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

Running a forum site is a lot of work :). We can do a google group or something. But then there's another aspect to it, which is staying close to the cause, I don't want reef-pi to be a tech-centric thing. Its focus is to ease reef keeping, and having the discussion here helps with that cause. We have an opportunity to learn the best reef keeping habits and address the most common challenges here by being with the community.
That said, I'll link the important posts in this thread to reef-pi website as a separate blog. I don't think it will be hard to just create dedicated threads and builds, we can group them with #reefpi tag. If the original authors are not interested in it, I'll take permission from them and start those. We can sticky those links in the very first page of this thread. There are a lot of other tricks we can do to address most of the current challenges, here in r2r, where the community lives.

Whatever you think is best. I once again wonder if you just hate to sleep?
 
Ranjib, I want to thank you for the (obviously) countless hours invested in this awesome project! I'd also like to thank everyone who has contributed to furthering the capabilities of the reef-pi systems! The information is scattered over numerous websites and I had to hunt a bit to get a tentative grasp of how it all works, but it's all quite impressive. Parts have been trickling in all week from Amazon. I had to steal the Raspberry-pi from the bedroom movie server the other night to load Raspbian and the reef-pi software until I got the new pi. Hooked up a couple relays and made the lights blink on and off. it will take me a few more days to get everything assembled and tested. Again, thank you, my hat is off to you!
 
Ranjib, I want to thank you for the (obviously) countless hours invested in this awesome project! I'd also like to thank everyone who has contributed to furthering the capabilities of the reef-pi systems! The information is scattered over numerous websites and I had to hunt a bit to get a tentative grasp of how it all works, but it's all quite impressive. Parts have been trickling in all week from Amazon. I had to steal the Raspberry-pi from the bedroom movie server the other night to load Raspbian and the reef-pi software until I got the new pi. Hooked up a couple relays and made the lights blink on and off. it will take me a few more days to get everything assembled and tested. Again, thank you, my hat is off to you!
Thank you for the kind words. Your appreciation is one of the thing that keeps us motivated :-)
 
Ranjib, I want to thank you for the (obviously) countless hours invested in this awesome project! I'd also like to thank everyone who has contributed to furthering the capabilities of the reef-pi systems! The information is scattered over numerous websites and I had to hunt a bit to get a tentative grasp of how it all works, but it's all quite impressive. Parts have been trickling in all week from Amazon. I had to steal the Raspberry-pi from the bedroom movie server the other night to load Raspbian and the reef-pi software until I got the new pi. Hooked up a couple relays and made the lights blink on and off. it will take me a few more days to get everything assembled and tested. Again, thank you, my hat is off to you!
And a warm welcome to reef2reef :-)
 
Can you share that with me :)
I had thought of doing that, but I ran out of time :-( . I was interested in many things, including
- All the build images
- All the known builds
- Any extension work that can be used across other builds (HATs, tricks, 3 printed parts etc)
- Common and major failure modes and issues.

I also tried to do some of this programmatically, but r2r does not have any API (in fact i also considered a semi-automatic journal where reef-pi will upload weekly stats as r2r post in a build thread) to analyze a thread, and I am not sure scraping it using a crawler (such as mechanize) would be against rule (or ethically wrong).
But again.. theres a lot of good reusable information that needs to be extracted and condensed from this thread. May be we can use some community help and make sub=threads driven by volunteers.

I dont have much of what you are looking for but these are the links I have saved. Since I have not started building yet I have not dove into the software aspect yet.

Adafruit Motor lesson
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-raspberry-pi-lesson-9-controlling-a-dc-motor?view=all

Doser diagram
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...-on-raspberry-pi.289256/page-304#post-5069096

Using a float a mechanical float switch
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...-on-raspberry-pi.289256/page-194#post-4559560

PH probe circuit
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...troller-based-on-raspberry-pi.289256/page-183

PH EZO datasheet
https://www.atlas-scientific.com/_files/_datasheets/_circuit/pH_EZO_datasheet.pdf

WYKAT HAT info
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...-on-raspberry-pi.289256/page-292#post-5016755
 
The parts that have arrived already. I was a bit disappointed by the 8 channel relay having a missed solder joint though.

IMG_20181018_101746.jpg


20181015_214308.jpg
 
Is there any specifics on what GPIO pins are reserved for what and why? From what I gather GPIO 2 and 3 are reserved for I2C (in my case PH) but what I cant seem to find is which other GPIO pins are free for all and which pins are reserved specific for PWM, temp, ATO, etc.
 
Hi guys,

I just updated my reef-pi installation to 2.0.0-rc1 on a Pi-0 and now I can't set up the temperature module anymore. Could someone please take a look?

Output from sudo journalctl -fu reef-pi.service:
Oct 18 19:09:55 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:09:55 ERROR: Failed to list
Oct 18 19:09:55 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:09:55 ERROR: GET /api/tcs json: cannot unmarshal array into Go value of type temperature.TC
Oct 18 19:10:08 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:10:08 Reading temperature from device: 28-03173188afff
Oct 18 19:10:11 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:10:11 temperature sub-system: sensor Trigon value: 26.25

Output from sudo systemctl status reef-pi.service:
reef-pi.service - raspberry pi based reef tank controller
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/reef-pi.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2018-10-18 19:04:19 CEST; 14min ago
Main PID: 1957 (reef-pi)
CGroup: /system.slice/reef-pi.service
└─1957 /usr/bin/reef-pi daemon -config /etc/reef-pi/config.yml
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 lighting-subsystem: Setting PWM value: 0 at channel: 2
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 Lighting sub-system: diurnal profile: after end time. Value: 0
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 lighting-subsystem: Setting PWM value: 0 at channel: 6
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 lighting-subsystem: Setting PWM value: 38 at channel: 7
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 lighting-subsystem: Setting PWM value: 14 at channel: 8
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 Lighting sub-system: diurnal profile: after end time. Value: 0
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 lighting-subsystem: Setting PWM value: 0 at channel: 10
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 lighting-subsystem: Setting PWM value: 33 at channel: 11
Oct 18 19:18:55 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:55 Reading temperature from device: 28-03173188afff
Oct 18 19:18:56 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:56 temperature sub-system: sensor Trigon value: 26.25
 
The parts that have arrived already. I was a bit disappointed by the 8 channel relay having a missed solder joint though.

IMG_20181018_101746.jpg


20181015_214308.jpg
Exciting. On the plus side I’m glad you noticed the un-soldered pin. Should be easy to fix
 
Is there any specifics on what GPIO pins are reserved for what and why? From what I gather GPIO 2 and 3 are reserved for I2C (in my case PH) but what I cant seem to find is which other GPIO pins are free for all and which pins are reserved specific for PWM, temp, ATO, etc.
We have a page in general guides , which has a recommended pin map at the bottom
https://reef-pi.github.io/general-guides/electronics/
But it’s outdated for 2.0 release , I’ll have to update it before 2.0 release

In general we use i2c pins for pca9685 and ph sensor, gpio 4 for temperature sensor and gpio 18/19 for pi based pwm (probably not required if you are using pca9685). Rest all the gpio (including spi and uart) is up for grab to be used across relay (outlet) and ato (inlet)
 
Hi guys,

I just updated my reef-pi installation to 2.0.0-rc1 on a Pi-0 and now I can't set up the temperature module anymore. Could someone please take a look?

Output from sudo journalctl -fu reef-pi.service:
Oct 18 19:09:55 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:09:55 ERROR: Failed to list
Oct 18 19:09:55 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:09:55 ERROR: GET /api/tcs json: cannot unmarshal array into Go value of type temperature.TC
Oct 18 19:10:08 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:10:08 Reading temperature from device: 28-03173188afff
Oct 18 19:10:11 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:10:11 temperature sub-system: sensor Trigon value: 26.25

Output from sudo systemctl status reef-pi.service:
reef-pi.service - raspberry pi based reef tank controller
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/reef-pi.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Thu 2018-10-18 19:04:19 CEST; 14min ago
Main PID: 1957 (reef-pi)
CGroup: /system.slice/reef-pi.service
└─1957 /usr/bin/reef-pi daemon -config /etc/reef-pi/config.yml
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 lighting-subsystem: Setting PWM value: 0 at channel: 2
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 Lighting sub-system: diurnal profile: after end time. Value: 0
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 lighting-subsystem: Setting PWM value: 0 at channel: 6
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 lighting-subsystem: Setting PWM value: 38 at channel: 7
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 lighting-subsystem: Setting PWM value: 14 at channel: 8
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 Lighting sub-system: diurnal profile: after end time. Value: 0
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 lighting-subsystem: Setting PWM value: 0 at channel: 10
Oct 18 19:18:49 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:49 lighting-subsystem: Setting PWM value: 33 at channel: 11
Oct 18 19:18:55 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:55 Reading temperature from device: 28-03173188afff
Oct 18 19:18:56 FlottoPi0 reef-pi[1957]: 2018/10/18 19:18:56 temperature sub-system: sensor Trigon value: 26.25
Which version you were running before ? If you are upgrading from 1.0 , you ll have to delete the database and start over configuring everything
 
Which version you were running before ? If you are upgrading from 1.0 , you ll have to delete the database and start over configuring everything

I upgraded from 1.5 which was running stable since its been released.
 
Working hard to clean up the jumble of wires next to my tank... first step is the get the power controller squared away since it has the AC power. Here’s my 3D printed faceplate
65F7799E-179B-430A-B55F-F0BC920133C0.jpeg
Looking good :-) , keep us posted
 
IMO it sounds like the Pi-HAT that @wykat designed is exactly what you are after (pic below). As you aren't doing lights you wouldn't need the PWM board (and I'm not sure if he has fixed the issues with that one yet) but the HAT has been tested and is ready to go.

You can upload the files and order it from JLPCB. I can't remember off the top of my head but the PCB and the components needed should be $10-20 or there abouts. You just need to solder the components onto the PCB and you get:
- 16 relay outlets
- 2 ATO sensors
- 2 Dosing pumps
- Multiple temp sensors
The PWM board is not yet working, but in the meantime (while working on my Chilli 2019 project ;)) the Oscilloscope assembly kit has arrived and an SOIC adapter so I can test my design on a breadboard. Will first have to assemble the oscilloscope, otherwise I also can't test it on the breadboard. On the breadboard I can debug step by step (by just alone) the PCA9685 on the breadboard. Think it has to do with the transistor pin out, but we'll see....
 
This is such a good work, I think many other folks will find it useful. This deserves a dedicated thread, we can keep the relevant content to these hats together. @wykat what do you think? I love the idea that its solely focused on reef-pi, so we can target specific versions etc, instead of a generic pi hat. This is important as it reduces the testing scope and allow us to standardize, which in turn reduce build errors, and simplifies documentation. I would love to order or mill a few (i am planning to get a bantamtools in next year)
Sorry wasn't following this thread daily, but yes no problem to start a separate thread. I think the best time is when I have solved the PWM module and updated the github pages. And as stated earlier, I have a small CNC machine, but will order PCB's (PCBWAY), it takes some time but is not comparable to self drilled boards (without coating surface).
@Ranjib: I can send you an assembled and working Reef-PI_HAT it you want. Will make it easier to keep electronics and software aligned.
 

IF YOU HAD TO TAKE A REEFING EXAM, WOULD YOU PASS?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 32 45.7%
  • Not yet, but I have one that I want to buy in mind!

    Votes: 9 12.9%
  • No.

    Votes: 26 37.1%
  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 3 4.3%
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