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

[Ranjib]

You're correct. It is showing the current energized state of the relay, regardless of it being wired NO or NC. I completely get that from an engineering standpoint, but from a usability standpoint reflecting what the outlet itself is doing would be more intuitive for the end user.

Usability is going to be challenging thing for reef-pi. Particularly because we dont have a reference electronics yet, so the physical differences gets percolated through tech stack. I can mitigate some of it in software , but this will incur additional code complexity/maintenance work. My current thought is to come up with recommended set of electronics (something on the line of what @Bronc had requested earlier) and a recommended wiring, which is give a consistent user experience.

 

[Ranjib]

Component supply question:

Does anyone have a source for 3.5mm and RCA panel mount jacks that can accommodate a thicker mounting point? The standard panel mount jacks that I have, and can find, are intended for a fairly thin wall. The 12x12 junction box I'm building in is fairly thick, probably between 1/8" and 1/4" (I don't have it in front of me to measure). Most panel mount items I can find (especially 3.5mm jacks) seem to want 5mm or less thickness.

I had this issue with almost all of my build. Both audio jacks and barrel mount jacks are pain to mount on wooden housing due to short thickness requirement. I generally sand down the plywood. Recently, for the next build I tried an plexiglass based housing. That turned out fine for mounting, but the drilling process is harder. Also, I am not very sure about the safety, I plan to used it only for 12v 1 amp dc workloads.

 

[Ranjib]

How cool it will be to have a acrylic based housing for reef-pi ? An open housing for an opensource controller. I can also add a bunch of tacky LEDs to indicate what it's doing at any given time...

 

[Ranjib]

Being flat out with a lot of other things atm my build STILL hasn't started however here is my 10c worth of input with the on/off buttons in the UI - change them to a slider. If there is a slider with one side that says "On" and one side that says "Off" then it gives users a visual as to which state the outlet is in. If the slider is over the "On" side then the outlet will be on, if the slider is over the "Off" side then the outlet will be off.

Slider is a good idea, I'll see if I can get this done before 1.0, this is not a very big code change, and does not break any API and does improve the user experience significantly

 

[Flotto]

Hi Ranjib,

I've registered for this Forum specially to contribute to your project - and to get some information on reefing.

I'm haveing a freshwater tank with cichlids from lake tanganyika which is getting prepared for Reef-Pi-Control.
Currently I've got a setup with a Pi Zero W, 8-channel relais, Temp-probe and PCA9685 with a daisy chained LCD. I can share my fritzing-file later if you want. The LCD displays the current temperature (in Celsius).

In fact I need some advice for my LED-Setup. I'm going to build my very own lightning setup with some 12V LED stripes. But I'm unsure about the way to dim those via PWM and the PCA9685 board. Anybody having this setup, too?

BTW: I would love the slider for the equipment tab. Best UX for this part, since anybody immediately understands it. Otherwise you could think about a green button (power on) labeled "switch off" and vice versa. Then the color indicates the state and the label indicates the action.

 

[Ranjib]

Hi Ranjib,

I've registered for this Forum specially to contribute to your project - and to get some information on reefing.

I'm haveing a freshwater tank with cichlids from lake tanganyika which is getting prepared for Reef-Pi-Control.
Currently I've got a setup with a Pi Zero W, 8-channel relais, Temp-probe and PCA9685 with a daisy chained LCD. I can share my fritzing-file later if you want. The LCD displays the current temperature (in Celsius).

In fact I need some advice for my LED-Setup. I'm going to build my very own lightning setup with some 12V LED stripes. But I'm unsure about the way to dim those via PWM and the PCA9685 board. Anybody having this setup, too?

BTW: I would love the slider for the equipment tab. Best UX for this part, since anybody immediately understands it. Otherwise you could think about a green button (power on) labeled "switch off" and vice versa. Then the color indicates the state and the label indicates the action.

Welcome to r2r. I am glad that you are considering reef-pi. I would love to see your fritzing file,
If you plan to drive the led strip straight, than you need an appropriate logic level mosfet or something like TIP120 darlington transistor to power the LED strip . The powermosfet or TIP120 transistor will be controlled by pca9685 pin in turn.

Here is an example: https://www.adafruit.com/product/355

 

[Ranjib]

Welcome to r2r. I am glad that you are considering reef-pi. I would love to see your fritzing file,
If you plan to drive the led strip straight, than you need an appropriate logic level mosfet or something like TIP120 darlington transistor to power the LED strip . The powermosfet or TIP120 transistor will be controlled by pca9685 pin in turn.

Here is an example: https://www.adafruit.com/product/355

I think you can use the same circuit as https://reef-pi.github.io/build-guides/lighting/ , just replace npn transistor with n channel power mosfet

 

[Flotto]

Thanks Ranjib, there's no need to drive them straight from the PCA9685.

But this seems to be the most straight forward solution for my "problem", if I understand it correctly.

I simply power up the power mosfet with an 12V extra power supply and control it with the PCA board? Sound awesome to me!

 

[Somnifac]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004JX64F...t=&hvlocphy=1022240&hvtargid=pla-309635877016

Something like this maybe?

Would be deep enough, but it's a pass-through with female jacks on each end. I need a female jack on one end and solder tabs on the other.

 

[Ranjib]

Would be deep enough, but it's a pass-through with female jacks on each end. I need a female jack on one end and solder tabs on the other.

I doubt this will help with mounting, the threaded are is still less,

 

[Ranjib]

I made an attempt to improve the equipment on/off button, do you all think this is better than the current one? In this, both on/off button is present and depending upon the equipment state only one of the button is enabled

Corresponding dashboard:

 

[Flotto]

I made an attempt to improve the equipment on/off button, do you all think this is better than the current one? In this, both on/off button is present and depending upon the equipment state only one of the button is enabled

Corresponding dashboard:

I believe this is way more intuitive, yep!

 

[Flotto]

Sorry that it look a little bit longer than promised, but I had to include the DS18B20 into the Fritzing diagram.

I hope this is all correct and not any conventions for designing fritzing diagrams. It's the first time I've used this awesome tool ...

 

[Bronc]

I believe this is way more intuitive, yep!

agreed, much better

 

[Gareth elliott]

Housing for ato and temperature controller. A Dremel would have made this much easier lol.

Need a button hat for on and off switch that reaches where i mounted the PSM then will add that onto the lid. Will order one more this size for just relay outlets, then couple smaller ones for any probes. All but LCD and PI itself will then be mounted on a piece of plywood below the stand.

 

[Gareth elliott]

Would be deep enough, but it's a pass-through with female jacks on each end. I need a female jack on one end and solder tabs on the other.

Maybe use a stepped drill bit. So that the exterior where the mount is installed is closer to the interior? Then slide a plastic washer over it incase anything is showing.

 

[Flotto]

Hi Ranjib,

I think I‘ve found a bug within the dashboard long capability in regard to the Temperature module. Or actually is more a buglike feature.

Does it make sense to display the Heater/Cooler diagram while the control is disabled?
In my opinion this diagram should only be displayed if the control box within the Temperature tab is checked.

 

[Somnifac]

@Ranjib

Questions for future consideration (i.e. future, post 1.0 functionality):

Since we have the PCA9685 for outputting 5v PWM control signals, it would be easy to control fan speed via one of the pins on that board. In fact, I plan on doing so. I will have 12v in the enclosure already, so I'll just need to tap into power and run the control pin on the fan to one of the pins on the breakout board.

Question 1:

For health check reasons, how reasonable would it be to add support to check fan speed via the sense wire on the fan header?

Question 2:

Since checking CPU temp on the Pi itself is trivial, would it be possible to tie that reading to a PWM output on the PCA9685? That way we could easily have a fan on the enclosure that spun up on demand.

Question 3:

Since multiple temp probe support is planned for post 1.0, would it be possible, once support is added, to allow that to control PWM output on one (or more) of the pins? That way we could do multiple things, like kick on a fan to use as a cooler blowing over part of the tank that ramps up as the temp requires. Or, it could be tied to a temp probe that somewhere else, like in a light housing, that responds to the temp and ramps up and down as needed.

Thoughts? I certainly understand none of that would come soon. For a controllable fan on the enclosure, I may attempt to figure out how to control one of the PCA9685 pins independently of the Pi and have something run in the background as needed. Maybe I won't even break anything in the attempt.

 

[Ranjib]

Sorry that it look a little bit longer than promised, but I had to include the DS18B20 into the Fritzing diagram.

I hope this is all correct and not any conventions for designing fritzing diagrams. It's the first time I've used this awesome tool ...

Sweet. It’s likely that you’ll need some ancillary circuit (like couple of resistors, a transistor , and a bigger power source) for the lighting stuff, to boost pca9685 ‘s 5v pwm to the required level

 

[Ranjib]

Housing for ato and temperature controller. A Dremel would have made this much easier lol.

Need a button hat for on and off switch that reaches where i mounted the PSM then will add that onto the lid. Will order one more this size for just relay outlets, then couple smaller ones for any probes. All but LCD and PI itself will then be mounted on a piece of plywood below the stand.

neat. I am planning to use a project box for my next lighting /doser only controller