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

[Ryan115]

Do you have a TV at home with an HDMI input?
Also what is the computer that you are using to try to connect to the RPi? Windows, Linux, Mac?

 

[Cary]

No TV in that room with hdmi. Laptop with mint linux.

 

[Ranjib]

Same place. Arp -a doesn't see another ip address. I plan to go buy a 7" touchscreen Saturday on my way to do some work for my mother. Maybe I can get things going Saturday night. Thanks for the offer

sad that you dont have any hdmi capable display near by :-/
Dont worry though. Sooner or later you'll overcome all this small issues... reef-pi will be even better than its current state by then

 

[Ryan115]

No TV in that room with hdmi. Laptop with mint linux.

None in that room, but do you have one elsewhere that you can use just for setup purposes. If you connect the Pi to the TV and configure everything, then you can run everything in headless mode.

 

[MaccaPopEye]

Feels like I've been gone for ages! Back from holidays and have finally had time to catch up on this thread. Ranjib you have done a massive amount of work and improvements!

Hoping to start building the enclosure on my next set of days off (I want to get that done first).

I think this will be a useful feature. Currently we can do something similar using a set of timers, but that's a very complicated way of achieving what you described. I personally do manual and spot feeding , so I need your help with designing the user experience. Like how the ui should be, what are default values etc.

A feed button is certainly useful. One of the things that makes them really useful is automatically turning equipment back on at different times. Maybe if the feed button was just a single large button on the home screen then what it turns off and for how long can be configured by the user in settings.

I broadcast feed my tank with frozen food so I would set a feed button to turn off my return pump, skimmer & wave makers all at once and then dump my food in. I would then set it to wait 10 minutes to give fish and coral enough time to eat before turning my wave makers back on to stir up any left over food, then after 5 minutes of just the wave makers the return pump can turn back on, then after another 5 minutes (so the water level in the sump can stabilise) the skimmer can turn back on.

Some people may go one step further and hook up an auto feeder as well so that pressing the feed button turns off all that equipment and then triggers the auto feeder to feed X amount of times. Then going even further than that would be to have the "feed button" activate at pre set times during the day rather than just being a manual operation, although still having the manual button for if you want to feed a bit at random times is good.

 

[Cary]

None in that room, but do you have one elsewhere that you can use just for setup purposes. If you connect the Pi to the TV and configure everything, then you can run everything in headless mode.

I thought about that but I would almost be standing on a ladder. TV is up above our fireplace on a rock mantle. Thanks for the idea, though

 

[Cary]

Feels like I've been gone for ages! Back from holidays and have finally had time to catch up on this thread. Ranjib you have done a massive amount of work and improvements!

Welcome back. MaccaPopEye, Almost the same thought I had. I turn pump, skimmer, and wavemakers off to feed. I was also thinking this would be useful for vacation/holiday in automatic mode.

 

[marspeed]

I think I'm going to design a pi HAT pcb would it be useful to any one

 

[Cary]

Be sure to talk to Ranjib. I believe early in this thread he spoke of someone that was also designing a pcb, or had the intention of doing so. BTW, Welcome.

 

[marspeed]

Cary thanks for the info I have never done a pi hat before and I guess the pin out has not settled down yet I'll probably play around with a design because I now have the bug

 

[njtiger aquariums]

I think this will be a useful feature. Currently we can do something similar using a set of timers, but that's a very complicated way of achieving what you described. I personally do manual and spot feeding , so I need your help with designing the user experience. Like how the ui should be, what are default values etc.

Here might be an idea. This is how I do my feed mode.

I have four macro buttons on my main screen (both from accessing from phone/pc and touch panel connected to the Pi).

I have it that when I assigned equipment to outlet I can enable it to be an option in one of my macros (but that might change as it might just be an option once assigned to an outlet)

I then can edit the macros settings (again from the touch screen or web) of which 'equipment [really outlet]' gets turned off when the button is pressed. I have a 10min feed time (cause that what my Jabeo power heads do as well). I also discovered that my skimmer overflows when everything turns on at the same time. What I did was when I add equipment to my system I have an option for a 5 min delay. If that is checked the equipment will wait 5 min after all the other equipment gets the command to turn on.

Now for my "Maintenance", "Lights Off" and "All Off" are a little different (mainly they are not automatic unless the lights are in Acclimate mode)

 

[AshwinRavi]

Hello guys, sorry to side track a little bit, I have two DS18B20 connected in parallel as suggested on adafruit tutorial, I wanted one for the display tank and one in the sump where my heater is. Once I got the wiring correct, I get the following error message, any help is appreciated.

 

[Ranjib]

Hello guys, sorry to side track a little bit, I have two DS18B20 connected in parallel as suggested on adafruit tutorial, I wanted one for the display tank and one in the sump where my heater is. Once I got the wiring correct, I get the following error message, any help is appreciated.

Can you update the interface value (under system tab) to "wlan0" , that will get rid of the "cant detect ip" error message.
Regarding the temperature error, reef-pi is detecting two temperature probes. Currently reef-pi assumes that there is only one probe connected to the pi.
This was also due to the assumption that stock raspbian kernel can only support 1 ds18b20 device (there are patches to change that though)
Can you share the result of this:

ls -alh /sys/bus/w1/devices/

If there are two probes, the unplug one and see if that solves the problem
Do you intend to use more than one temperature probe with a single controller? If so, I have to change the code to deal with this.

 

[AshwinRavi]

Can you update the interface value (under system tab) to "wlan0" , that will get rid of the "cant detect ip" error message.
Regarding the temperature error, reef-pi is detecting two temperature probes. Currently reef-pi assumes that there is only one probe connected to the pi.
This was also due to the assumption that stock raspbian kernel can only support 1 ds18b20 device (there are patches to change that though)
Can you share the result of this:

ls -alh /sys/bus/w1/devices/

If there are two probes, the unplug one and see if that solves the problem
Do you intend to use more than one temperature probe with a single controller? If so, I have to change the code to deal with this.

I got it to work on one probe once I unchecked the dev mode button over the weekend, I would like to run two probes if possible, keeping one for sump and one for DT. If this is a lot of work, then i wont mind just running one. if you could though, make two work, that would be awesome. Just whenever you can, as soon as I unplug one, it works for me.

 

[cypho]

Do you intend to use more than one temperature probe with a single controller? If so, I have to change the code to deal with this.

Multiple temperature sensors can be extremely useful. I have tons of temperature sensors on my tank. Here are a few useful/fun tricks you can do with multiple temperature sensors.

sump temp 1 != sump temp 2: one of the sensors has failed probably a good idea to turn off the heater if either is high.
tank temp != sump temp: sump pump failure: send me an urgent email
room temp < stand temp: speed up stand ventilation fan
metal halide temperature = room temperature: lights are not on - if they are supposed to be cut power and then turn power back on to reboot.

 

[AshwinRavi]

Can you update the interface value (under system tab) to "wlan0" , that will get rid of the "cant detect ip" error message.
Regarding the temperature error, reef-pi is detecting two temperature probes. Currently reef-pi assumes that there is only one probe connected to the pi.
This was also due to the assumption that stock raspbian kernel can only support 1 ds18b20 device (there are patches to change that though)
Can you share the result of this:

ls -alh /sys/bus/w1/devices/

If there are two probes, the unplug one and see if that solves the problem
Do you intend to use more than one temperature probe with a single controller? If so, I have to change the code to deal with this.

pleaae see the results you requested.

 

[Ranjib]

pleaae see the results you requested.

Fascinating. Do you have both the ds18b20 probes hooked up to the pi? What pins they are connected to

 

[Ranjib]

I got it to work on one probe once I unchecked the dev mode button over the weekend, I would like to run two probes if possible, keeping one for sump and one for DT. If this is a lot of work, then i wont mind just running one. if you could though, make two work, that would be awesome. Just whenever you can, as soon as I unplug one, it works for me.

The one probe (ds18b20 specifically) limitation is not a reef-pi limitation, this is imposed by raspbian kernel , maintained by raspberry pi. I am aware of couple of out of kernel patches that allow multiple probes, but they dont ship with stock raspbian, which we all use. Raspbian limitations aside, I would always prefer multiple probe.

 

[AshwinRavi]

Fascinating. Do you have both the ds18b20 probes hooked up to the pi? What pins they are connected to

I originally had the probes hooked up GPIO3 and GPIO4, but after reading through the adafruit tutorial, connected them in parallel like this, to just GPIO 4, sharing a 4.7K resistor.

sorry if the pictures are crappy, once I figure out everything on the software and, I was planning to clean up the wiring.

 

[cypho]

The one probe (ds18b20 specifically) limitation is not a reef-pi limitation, this is imposed by raspbian kernel , maintained by raspberry pi. I am aware of couple of out of kernel patches that allow multiple probes, but they dont ship with stock raspbian, which we all use. Raspbian limitations aside, I would always prefer multiple probe.

I have 10 ds18b20 sensors on my pi - all on the same pin. No issues using default rasbian settings