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

[raketemensch]

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.

huh, so I wonder why I’m getting random values back? I’ve verified that it happens on both ATO ports.

 

[Bigtrout]

huh, so I wonder why I’m getting random values back? I’ve verified that it happens on both ATO ports.

Wouldnt hurt to experiment and see if pullup/pulldown resistors do the trick

 

[JHabig12]

Just want to say thanks to people that have contributed to these controllers and make this possible. I’m close to being done with my build. It has 8 controllable outlets, two temperature probes, and ato control. I have three dosing pumps on their way as well. Those will go below the outlets. I built the enclosure to house everything in one unit.

I did have one question though. Does anyone know a way to get two water level sensors to work together? Basically I would like to have one that turns the pump on to maintain the water level in the display tank, and a separate one that disables the pump if the reservoir runs empty. Each one works individually, but with both enabled they seem to fight each other. One is trying to turn the pump on and the other is trying to turn it off so it just cycles on and off rapidly. Does anyone know a workaround for this?

 

[b4tn]

Just want to say thanks to people that have contributed to these controllers and make this possible. I’m close to being done with my build. It has 8 controllable outlets, two temperature probes, and ato control. I have three dosing pumps on their way as well. Those will go below the outlets. I built the enclosure to house everything in one unit.

I did have one question though. Does anyone know a way to get two water level sensors to work together? Basically I would like to have one that turns the pump on to maintain the water level in the display tank, and a separate one that disables the pump if the reservoir runs empty. Each one works individually, but with both enabled they seem to fight each other. One is trying to turn the pump on and the other is trying to turn it off so it just cycles on and off rapidly. Does anyone know a workaround for this?

woah!! I love everything about that. So clean! What is the box? Which hat are you using?

 

[JHabig12]

Thanks! I definitely read through your build and it helped me with mine. The hat on top is a wykat board, the one underneath is an Adafruit motor controller board I'm using for the dosing pumps.

I made the box using some 80/20 aluminum for the sides and hdpe plastic for the rest.

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

Just want to say thanks to people that have contributed to these controllers and make this possible. I’m close to being done with my build. It has 8 controllable outlets, two temperature probes, and ato control. I have three dosing pumps on their way as well. Those will go below the outlets. I built the enclosure to house everything in one unit.

I did have one question though. Does anyone know a way to get two water level sensors to work together? Basically I would like to have one that turns the pump on to maintain the water level in the display tank, and a separate one that disables the pump if the reservoir runs empty. Each one works individually, but with both enabled they seem to fight each other. One is trying to turn the pump on and the other is trying to turn it off so it just cycles on and off rapidly. Does anyone know a workaround for this?

Very clean. I like it!

 

[crusso1993]

Just want to say thanks to people that have contributed to these controllers and make this possible. I’m close to being done with my build. It has 8 controllable outlets, two temperature probes, and ato control. I have three dosing pumps on their way as well. Those will go below the outlets. I built the enclosure to house everything in one unit.

I did have one question though. Does anyone know a way to get two water level sensors to work together? Basically I would like to have one that turns the pump on to maintain the water level in the display tank, and a separate one that disables the pump if the reservoir runs empty. Each one works individually, but with both enabled they seem to fight each other. One is trying to turn the pump on and the other is trying to turn it off so it just cycles on and off rapidly. Does anyone know a workaround for this?

Slick looking build! Well done!

 

[Phildago]

Hey guys, just an update. Thanks for all the help.

Today I worked on my controller for a good part of the day and got all three of my jebao pumps hooked up to pwm controllers.

I have them running tonight, and tomorrow I'll start getting some better approximations for how to adjust them to properly meet my tanks requirements.

I also formated my SD card and started from scratch just in case there was any software glitches.

I'll keep updating on the progress, but so far, so good.

 

[Lmorales45]

I have not tested the camera subsystem in 3.0 release. I was hoping to remove it going forward. I have not used it recently (most of my use cases are offloaded to dedicated cameras). If possible, try alternatives.
That being said, we have not done anything actively to break the camera feature as well. My guess will be some small changes (like raspistill command line argument etc) is causing the issue. I can take a look and fix it if you are if you plan to use it. Without continuous use it becomes harder for me to keep the functionality well tested. For most other modules I'm able to personally test them since I am actively using them across my tanks.

Hi @Ranjib , I'm new to reef-pi. It looks amazing! Can't wait to build all the components. I was trying the official Raspberry camera and had the same problems described above and can't get it to work. I'm running version 3.1 on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2 Will this issue be fixed in a future release?

Thanks for all your efforts.

 

[raketemensch]

A rebuild of my OS worked for me as well -- I think I missed the SPI config last time, which would totally bork the single-pin relay control, I think.

So I've got 3 temp probes, a float switch ATO and 8 relay ports working, although I only have one outlet in the house right now to use with the relay, but that's enough for the ATO pump.

I'm almost done with a shell script that will handle all of the config we need in raspbian:

timesyncd
dtoverlay=pwm-2chan
dtparam=spi=off
sudo modprobe w1-gpio

I'm also wondering what it would take to pre-bake an img file in CI, but I haven't looked into it yet.

 

[raketemensch]

Hi @Ranjib , I'm new to reef-pi. It looks amazing! Can't wait to build all the components. I was trying the official Raspberry camera and had the same problems described above and can't get it to work. I'm running version 3.1 on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2 Will this issue be fixed in a future release?

Thanks for all your efforts.

It seems like it should be the opposite, but the pi camera is really expensive resource-wise. Most people just pick up wifi cameras, x10 has some good deals as do a few other dealers.

 

[Bigtrout]

It seems like it should be the opposite, but the pi camera is really expensive resource-wise. Most people just pick up wifi cameras, x10 has some good deals as do a few other dealers.

I got a wyze pan zoom. Home depot discounted them to 25 bux after xmas

 

[Bigtrout]

A rebuild of my OS worked for me as well -- I think I missed the SPI config last time, which would totally bork the single-pin relay control, I think.

So I've got 3 temp probes, a float switch ATO and 8 relay ports working, although I only have one outlet in the house right now to use with the relay, but that's enough for the ATO pump.

I'm almost done with a shell script that will handle all of the config we need in raspbian:

timesyncd
dtoverlay=pwm-2chan
dtparam=spi=off
sudo modprobe w1-gpio

I'm also wondering what it would take to pre-bake an img file in CI, but I haven't looked into it yet.

Its a pain because of file permissions, but once im set up good, i make a copy of the reef pi database for every new version I install. Everything geys hosed. Wipe and reinstall raspian and reef pi...copy over the database and you are good to go.

 

[MangroveCorals]

I'm using a goby hat, and from the goby hat I'm controlling my doser as normal 12 v pins. The signal is on or off for these. In reef pi I have timers controlling each motor as equipment. The timer triggers and the motor responds. It works when I'm sitting there. But I've been noticing my alk is dropping since I wet this thing up.

I set it to trigger automatically with the timer and I watch it and it works. Then I trigger manual and it works. I go to bed, go to work, come home and my alk is dropped drastically. This means it hasn't triggered. So I watch the app and I watch the pumps for the next automatic trigger. No response was seen at the motor. I trigger it manually in the app, nothing at the motor. I reboot it, automatic and munual triggers now activate the pump.

This means that everyday I have had this and think it's working before I go to bed it stops working and then doesn't work until I reboot it. I always like to reboott after changing settings.

But this is a disaster for my tank. My alk can not be sitting at 6.5, and now alothugh I made sure to dose a bit extra tonight these alk swings are going to have implications.

Why would my equipment be triggering in thw app, but not the motor? Then why did it all of a sudden work after the reboot. It makes no sense to me.

Either it should lnt bw triggering in the app, or there should be motor activation. I also have to way of know how many times it trigger and actually worked.

Think of what I'm doing as if you have a relay bowed and are activating the relays to turn on equipment. There's no relay for mine, it's just the motor.

Noting that 6.5 alk will be fine for corals. A sudden drop and then stability will have little implications , rather than A drop and then unstable .3+- swings everyday. Stay creeping upwards over a month. Test imo your dosing in a stand-alone system and manually dose in mean time. My system is at 6.4 and happy for sometime. (Don’t intend on staying here for propagating faster but for know it’s no biggie) . One of my buddies whose a big coral farmer for 20+ years, in Hobe Sound Fl, has a mother colony tank of acros and it’s alk is around 4 dkh. He’s got tanks of all parameters and no matter the coral the stability is #1 priority, even after a swing.
Thankfully you are very attentive to your reef and catch these hiccups and doing everything to retain that stability of parameters you prefer!! Good luck and wish I had some more help on the circtury end but just getting my first module up and not confident in my circuitry problem solving just yet.

 

[dmolavi]

I got a wyze pan zoom. Home depot discounted them to 25 bux after xmas

You can also grab the RTSP firmware from Wyze and that will allow you to stream the video feed, vs just having to use the Wyze application to view it. I've done this with 2 of my cams, one for the tank, and another in the sump.

 

[Bigtrout]

You can also grab the RTSP firmware from Wyze and that will allow you to stream the video feed, vs just having to use the Wyze application to view it. I've done this with 2 of my cams, one for the tank, and another in the sump.

Nice to know! Thanks

 

[dmolavi]

Nice to know! Thanks

You're welcome. As soon as I work out the kinks, I'm going to have a livestream on YouTube of my tank (kinks are on the youtube side)

 

[Lmorales45]

It seems like it should be the opposite, but the pi camera is really expensive resource-wise. Most people just pick up wifi cameras, x10 has some good deals as do a few other dealers.

Thanks for the info. I didn't realize it was so resource intensive. I have one and would like to try if possible. Is there some other camera that works with reef-pi. I really like the idea of the web ui as one place to go to for info including camera.

 

[raketemensch]

Thanks for the info. I didn't realize it was so resource intensive. I have one and would like to try if possible. Is there some other camera that works with reef-pi. I really like the idea of the web ui as one place to go to for info including camera.

I hear you, I have one going unused as well.

 

[cwalton00]

wget -c https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi/releases/download/3.2/reef-pi-3.2-pi3.deb

What am I missing here?