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

[stefanm]

I spent most of the day hopefully making my reef pi more reliable, I swapped out my l293d driver boards with l298n boards, I've removed all the jumper pins and soldered wires directly to the PCB's for the pwm module I cut 20 pin headers and fitted them upside down, then soldered the wires to the header, fingers crossed my reef pi will be reliable for some time.

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

I spent most of the day hopefully making my reef pi more reliable, I swapped out my l293d driver boards with l298n boards, I've removed all the jumper pins and soldered wires directly to the PCB's for the pwm module I cut 20 pin headers and fitted them upside down, then soldered the wires to the header, fingers crossed my reef pi will be reliable for some time.

I have had to open my case up probably 5 times due to broken wires or pins coming off. I guess stripping wires with with a blade isn’t smart. Lots of breaks where the strip started. I also started soldering my wires to the crimp pin connectors because they kept pulling out.

 

[elysics]

I have had to open my case up probably 5 times due to broken wires or pins coming off. I guess stripping wires with with a blade isn’t smart. Lots of breaks where the strip started. I also started soldering my wires to the crimp pin connectors because they kept pulling out.

Definitely get a wire stripper. My favorite electronics tool. Takes seconds instead of rolling a wire over a knife for minutes, no nicked wires, and the ka-ching sound it makes is super satisfying. And it's not even expensive.

 

[Bigtrout]

Definitely get a wire stripper. My favorite electronics tool. Takes seconds instead of rolling a wire over a knife for minutes, no nicked wires, and the ka-ching sound it makes is super satisfying. And it's not even expensive.

As an electrician +1 on a good set of wire strippers!

 

[Dave's Reef]

Well guys I messed up I updated my reef-pi without a back up image of my SD now I keep getting this error? Can someone please help me. I have tried to uninstall it several times and cleared all data and a fresh install other that reinstalling rasbian I don't know what to do. Please help

 

[robsworld78]

Well guys I messed up I updated my reef-pi without a back up image of my SD now I keep getting this error? Can someone please help me. I have tried to uninstall it several times and cleared all data and a fresh install other that reinstalling rasbian I don't know what to do. Please help

If you're running a Pi4 you'll have to reinstall Raspbian but don't install the Raspbian update.

 

[Dave's Reef]

If you're running a Pi4 you'll have to reinstall Raspbian but don't install the Raspbian update.

Thank you ill give that a shot. Do you happen to know why that is?

 

[robsworld78]

Thank you ill give that a shot. Do you happen to know why that is?

Cool, let me know if it works. I have no idea why it's happening, I think it's rather complicated to figure out.

@Ranjib @Michael Lane Do you think it's something serious? Should I stop recommending Pi 4? Since I make cases I know what people use and most is Pi 4 then Pi 3 and very few with Zero.

 

[Dave's Reef]

Cool, let me know if it works. I have no idea why it's happening, I think it's rather complicated to figure out.

@Ranjib @Michael Lane Do you think it's something serious? Should I stop recommending Pi 4? Since I make cases I know what people use and most is Pi 4 then Pi 3 and very few with Zero.

So just for crap$ and giggles I pulled my pi4 and slipped the old pi3 in and she's back working unfortunately I already cleared everything. With the 4 I was able to get it to kinda work intermittently but could not see any of my temps but she's going now off the old 3 and everything is currently just plugged into normal power for tonight while I setup all my I/O. I really need to learn how to copy an SD image and keep a second setup ready for this occasion. Thanks for the help I was ready to toss my pi4 in the trash i figured it took a crap on me

 

[Michael Lane]

Thank you ill give that a shot. Do you happen to know why that is?

This seems to be due to a combination of a kernel update that reports a different version of the host and processor and a bit of code in kidoman/embd dependency that reef-pi uses.

embd/detect.go returns the error message that Smin was able to track down in the reef-pi logs. I believe Ranjib is working on a patch, although I'm not sure what the resolution may be since embd no longer seems to be an active project.

 

[robsworld78]

So just for ****$ and giggles I pulled my pi4 and slipped the old pi3 in and she's back working unfortunately I already cleared everything. With the 4 I was able to get it to kinda work intermittently but could not see any of my temps but she's going now off the old 3 and everything is currently just plugged into normal power for tonight while I setup all my I/O. I really need to learn how to copy an SD image and keep a second setup ready for this occasion. Thanks for the help I was ready to toss my pi4 in the trash i figured it took a crap on me

I've never tested to see what works and what doesn't after this happens but either way it's unusable. Download Win32 Disk Imager, you can create an image file of your SD card and use it to write back.

How to Clone Your Raspberry Pi SD Card for Super Easy Reinstallations

If you've ever turned a Raspberry Pi into a media center or retro gaming station , you know how frustrating it can be when it crashes and corrupts

lifehacker.com

 

[elysics]

Im planning to run cooling fans over a l298 board via a pwm signal from a pca9685. The goal being PID control where the fans can spin slowly (and therefore silently) all the time instead of fast and loud again and again.

Now as far as i know reef-pi can't do this, but my question is, can i have an external program control that one channel of the pca9685 while reef-pi controls the others? or is that not going to work?

 

[Michael Lane]

Im planning to run cooling fans over a l298 board via a pwm signal from a pca9685. The goal being PID control where the fans can spin slowly (and therefore silently) all the time instead of fast and loud again and again.

Now as far as i know reef-pi can't do this, but my question is, can i have an external program control that one channel of the pca9685 while reef-pi controls the others? or is that not going to work?

That should be possible. I've run some tests using i2c tools as well as a python script and both seemed to work just fine.

 

[theatrus]

Im planning to run cooling fans over a l298 board via a pwm signal from a pca9685. The goal being PID control where the fans can spin slowly (and therefore silently) all the time instead of fast and loud again and again.

Now as far as i know reef-pi can't do this, but my question is, can i have an external program control that one channel of the pca9685 while reef-pi controls the others? or is that not going to work?

Should work fine - ReefPi only updates the channels it cares about. Note that you shouldn't touch any of the setup registers (just the channel register).

 

[Yov]

so i bought the pi camera and i am trying this but i get this error:

{"error":"Item 'latest' does not exist in bucket 'camera'"} | HTTP 404

any clues?

 

[Ranjib]

I thought it would be good to repost this. This is the issue I was having with my macro. Using this post helped solve the issue.

+100. I have taken note on this. We'll be adding features to address some of these. Thank you

 

[Ranjib]

so i bought the pi camera and i am trying this but i get this error:

{"error":"Item 'latest' does not exist in bucket 'camera'"} | HTTP 404

any clues?

It means there's no photo taken yet. Hence no latest image found. Its a benign error similar to what we used to see around usage (no usage data found for newly created sensor/controller). I have fixed it for the controller, but that camera module still has that old behavior.

 

[Yov]

It means there's no photo taken yet. Hence no latest image found. Its a benign error similar to what we used to see around usage (no usage data found for newly created sensor/controller). I have fixed it for the controller, but that camera module still has that old behavior.

And is it posible i am doing something wrong? No photo can be taken.

 

[Ranjib]

And is it posible i am doing something wrong? No photo can be taken.

Do you see any error in the log when you click on the take photo button? Do you have raspistill installed?

 

[Ranjib]

Cool, let me know if it works. I have no idea why it's happening, I think it's rather complicated to figure out.

@Ranjib @Michael Lane Do you think it's something serious? Should I stop recommending Pi 4? Since I make cases I know what people use and most is Pi 4 then Pi 3 and very few with Zero.

I dont have a pi 4 with me that i can test :-( . If its something we can reproduce, we can then fix it, even if it involves a temporary fork of the embd repo. I have reduced reef-pi dependency on it significantly already, may be we'll get rid of it altogether. The only thats holding me back from not recommending it is there are few folks who are already running it successfully.,