine (FS-Sentinel01) is having hardware issues. The Sentinel hardware is connected to Sentinel01 via one of its front USBs and is communcating on COM4. COM1 is currently damaged or non-functioning. 

WeatherLink

Start>WeatherLink>CP210X USB to Serial Converter

Press any key.  It will add the USB to UART Bridge as a COM port (Usually COM3).

Start>WeatherLink>WeatherLink 6.03.exe

File>Open Station

Browse to \\files\fs-files\Departments\Exterior\Sentinel\WeatherLink\Sentinel

This will have all the settings necessary to connect WeatherLink to Sentinel.

Sentinel

Start>Sentinel WMS

Adding Maps to Sentinel

1. Create map as .jpg file.
2. Save .jpg file to \\files\fs-files\Departments\Exterior\Sentinel\Toro\Sentinel WMS\images\maps.
3. This will make the map visible in the Maps section.

Moving license from current Sentinel machine to new Sentinel machine

1. Install Sentinel software on new machine
2. Have TORO deactivate license on old machine and activate license on new machine
3. Point new machine to the Sentinel DB file
4. Boot application, Send/Receive to all points to make sure everything is working

PuTTY and Procedures for changing (Unit Codes) on sentinel boards. 

Changing Unit Codes needs to be done because they are programmed at Toro with a unit code in them and they need to be changed to match the unit code in our sentinel computer so the computer can communicate with the unit or clock.   PuTTY is used to connect over a Serial or USB>Serial adapter to controller boards for the irrigation system and make programming changes.  

1. Find the COM port the Serial or USB>Serial adapter is using.
2. Go to Computer Management>Communications Port and make sure it matches as shown below.
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   2. 
3. Configure PuTTY as shown below.
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4. Connect to board and power on as shown below.
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5. Steps to change unit code are as follows.

   1. Plug in the printed circuit board that is going into the Rainbird clock that will be used to retrofit the clock in to the test clock in the office (as shown in the picture above).  The power supply needs to be plugged into the 1-12 serial connector on the Rainbird clock (as shown in the picture above).  This is where we get power to operate the board.
   2. Next plug in the Serial cable that comes from the Computer that has PuTTY installed on it to the grey one on the Sentinel board serial port (as shown in the picture above).
   3. Next plug in the Rainbird clock and it will start powering up the Sentinel board so you can change the UC number. You will notice that there will be a red and green light come on immediately on the board and in just a little bit another blinking red light will come on this means that the board is ready to have the unit code changed or reprogrammed.
   4. Now open PuTTY on the computer.
   5. Click on the saved setting named Sentinel in the box and click Open.
   6. Type uc then hit enter.  It will show you the current unit code in the box.
      1. Note: you will not see any typing as you type but once you hit enter it will appear on the screen and should display the current unit code.
   7. Change the unit code to what we want, which should be pre-determined.
   8. Hit Enter and the current unit code with a zero in front of it.  Type suc, then the new three digit unit code, then enter.  It will display the new unit code. 
      1. Example:  (0204suc906 enter). The 0204 is the current code and the 906 is the new unit code. It will display this in the box but again will not show up while you type and you will only see it after you hit Enter again.
   9. Now unplug the clock and unhook the printed circuit board from the clock and computer.
   10. The newly programmed board is now ready to be installed in the field unit.