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

[Cary]

Somnifac, After thinking about your question. I didn't think about controlling the speed of the wavemaker, just alternating them. I have not tried that with the Koralia and Sicee. I may be able to test this.

I will get back with my results.

 

[marspeed]

digikey Mpj moser Newark
These are the places where I get my part's

 

[Cary]

thanks. All mail order, correct?

 

[Somnifac]

I have a question about electronics purchasing. Does everyone purchase on ebay or amazon, or do you have local electronics stores? All the Radio Shacks in my area are closed and I find that everytime I want to start building something, I have to order from one of those two places.

Also, Has anyone noticed the ATO kit that robo- tank sells. It has a mount, pump, optical sensor (like Ranjib specs) and a pump for $45.95 plus shipping. I haven't checked the shipping from Canada, but it couldn't be too bad.

Since I have a small tank I have always used an air pump to pressurize a 2 or 3 liter bottle for ATO. The tank that's currently in a plan and build state is a 29G AIO that I *hope* to keep covered. Thus I'm hoping that my need for a larger ATO solution is kept low.

As for purchasing components, I typically buy online. Amazon, since I have Amazon Prime, if it's available on there. On occasion, I used to dip into a Radio Shack for a connector of some kind if I was desperate, but the last one near me closed a few months ago. It had been years since they had a good selection of actual components though...

Somnifac, After thinking about your question. I didn't think about controlling the speed of the wavemaker, just alternating them. I have not tried that with the Koralia and Sicee. I may be able to test this.

I will get back with my results.

I've never used these pumps, and there seems to be a lot of question online if they use PWM for variable speed, or if it's variable voltage (or if the maker has taken measures to prevent modification and DIY). I haven't seen much that seems concrete. If they're PWM or a variable voltage, it seems like it would be no problem to control with the reef-pi (again, once/if the capability is added). It would be cool to control it with the reef-pi and intoduce a little bit of a random element to the flow.

 

[njtiger aquariums]

Been getting swamped at work with big projects so I have not had time to really follow along nor work on my system.

 

[Ranjib]

Scary Quiet. I guess we are all busy.

In case anyone curious I am working on authentication support in reef-pi. It is one of those thing that will take some time and fair amount of coding, does not really give any feature (that is useful for reef keeping), but has to be done. I can not ship reef-pi without any sort of security in place. This wont be the most sophisticated security possible, but is ok, or a good starting point.

This was probably one of 5 major work thats not reef-keeping related features..

anyway... we are slowly getting there https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi/pull/223

 

[Ranjib]

Then I'll ask a question:

Has anyone explored pumps that could be used w/ reef-pi in a wavemaker/controllable capacity (once the feature is added (double parenthetical: I'm making an assumption that DC pump/wavemaker controls will make it in eventually; maybe not 1.0, but eventually))? I've seen that pumps like the Jebao powerheads are controllable, and have an accessory that allows them to connect to an Apex controller. I'm sure there are others out there, but I'm still exploring.

I have looked at the pumps. I plan to use the korallia 12v dc power head to test reef-pi 's wave maker module, once I start working on different modes.

 

[Ranjib]

Sorry to hear that, AshwinRavi.

Somnifac, I have both Sicee and Koralia nano wavemakers connected to a Koralia controller and have had no problem with them. I have them switching current (across the length of the tank each minute (1 min).

They have been in this configuration for at least 7 months and I have had no problems.

I have a question about electronics purchasing. Does everyone purchase on ebay or amazon, or do you have local electronics stores? All the Radio Shacks in my area are closed and I find that everytime I want to start building something, I have to order from one of those two places.

Also, Has anyone noticed the ATO kit that robo- tank sells. It has a mount, pump, optical sensor (like Ranjib specs) and a pump for $45.95 plus shipping. I haven't checked the shipping from Canada, but it couldn't be too bad.

I don't know anything about the kit or company, I just thought that I would throw it out there. I guess if you run two sensors you wire them together.

later

I prefer adafruit (because I love them ), and then if its not available, i use amazon or local electronics. Good thing about living in silicon valley is we have a fair amount of brick and mortar electronics shop. Jameco is like 10 min walk from my apartment

 

[Ranjib]

Since I have a small tank I have always used an air pump to pressurize a 2 or 3 liter bottle for ATO. The tank that's currently in a plan and build state is a 29G AIO that I *hope* to keep covered. Thus I'm hoping that my need for a larger ATO solution is kept low.

As for purchasing components, I typically buy online. Amazon, since I have Amazon Prime, if it's available on there. On occasion, I used to dip into a Radio Shack for a connector of some kind if I was desperate, but the last one near me closed a few months ago. It had been years since they had a good selection of actual components though...



I've never used these pumps, and there seems to be a lot of question online if they use PWM for variable speed, or if it's variable voltage (or if the maker has taken measures to prevent modification and DIY). I haven't seen much that seems concrete. If they're PWM or a variable voltage, it seems like it would be no problem to control with the reef-pi (again, once/if the capability is added). It would be cool to control it with the reef-pi and intoduce a little bit of a random element to the flow.

Interesting, I wonder how can a manufacturer prohibit makeing a dc pump controllable ... will see... from my understanding I can just use a oscilloscope to figure out what type of current (pwm or analog) is expects, and then just create it with reef-pi.

 

[Ranjib]

Been getting swamped at work with big projects so I have not had time to really follow along nor work on my system.

No worries. Reef keeping is a long game, we have years if not decades to slowly and incrementally learn and improve our DIY projects :0)
I like this aspect, that unlike my day job I am not chasing strict deadline.. its very rewarding this way. ... the major revision milestones (such as 1.0) is just to build a rhythm and ensure others get a stable release to rely for their use.

 

[Ranjib]

I got called out for a last minute project across the country. missing my tank

Do you use the camera module ?

 

[AshwinRavi]

Do you use the camera module ?

I have been debating on that, as of now I use a baby cam from Amazon to remote login and see the tank, and VNC to check on reef-pi. besides this message that I get occasionally, it's been working for me. still haven't figured out why I get tbis error.

 

[Ranjib]

I need some suggestions from all of you,
currently the "system" tab has a lot of stuff in it. I remember someone already pointed out that the name "system" is not very helpful, so.. whats a better word.
Secondly, if its better to break the details inside system tab into multiple different ones, what will be the grouping ? Currently it gives controller summary (ip, uptime, version. cpu temperature), capability settings (which modules to enable), telemetry settings, connector settings (outlets and jack), admin stuff (power off, reboot , reload etc), I 'll be adding authentication settings there as well.... so its going to have even more stuff in it.. :-/ not good at all
My initial thought is to move connectors in a dedicated tab, and keep the rest together. Does that sound sane?

 

[njtiger aquariums]

I need some suggestions from all of you,
currently the "system" tab has a lot of stuff in it. I remember someone already pointed out that the name "system" is not very helpful, so.. whats a better word.
Secondly, if its better to break the details inside system tab into multiple different ones, what will be the grouping ? Currently it gives controller summary (ip, uptime, version. cpu temperature), capability settings (which modules to enable), telemetry settings, connector settings (outlets and jack), admin stuff (power off, reboot , reload etc), I 'll be adding authentication settings there as well.... so its going to have even more stuff in it.. :-/ not good at all
My initial thought is to move connectors in a dedicated tab, and keep the rest together. Does that sound sane?

I call my tab (that house information like that) "admin" and then I have each broken into panels (system information, alerts settings, email settings ,etc...)

What are you planning on doing for authentication? I have not done one for my project yet but thinking I should look into so I can start doing some remote stuff (in the past I just ran VPN on my phone to access my controller's UI)

 

[Cary]

I need some suggestions from all of you,
currently the "system" tab has a lot of stuff in it. I remember someone already pointed out that the name "system" is not very helpful, so.. whats a better word.
Secondly, if its better to break the details inside system tab into multiple different ones, what will be the grouping ? Currently it gives controller summary (ip, uptime, version. cpu temperature), capability settings (which modules to enable), telemetry settings, connector settings (outlets and jack), admin stuff (power off, reboot , reload etc), I 'll be adding authentication settings there as well.... so its going to have even more stuff in it.. :-/ not good at all
My initial thought is to move connectors in a dedicated tab, and keep the rest together. Does that sound sane?

q1 - Configuration instead of system plus the following:

q2 - maybe we could have a "cover page" with a favorite picture\ graphs\(ip, uptime, version. cpu temperature) when you add a feed mode, you can put that there too for easy use. All admin and configuration stuff, including the Auth stays in "system" or "Configuration".

 

[Somnifac]

Interesting, I wonder how can a manufacturer prohibit makeing a dc pump controllable ... will see... from my understanding I can just use a oscilloscope to figure out what type of current (pwm or analog) is expects, and then just create it with reef-pi.

Honestly, I have no idea. You know how it can be with internet forums. Rampant speculation with little to no supporting evidence. It could be people who don't have a ton of electronics experience not having much success and saying that it must be the device, not them. The pumps that they're trying with certainly aren't expensive enough to warrant the cost of the manufacturer building some kind of proprietary communication protocol into them.

But I'm definitely looking forward the wavemaker function. In the meantime I plan on adding a pair of small either Hydor or Jebao powerheads, wired up to their respective controller. The Hydor Wavemaker is cheap enough, and I'd assume I could resell it to get some of the money back once I can hook it to the reef-pi for centralized control.

Or the Jebao PP-4. It's small, is DC powered, controllable, and cheap enough. Between the 2, I'd probably lean towards trying to modify the Jebao, due to the DC power.

 

[Reef Monkie]

Telemetry data can contain string or even pictures. Adafruit has size limit on images which is why I went with google drive integration (still under development) for the camera module.

I have been hesitant to comment or to be seen as criticising since I haven't even built a reef-pi yet but you have said you welcome comments a few times now so I will dare to make a comment. I hope you understand that these thoughts of mine are meant as a positive contribution.

What I love about the open-source movement in general is the freedom from being dependent on (commercial) entities so that if/when they change their service/product it does not break functionality or usability. I do understand why it seems natural to use services such as Adafruit for telemetry and google drive for storage but in some ways that 'breaks' the future-proof nature of this project as one is dependent on these entities and one has no idea if they will change their service in the future. As you yourself say one has to pay Adafruit for advanced capabilities and I don't think I have to list the reasons why google might not be a 'partner' one can rely on for the future. Perhaps I am mistaken about the power of the Pi but it seems that it is quite capable of serving as a host for the telemetry/camera data and this would leave all this data in ones own hands and on ones own network and open up 'unlimited' possibilities when it comes to telemetry. Some people might find it nice to be able to track the tank over longer periods of time, for example.

One other thing I personally would find interesting is the ability to use the data from probes to control outlets in general, I don't know if you have plans to enable this beyond temperature in the future. One interesting possibility I see this allowing is to control the dosing of Carbon via the monitoring of ORP. This is something that the DyMyCo 'natural' filters do, and something that could be made to work quite cheaply in a DIY implementation by using the 'nitrate destroyer' DIY project on this forum in combination with a ORP probe. This would make Carbon dosing less of a dark art and more of a science and prevent some of the potential issues some people have with dosing carbon based upon feeling instead of data.

 

[DLHDesign]

unfortunately there isn't a search this thread on here.

FYI:
Search box in the upper-right (on browser) will - when you put your cursor there - give you the option to limit your search to just the current thread. Certainly helps with long (and awesome) threads like this one!

 

[jarekt]

I need some suggestions from all of you,
currently the "system" tab has a lot of stuff in it. I remember someone already pointed out that the name "system" is not very helpful, so.. whats a better word.
Secondly, if its better to break the details inside system tab into multiple different ones, what will be the grouping ? Currently it gives controller summary (ip, uptime, version. cpu temperature), capability settings (which modules to enable), telemetry settings, connector settings (outlets and jack), admin stuff (power off, reboot , reload etc), I 'll be adding authentication settings there as well.... so its going to have even more stuff in it.. :-/ not good at all
My initial thought is to move connectors in a dedicated tab, and keep the rest together. Does that sound sane?

Configuration or settings would do just fine in my opinion
where it comes to the outlets and jacks, perhaps there can be a sub tub on the Conf/Settings tab to hide it there. That part of the system config is not going to be visited often thus it is better to bury it a bit and keep the number of tabs in the "root" view to minimum. There is going to be plenty of those soon enough and there is going to be a growing sentiment to make it a bit "clearer". (no I don't have a crystal bowl )
That is what I think.

 

[Somnifac]

Started my long term build thread in the AIO forum.

It will be a while until the tank is wet, but all hardware I build for my reef-pi will be documented there.