reef-pi :: An opensource reef tank controller based on Raspberry Pi.

[Ranjib]

Temp controller is looking good mate, I can see your wood work is getting better as well with each one you do

I may have missed it, but which temp probe did you end up going with? I have tried to find a "salt waterproof" DS18b20 but I have only been able to find metal ones. I also cut the temp probe off of a spare digital thermometer that I have as it had a plastic covered probe but it only has 2 wires, would that be an issue?

I was thinking worst case I could get a DS18b20 and put some heat shrink plastic tube around the probe. But I don't know how well that would waterproof it. Silicone is a good idea, and it is good to hear that it doesn't cause issues with the temp reading as that was another concern I had with heat shrink wrap and I thought it would have been even more of an issue with silicone.

I would refrain from using normal plastic, they are known to create gas under salt water (dont know how big of a risk it is). Digital temperature probe wont work with my current code, it assumes 3 wire ds18b20 probes, which gives temperature directly. The two wire probe that you have salvaged needs quiet a bit of additional work, I am not sure about the exact details, but last time I used one I went with these:
1) it needs to be powered by 1.5v dc supply (the internal circuitry is coin cell powered)
2) The reading from the probe is not exact temperature, it returns a numeric value which represent the temperature, you have scale it or apply some equation to deduce the temperature. I was getting values from 770->840 with the one I had. It was varying in sam fashion as the actual digital thermometer reading. so I could detect high and low temperature, 78 F was like 810 from the sensor reading.
3) I had to use an analog to digital converter (mcp3008) to read the probe ..

There is very little documentation on how to use them for DIY stuff.. :-( . DS18b20 is pretty popular, widely documented, and linux kernel has device driver, so we dont need any of that with ds18b20.

 

[Ranjib]

Wow, that sounds great. I think I will be less confused when I get started. I will send a pull and offer help. Thanks

Awesome

 

[MaccaPopEye]

Thanks! I'll look into those

 

[HM3105]

Question - for the temp probe. Has using shrink tube to seal the probe been considered already?

 

[njtiger aquariums]

Temp controller is looking good mate, I can see your wood work is getting better as well with each one you do

I may have missed it, but which temp probe did you end up going with? I have tried to find a "salt waterproof" DS18b20 but I have only been able to find metal ones. I also cut the temp probe off of a spare digital thermometer that I have as it had a plastic covered probe but it only has 2 wires, would that be an issue?

I was thinking worst case I could get a DS18b20 and put some heat shrink plastic tube around the probe. But I don't know how well that would waterproof it. Silicone is a good idea, and it is good to hear that it doesn't cause issues with the temp reading as that was another concern I had with heat shrink wrap and I thought it would have been even more of an issue with silicone.

I ordered these - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KUNKR3M/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 They work fine for me. They have gotten a rust color on them but have not affected the temp nor my water. I had one in my sump for over a year without any issues. After I moved I started running into issues with it reading temp so I swapped it out with another one. Now I don't have nice clean cables cause I'm still thinking how I want to wire it up so not sure why it stopped working (poor connections or took a dump on me)

 

[njtiger aquariums]

Cheap is best as long as it does not harm the corals. I was worried about rust, and not sure if silicone will work because I never worked with them. I made the choice before the temperature controller code was written, with little experience with ds18b20. I am planning to get a bunch of cheap probes and run it on a control pico tanks with no livestock. I am interested in a handful of things: 1) how much temperature swing happens and how frequently the heater/fan kicks in. . 2) what the impact of fan speed and heater wattage for a given tank volume (temperature control equipment).. 3) How does LR, sand, and return pump speed impact them (environmental factors) .. this will be very interesting but long running test

Thank you for the awesome suggestion.

I have my system poll temp every min, log the high/low temp of the day, and log the temp every hr on the hr. I then have a section in my system to run a report of my temp history (still plan on cleaning this up)

 

[denierlexiese]

It will be awesome if you can share how you smother them, what silicon to use, what is the process I could use those advice

I used ge silicone 1 since that is what DIY fishkeeper recommended for silicone for tanks. I have seen other posts on forums suggest that ge 1 is cheap stuff compared to other things out there. For the process, it was very thrown together. I just put silicone 1 in a standard caulking gun, and shot a big glob onto paper. I made sure all the metal of the probe was covered with the silicone and let it dry for 24 hours. I used the white color silicone [which has the advantage that you know you didn't miss a spot since the metal should not be showing at all, but I just ordered clear so I will be able to tell in the future if the probe ever starts to rust.] I can't imagine it will, at least in the first few years of service since silicone should be waterproof. I covered all the metal by with about 1/4 an inch of silicone on every bit of it, and it still reads the temperature perfectly. So I would suggest be generous with the silicone to ensure not rust.... probably.....

I can figure out how to upload a picture if anyone is interested.

https://www.amazon.com/Momentive-Pe...TF8&qid=1501788708&sr=8-3&keywords=silicone+1

 

[denierlexiese]

Question - for the temp probe. Has using shrink tube to seal the probe been considered already?

Is shrink tube water proof?

 

[HM3105]

Is shrink tube water proof?

Yes? It's solid piece of rubber if I'm not mistaken. Seal one end, slide it over the probe and heat to seal around the existing wire?

@Ranjib That worked, I was missing the 8080...duh

 

[HM3105]

So, is the GUI working for setting up outlets and equipment? I presume from reading through this and tinkering that I need to do the following to get some outlets assigned.

1. On the "Equipment" tab, define a "Board" which is my Pi. Assign it 40 pins since that is the total number of pins for the Pi or is this just the GPIO pins?

2. On the "Electronics" tab, create an outlet and assign it to a GPIO pin?

When I pull up the /etc/reef-pi/config.yml file I'm not seeing an outlet being defined in there.

 

[Aaron Smith]

So, is the GUI working for setting up outlets and equipment? I presume from reading through this and tinkering that I need to do the following to get some outlets assigned.

1. On the "Equipment" tab, define a "Board" which is my Pi. Assign it 40 pins since that is the total number of pins for the Pi or is this just the GPIO pins?

2. On the "Electronics" tab, create an outlet and assign it to a GPIO pin?

When I pull up the /etc/reef-pi/config.yml file I'm not seeing an outlet being defined in there.

@Ranjib is this an old version of reef-pi? I remember this from back when I first installed.

 

[HM3105]

@Ranjib is this an old version of reef-pi? I remember this from back when I first installed.

Yah this is what I was thinking but I thought I updated the DB. Maybe not though. I'll try again tomorrow.

 

[Ranjib]

Yes? It's solid piece of rubber if I'm not mistaken. Seal one end, slide it over the probe and heat to seal around the existing wire?

@Ranjib That worked, I was missing the 8080...duh

Yay, another reef-pi user Im glad you got it working

 

[Ranjib]

So, is the GUI working for setting up outlets and equipment? I presume from reading through this and tinkering that I need to do the following to get some outlets assigned.

1. On the "Equipment" tab, define a "Board" which is my Pi. Assign it 40 pins since that is the total number of pins for the Pi or is this just the GPIO pins?

2. On the "Electronics" tab, create an outlet and assign it to a GPIO pin?

When I pull up the /etc/reef-pi/config.yml file I'm not seeing an outlet being defined in there.

This is super duper old version of reef-pi . Can you update it? Grab the latest release from github/release tab

```
sudo apt-get remove reef-pi --purge -y
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/reef-pi
sudo dpkg -i reef-pi-<version>.deb
```

 

[Ranjib]

@Ranjib is this an old version of reef-pi? I remember this from back when I first installed.

yeah. reef-pi used to let you define the number of outlets, equipments then. Now all this things are static, has to be configured via configuration file.
I am thinking if this was a good idea. It made the UI simpler, but took away some flexibility....

 

[njtiger aquariums]

yeah. reef-pi used to let you define the number of outlets, equipments then. Now all this things are static, has to be configured via configuration file.
I am thinking if this was a good idea. It made the UI simpler, but took away some flexibility....

Not sure if this helps you in your system design or not. I added this to my system in the case I change from 4 channel relay to a 8 channel relay. Also if a pin goes bad I can change it as well. I have this on my admin section. Just an idea to maybe change from static to dynamic to help add more options to your system. This information is stored in my db in a table. I also use that table to pull information for my macro buttons and schedule of my equipment.

 

[HM3105]

This is super duper old version of reef-pi . Can you update it? Grab the latest release from github/release tab

```
sudo apt-get remove reef-pi --purge -y
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/reef-pi
sudo dpkg -i reef-pi-<version>.deb
```

Ok sorry I'm being such a drag, I can't tell where this command is looking to purge the deb file. When I ran it I got the below.

 

[Ranjib]

Did you download the latest reef pi release?
Download it from here : https://github.com/ranjib/reef-pi/releases

'wget-c https://github.com/ranjib/reef-pi/releases/download/0.0.7/reef-pi-0.0.7-pi3.deb'

No worries,

 

[HM3105]

Did you download the latest reef pi release?
Download it from here : https://github.com/ranjib/reef-pi/releases

'wget-c https://github.com/ranjib/reef-pi/releases/download/0.0.7/reef-pi-0.0.7-pi3.deb'

No worries,

Yep, downloaded into the default folder.

Wait.... I think I got it....had to tell it where to look...

sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/reef-pi-0.0.7-pi3.deb

Yup, now I have the AC outlets!

The pins listed in the config file for the AC outlets, are those the GPIO pins or the actual pins on the Pi? For example, AC 1 is pin 12. Is that GPIO pin 12 (which is #32 on the Pi or Pi pin #12 which is GPIO pin #18?


I have no idea why this picture is here, it won't let me delete it...ugh....

 

[Ranjib]

Yep, downloaded into the default folder.

Wait.... I think I got it....had to tell it where to look...

sudo dpkg -i ~/Downloads/reef-pi-0.0.7-pi3.deb

Yup, now I have the AC outlets!

The pins listed in the config file for the AC outlets, are those the GPIO pins or the actual pins on the Pi? For example, AC 1 is pin 12. Is that GPIO pin 12 (which is #32 on the Pi or Pi pin #12 which is GPIO pin #18?


I have no idea why this picture is here, it won't let me delete it...ugh....

Those are GPIO pins, not pin numbers based on their position, here is a reference:
http://www.jameco.com/Jameco/workshop/circuitnotes/raspberry_pi_circuit_note_fig2.jpg
Use any GPIO pins, other than #4 (might be used for temperature probe)