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

[denierlexiese]

Sparkfun has a lot of resources for basic (and some advanced) concepts, with good explanations.
Check this one out to start...https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-use-a-multimeter

Uh Ryan, you are feeding my addiction to learning electronics

I've watched a lot of this guys videos. It's a great introduction to electronics and multimeters too. I''ll get onto your suggested readings

@Ryan115 Ugh, i went to frys today. They had voltage regulators, but not of the 10Volt variety. Is that a more rare voltage regulator variety? Also they didn't have any jst connectors it seemed, only molex. Are jst connectors hard to find in brick and mortar stores ? Will i really have to use digkey. Don't dislike digikey, it just seems like the shipping is pretty expensive. Any ideas?

Got the blackbox lights working last night in a sandbox circuit. I'll post pictures later. Used the fans 12 volt DC voltage line, just because the ground was so clear, vs the V+ which i couldn't get a continuity to ring out on any of the driver ground markings.

@Ryan115 Do you think we need a heatsink on the voltage regulators? Most people recommend it, but I wonder if our current draw is so small maybe it never gets hot. What do you think?

 

[Ranjib]

Uh Ryan, you are feeding my addiction to learning electronics

I've watched a lot of this guys videos. It's a great introduction to electronics and multimeters too. I''ll get onto your suggested readings

@Ryan115 Ugh, i went to frys today. They had voltage regulators, but not of the 10Volt variety. Is that a more rare voltage regulator variety? Also they didn't have any jst connectors it seemed, only molex. Are jst connectors hard to find in brick and mortar stores ? Will i really have to use digkey. Don't dislike digikey, it just seems like the shipping is pretty expensive. Any ideas?

Got the blackbox lights working last night in a sandbox circuit. I'll post pictures later. Used the fans 12 volt DC voltage line, just because the ground was so clear, vs the V+ which i couldn't get a continuity to ring out on any of the driver ground markings.

@Ryan115 Do you think we need a heatsink on the voltage regulators? Most people recommend it, but I wonder if our current draw is so small maybe it never gets hot. What do you think?

You should go to jameco. You are unlikely to need heat sink, but they can be handy.

 

[edc_aquarium]

Does anyone know how I can control led black boxes wirelessly? I don’t need something fancy I just want something that I can control the two channels and so I can slowly ramp up the intensity and slowly ramp it down

 

[Ranjib]

I finished rebuilding my aio controller ( prepping for makerfaire )

Made following changes:
- added pins for an extra temperature probe, ato sensor and push buttons in the original perf board

- used a gikfun protoboard to build the 12v to 10v, 5v dual output power supply

Lm2596 mounted

- removed the pca9685 chip, pwm/kessil is now powered by pi itself

- used a pi zero perma proto board and few female headers to stack the pi straight on top of the gikfun proto board

- added couple of tactile push buttons

Finally,

I have lots of space for new circuit now

 

[MaccaPopEye]

Looking incredible mate!

 

[Ranjib]

Looking incredible mate!

Yeah , with the push buttons and less wiring , it looks lot cleaner. I think I’ll trip the connector wires , to fit exactly straight. That should make things nicer

 

[denierlexiese]

Does anyone know how I can control led black boxes wirelessly? I don’t need something fancy I just want something that I can control the two channels and so I can slowly ramp up the intensity and slowly ramp it down

Getting my black boxes this week working to ramp up and down was the hardest learning experience for me yet in this process, but @Ranjib circuit diagram, plus the voltage regulator suggested by @Ryan115 - and @Ryan115 schematic did the trick. Reef pi has a bunch of features, and to me lights are the hardest part, so if you can do any the other items first that would probably be where i would start if you are new to electronics and raspberry pi. If you are not, by all means jump in. Just some thoughts.

 

[Ranjib]

Getting my black boxes this week working to ramp up and down was the hardest learning experience for me yet in this process, but @Ranjib circuit diagram, plus the voltage regulator suggested by @Ryan115 - and @Ryan115 schematic did the trick. Reef pi has a bunch of features, and to me lights are the hardest part, so if you can do any the other items first that would probably be where i would start if you are new to electronics and raspberry pi. If you are not, by all means jump in. Just some thoughts.

Black boxes can get tricky due to their differences. There is no standard black box. But what I have understood from others builds is that this can be done, for things like viparspectra it will be easy , for others it can be bit tricky

 

[Gareth elliott]

I finished rebuilding my aio controller ( prepping for makerfaire )

Made following changes:
- added pins for an extra temperature probe, ato sensor and push buttons in the original perf board

- used a gikfun protoboard to build the 12v to 10v, 5v dual output power supply

Lm2596 mounted

- removed the pca9685 chip, pwm/kessil is now powered by pi itself

- used a pi zero perma proto board and few female headers to stack the pi straight on top of the gikfun proto board

- added couple of tactile push buttons

Finally,

I have lots of space for new circuit now

Looks great, now know where i went wrong with my dual power supply circuit, thought it needed resistors [emoji23]. I should have the basic build done this week using the mini pc enclosure, kept having to order parts.

Still waiting on cat5 cable(looked weird using wires wrapped in heat shrink lol)
And 5.25” bay face plates.

 

[Ranjib]

Looks great, now know where i went wrong with my dual power supply circuit, thought it needed resistors [emoji23]. I should have the basic build done this week using the mini pc enclosure, kept having to order parts.

Still waiting on cat5 cable(looked weird using wires wrapped in heat shrink lol)
And 5.25” bay face plates.

I think even my circuit could use a few capacitors here and there. But as of now its working, everything including kessil, ato and temperature sensor, so I am not bothered yet.

 

[NS Mike D]

time to stop lurking in this thread and pull the trigger. I plan on building a cabinet and a reefpi to replace the power strips and timers. the lower half of the cabinet will be for storing the ato water.

After building and testing the power control, I may add the temperature control and ATO but if inside the cabinet, I am fine with the current controller. I may want to add wifi to it.

here is my current mess:
2 sump pumps
3 power heads, two run on Hydor Smart Wave and the 3rd on a digital timer
fuge lights and ATS lights on the reverse timer on the power strip, ATS air pump on separate plug and alway on
Carbon/GFO reactor

2 heaters connected to a temperature controller

BRS DIY ATO, 2 plugs one for the controller and one for pump. The ATO has 2 float switches


so let the game begin

 

[denierlexiese]

Got a full blackbox light working over this weekend with a single breadboard circuit for one light of both blue and white - will do the other light sometime this week and will complete test burn in of circuit and light over an empty tank for a week, but it's coming along.

Close up of breadboard working with single channel light

Bread board solution wired and working

Close up of final bread board.

 

[Gareth elliott]

time to stop lurking in this thread and pull the trigger. I plan on building a cabinet and a reefpi to replace the power strips and timers. the lower half of the cabinet will be for storing the ato water.

After building and testing the power control, I may add the temperature control and ATO but if inside the cabinet, I am fine with the current controller. I may want to add wifi to it.

here is my current mess:
2 sump pumps
3 power heads, two run on Hydor Smart Wave and the 3rd on a digital timer
fuge lights and ATS lights on the reverse timer on the power strip, ATS air pump on separate plug and alway on
Carbon/GFO reactor

2 heaters connected to a temperature controller

BRS DIY ATO, 2 plugs one for the controller and one for pump. The ATO has 2 float switches


so let the game begin

Having recently built an electrical cabinet some things i learned.

-Velcro is an awesome tool, the adhesive on it is terrible though, attach with superglue.
-have as many sides open as possible, you never know when your going to need to replace or clean equipment, make the plugs accessible.
-Zip ties are great for wire management if you use the kind that open and close, otherwise will need to cut anytime theres a change.

 

[Ranjib]

Got a full blackbox light working over this weekend with a single breadboard circuit for one light of both blue and white - will do the other light sometime this week and will complete test burn in of circuit and light over an empty tank for a week, but it's coming along.

Close up of breadboard working with single channel light

Bread board solution wired and working

Close up of final bread board.

Yay
Is that a tip120 or some type of power mosfet ? I am glad you got this working. I think we should document this end to end, like kessil, there are many blackbox users who could benefit from this

 

[Ranjib]

time to stop lurking in this thread and pull the trigger. I plan on building a cabinet and a reefpi to replace the power strips and timers. the lower half of the cabinet will be for storing the ato water.

After building and testing the power control, I may add the temperature control and ATO but if inside the cabinet, I am fine with the current controller. I may want to add wifi to it.

here is my current mess:
2 sump pumps
3 power heads, two run on Hydor Smart Wave and the 3rd on a digital timer
fuge lights and ATS lights on the reverse timer on the power strip, ATS air pump on separate plug and alway on
Carbon/GFO reactor

2 heaters connected to a temperature controller

BRS DIY ATO, 2 plugs one for the controller and one for pump. The ATO has 2 float switches


so let the game begin

Awesome . Thanks for considering reef-pi,
Start small, start slow, test everything as you go. Since this is DIY project that is also undergoing heavy development, errors can be introduced during the build process or new code changes. Test everything as and when you setup , or when you make any major upgrades.
Keep us posted on the power controller build, thats your starting point. Check out the official doc on this, and let us know if you have any question
https://reef-pi.github.io/build-guides/power/

 

[denierlexiese]

Yay
Is that a tip120 or some type of power mosfet ? I am glad you got this working. I think we should document this end to end, like kessil, there are many blackbox users who could benefit from this

I used
LM7810CT
LM7810CT-ND
recommended by @Ryan115 . I youtube a couple videos to understand a darlington transisitor. It looks like it amplifies current, does it amplify voltage too? Why might i have used one?

It looks like the voltage regulator i used contains a mosfet based on this explanation on the difference between the two.
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/3679/difference-between-mosfet-and-voltage-regulator

Hopefully this helps. I'm very new to electronics.

 

[Ranjib]

Ah

I used
LM7810CT
LM7810CT-ND
recommended by @Ryan115 . I youtube a couple videos to understand a darlington transisitor. It looks like it amplifies current, does it amplify voltage too? Why might i have used one?

It looks like the voltage regulator i used contains a mosfet based on this explanation on the difference between the two.
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/3679/difference-between-mosfet-and-voltage-regulator

Hopefully this helps. I'm very new to electronics.

Ahh.. this is a 10v linear regulator. This will give you 10v constant voltage signal from 12/15v inputs.
Darlington transistors are kinda two transistor stacked together, they allow switching high current/high voltage with low current/low voltage. I have used them in motor controls (l293d) only, there might be other use cases

 

[Ranjib]

By the way, I figured out the flickering of kessil while using RPi as pwm source. Surprisingly it was pwm frequency. I observed flickering at higher frequency, and stable dimming at lower frequency. I am now running my AIO controller with 20Hz pwm frequency setting, things look fine for past one day, i'll keep it for testing a week, and then probably change the code to make it usable by others.

 

[MaccaPopEye]

Test print to make sure the universal sockets will fit. Like a glove

Next step is to finish designing the rest of the power board (don't mind the lettering, it'sa new roll of filament so the printer is under extruding a tiny bit.

 

[Gareth elliott]

Parts all in.
Rewiring my rj45 jacks.
When i wired them i used cat6 standard when i wired my wires to the relays and sensors decided to use POE standard so of course plug it in and multimeter sees no power lol. If using rj45 pick one standard will make continuity easier [emoji23]