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

[Bigtrout]

Can I get a sanity check before I plug this in and test it?

I'm just verifying with a single outlet right now. The brown wire from the relay is going into the "hot" side of the plug, and the white wire is going into the... well, the one labeled for the white wire :]

That looks ok...the relay is wired to break or make the "hot" side of the plug. The white or neutral goes right to the plug and is not switched.
Make sure you ground the outlets too!

 

[raketemensch]

Make sure you ground the outlets too!

GFI or bust!

 

[raketemensch]

I'm using Michael Lane's goby board, and appear to have everything wired correctly -- gnd to gnd, v5v to vcc, and everything in the middle is just a gpio pin to a pin on the relay board.

I added 2 outlets in Configuration -> Connectors on pins 20 and 21 (first and third on the goby board)

Driver is Raspberry Pi.

I went to Equipment and mapped a Name -> Outlet

Turning them on and off in the UI doesn't change any lights on the relay board, though.

I tried restarting the service and have rebooted the pi, but I still can't control them.

Am I missing a step? I don’t think the goby needs a driver...

Oddly, on boot, one of the relays turns on automatically.

 

[MangroveCorals]

This is super duper cool @Schreiber . I am so happy to see this board coming into life. I hope this will help the community building reef-pi controller easily. Thank you for all your hard work and perseverance. I recall those initial bumpy days in the beginning. Very inspiring, and thank you for sharing

Was curious to make sure Ranjib supported this project before boundlessly donating ! Ranjib pioneered the opensource frontier for reef controllers and happy to see the community supporting each other with endeavors of our own! Thanks to both of you guys! Still working on my first build of reef-pi and enjoying the ideas and builds!

 

[raketemensch]

Gah, and now I'm getting completely random values for the ato, I'm using a 2-wire float switch.

Like, at the moment there isn't a float switch attached to the wires at all, while trying to troubleshoot. The plug for ATO1 is connected to nothing, but it's still changing constantly:

Jan 18 22:32:40 reefpi reef-pi[294]: 2020/01/18 22:32:40 ato sub-system: sensor Sump value: 0
Jan 18 22:32:43 reefpi reef-pi[294]: 2020/01/18 22:32:43 ato sub-system: sensor Sump value: 1
Jan 18 22:32:46 reefpi reef-pi[294]: 2020/01/18 22:32:46 ato sub-system: sensor Sump value: 0
Jan 18 22:32:49 reefpi reef-pi[294]: 2020/01/18 22:32:49 ato sub-system: sensor Sump value: 1
Jan 18 22:32:52 reefpi reef-pi[294]: 2020/01/18 22:32:52 ato sub-system: sensor Sump value: 0
Jan 18 22:32:55 reefpi reef-pi[294]: 2020/01/18 22:32:55 ato sub-system: sensor Sump value: 0
Jan 18 22:32:58 reefpi reef-pi[294]: 2020/01/18 22:32:58 ato sub-system: sensor Sump value: 1

Nothing is changing physically or electrically, but the return value seems almost random.

Even with nothing plugged into the socket for ato1 I get random 0 or 1 values.

 

[Phildago]

Just an update for today. I left my alk tube in a container outside of my tank and checked the output when i got home. From the looks of it, the pump has been running as triggered by reef pi. I got my alk back up to 7.7, and am going to leave the tube back in my sump for tonight. I'm hoping to see some stability in my alk over night tonight.

I haven't actually done anything to fix the issue yet, but the plan is to flash a new sd, add a seperate 12 v power supply and use some pwm/12v motors controllers to drive the doser. This way I tackle all possible causes of failure at once and dont need to keep opening up and disconnecting/reconnecting wires (possibly causing another issue is something breaks).

Last time I tried the motor controllers the output voltage was too low to properly use the doser. I troubleshot that and figured out that theres a voltage differential between a ground from the uln2803 and the pwm output of 2.5 v when the pwm should be producing 3.3v at 100%.

I have six wires soldered and ready to go from my enclosure to doser. I plan The outputs as 12 v + and ground from external power supply, 3 pwm outputs and 1 pin for direction control which i plan to split into three since I only need to control the motor in one direction.

 

[Bigtrout]

Gah, and now I'm getting completely random values for the ato, I'm using a 2-wire float switch.

Like, at the moment there isn't a float switch attached to the wires at all, while trying to troubleshoot. The plug for ATO1 is connected to nothing, but it's still changing constantly:



Nothing is changing physically or electrically, but the return value seems almost random.

Even with nothing plugged into the socket for ato1 I get random 0 or 1 values.

With nothing plugged in and no pull up/down resistors the raspberry pi input is "floating".

Its not grounded at 0 volts or pulled up to a voltage...therefore its floating in between. This explains the strange behavior you see.

 

[Bigtrout]

Just an update for today. I left my alk tube in a container outside of my tank and checked the output when i got home. From the looks of it, the pump has been running as triggered by reef pi. I got my alk back up to 7.7, and am going to leave the tube back in my sump for tonight. I'm hoping to see some stability in my alk over night tonight.

I haven't actually done anything to fix the issue yet, but the plan is to flash a new sd, add a seperate 12 v power supply and use some pwm/12v motors controllers to drive the doser. This way I tackle all possible causes of failure at once and dont need to keep opening up and disconnecting/reconnecting wires (possibly causing another issue is something breaks).

Last time I tried the motor controllers the output voltage was too low to properly use the doser. I troubleshot that and figured out that theres a voltage differential between a ground from the uln2803 and the pwm output of 2.5 v when the pwm should be producing 3.3v at 100%.

I have six wires soldered and ready to go from my enclosure to doser. I plan The outputs as 12 v + and ground from external power supply, 3 pwm outputs and 1 pin for direction control which i plan to split into three since I only need to control the motor in one direction.

You can connect the grounds from all power supplies together to provide a common groubd reference for all voltages in your build

 

[raketemensch]

With nothing plugged in and no pull up/down resistors the raspberry pi input is "floating".

Its not grounded at 0 volts or pulled up to a voltage...therefore its floating in between. This explains the strange behavior you see.

So I guess a 2-wire float switch won't work then, since it does not provide any voltage?

 

[Bigtrout]

So I guess a 2-wire float switch won't work then, since it does not provide any voltage?

It will work...you just need a.pull up/pull down resistor of about 10k ohms wired like this

 

[raketemensch]

It will work...you just need a.pull up/pull down resistor of about 10k ohms wired like this

All I have is 1k or 4.7k :]

Amazing that I have any at all, nevermind that I could find them...

 

[Bigtrout]

2 4.7k resistors in series is 9.4k...close enough

Resistors are additive in series.

R1 +R2 + R3 +Rwhatever= R total

 

[raketemensch]

Heh, and it looks like I've used all my 3.3v things on the goby board for temp probes:

I'll come back to this tomorrow, I guess.

Thanks for all the help! I really appreciate it.

 

[Bigtrout]

Heh, and it looks like I've used all my 3.3v things on the goby board for temp probes:

I'll come back to this tomorrow, I guess.

Thanks for all the help! I really appreciate it.

Use an ato connector hook up like the pic i posted only use the 5v on the ato connector in place of the 3.3v

Note to self:
I really need to get a good drawing app so I can draw stuff out quick on my phone.

 

[Phildago]

You can connect the grounds from all power supplies together to provide a common groubd reference for all voltages in your build

Okay that's great to know. I was afraid to connect any 12v power to grounds connected to the board. I wasn't sure if they ran through anything vital, and if they that it might cause something to burn out.

 

[Bigtrout]

Okay that's great to know. I was afraid to connect any 12v power to grounds connected to the board. I wasn't sure if they ran through anything vital, and if they that it might cause something to burn out.

Yes all the grounds( the v- ) can all.be connected together as one common ground.
That way +5v from one power supply and +12v from another all work from the same 0v starting point.

Otherwise these voltages can "float" and may not work correctly across circuits connected to different power supplies.

 

[b4tn]

Lol, no. I have absolutely no idea how I wound up tagging the wrong person I'm running on very little sleep this week dealing with the Kickstarter launch. Been getting about 3 hours of sleep less than usual each night.

You definitely won the drawing, @NeonRabbit221B . But hey, if @b4tn could use one too, it's on me. Sorry for the mix-up!

There was a drawing? Lol it’s kind of funny because I was telling my wife the other day that I never win anything. Which is funny because my last name is Fortune lol. So I have been entering everything lately and the only one I didn’t enter I won by mistake lol.
Congrats @NeonRabbit221B this board looks amazing. I plan on picking one of these up in the future to build a second reefpi for my new pico.

 

[Bigtrout]

I hope I dont sound "preachy" or come across weirdly helping with the electrical questions. In a previous job I taught electrical theory at an accredited trade school. I wish i could answer some of these questions on a whiteboard with some good colored markers to explain stuff better.

 

[Bigtrout]

There was a drawing? Lol it’s kind of funny because I was telling my wife the other day that I never win anything. Which is funny because my last name is Fortune lol. So I have been entering everything lately and the only one I didn’t enter I won by mistake lol.
Congrats @NeonRabbit221B this board looks amazing. I plan on picking one of these up in the future to build a second reefpi for my new pico.

The only drawings I ever win are ones where the prize is something I already have.

Enjoy the board! Do what I did...pay it forward. Use the new board and donate the old build to someone who needs it(unless you have 2 tanks of course.

I have a neighbor kid who saw my tank. Got very interested. He bugged his mom for a tank on his birthday and he got one. They dont have alot of money, so things I dont need and I know he needs on his aquarium keeping journey become my way of paying it forward. I replaced 3 canisters with a sump. I gave him a canister filter. The look in his eyes was worth waaaaay more than the 20 bucks i may have gotten on craigslist.

When I built my reef pi, I started my build on a protoboard and my wife bought me a @Michael Lane hat for Xmas. I finished my proto anyway and the kid has a working reef pi on 30 gallon tank. Hopefully he sticks with the hobby and it keeps him out of trouble.

It also helps get new additions past the spousal unit when I tell her im giving the old stuff to the neighbor boy...so WIN WIN!!!

 

[Des Westcott]

So I guess a 2-wire float switch won't work then, since it does not provide any voltage?

Screenshot of discussion with @Michael Lane about using float switches with his Hat board. I have wired mine up with just the two wires and they work fine.