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

[Smin]

Hi @Ranjib
Thanks for the update, it's great!

I have a suggestion for lighting. At the moment I have a DIY light with 6 channels 3 different whites and RB(+V)G(+Aqua).
At the moment I have each channel set up as a jack on a PCA9685, then I have created a light for each channel eg:
1) Cool white 2)Warm White 3) Very Warm white 4)Red 5)Green 6) Blue
I then set the timings for each channel throughout the day.

However, while messing around with the new profiles I found that I can create mixes eg
Sunrise, Afternoon, Moon by creating a Jack that has multiple pins on the PCA9685.
When I add that Jack I can set the values for each pin and then get reefpi to dim - this seemed great.
After doing sunrise I went on to do Morning.
What I found is reefpi always sets the channels to the last light in the list even if the channels should be on in another combination light.
Would there a way in the future to stop reefpi iterating through all the channels and taking the last set of values?

If I've not made sense I'll try to take some screenshots!

 

[Mandelstam]

It wil have the same effect as when blowing on youre hand when it's wet! You instantly feel cooler there. Also becous the constant flow of air i think you wil have some sort of "micro" climate that tends to be les humid, misreading the info and then maybe driving up the humidity in the rest of the vivarium thinking "its to dry".

Yes, didn't think about the cooling aspect. Not really a big issue for me as I'm using other temp sensors as well and can just disregard that one. The air should have the same humidity though as the rest of the viv. At least as the other parts of the viv that's open and subject to the same air circulation. Of course you can have pockets where air is stagnant and where humidity can rise much higher.

Starting to get too off topic here I think lol. I'll get my build thread up quite soon and I can start reporting my experiences there instead.

 

[Ranjib]

Hi @Ranjib
Thanks for the update, it's great!

I have a suggestion for lighting. At the moment I have a DIY light with 6 channels 3 different whites and RB(+V)G(+Aqua).
At the moment I have each channel set up as a jack on a PCA9685, then I have created a light for each channel eg:
1) Cool white 2)Warm White 3) Very Warm white 4)Red 5)Green 6) Blue
I then set the timings for each channel throughout the day.

However, while messing around with the new profiles I found that I can create mixes eg
Sunrise, Afternoon, Moon by creating a Jack that has multiple pins on the PCA9685.
When I add that Jack I can set the values for each pin and then get reefpi to dim - this seemed great.
After doing sunrise I went on to do Morning.
What I found is reefpi always sets the channels to the last light in the list even if the channels should be on in another combination light.
Would there a way in the future to stop reefpi iterating through all the channels and taking the last set of values?

If I've not made sense I'll try to take some screenshots!

Give me some time to test and reproduce this. If you are correct it’s a bug. I’ll get back to you shortly.

 

[andieasy]

Hi @Ranjib
Thank you for the Reef-pi, It is really great, very helpful, and makes all things possible and affordable.

i have a suggestion anyway, do you think it is possible to have the temperature set up in certain points? i mean Exactly what we want to see in a range (for example, i like to see it between 24 C to 29 C range).

as you can see here, the range is always start on 0 C, while its never possible to have such condition. it prevent us from seeing the detail of fluctuation. well its just and idea for observational only.
Another one, i think its too long for the time legend.
well just want to share my thought. Once again it is a really great app and thank you for that.

 

[Ranjib]

Hi @Ranjib
Thank you for the Reef-pi, It is really great, very helpful, and makes all things possible and affordable.

i have a suggestion anyway, do you think it is possible to have the temperature set up in certain points? i mean Exactly what we want to see in a range (for example, i like to see it between 24 C to 29 C range).

as you can see here, the range is always start on 0 C, while its never possible to have such condition. it prevent us from seeing the detail of fluctuation. well its just and idea for observational only.
Another one, i think its too long for the time legend.
well just want to share my thought. Once again it is a really great app and thank you for that.

@andieasy we plan to make this range configurable in future version. The recent change was introduced to fix a different bug

 

[robsworld78]

@andieasy we plan to make this range configurable in future version. The recent change was introduced to fix a different bug

Whatever you fixed seems to have cured that issue I was seeing with 3.4, now I'm back to thinking it was a code issue as it only happened with 3.4 and those who got the error don't get it anymore with 3.5. Maybe it only happened with a fresh install of 3.4 (no update) if that's possible.

 

[Matevz Savarin]

Hi all! Its been too long and I totally forgot about pwm lights I recived my 3 black boxes and I will change some leds. I noticed that drivers are pwm driven. There is 3.3v, pwm and ground. So if I wire this to mikes hat this should work. Ok ground and pwm. What do I do with 3.3v coming out of driver? Sorry its been a while..thank you for the help!

 

[waynel]

On another note though, I have also tested the alert feature as a step in a Macro and think it's great. Thanks.

I second this. It fixed my alerting issue for monitoring the level of my topoff water. Now I need to setup and configure dosing.

 

[Matevz Savarin]

as I thought it works like a charm with this drivers, pwm and ground from driver to mikes hat ok percentage isnt great from 65% on is same intensity to 100%, but it does turns off and starts at 9%.

 

[Kurtzisa]

hello, I have reef-pi version 3.3.1, can I update to version 3.5 without any problem? I still have my customisation?

Thanks

 

[Ranjib]

hello, I have reef-pi version 3.3.1, can I update to version 3.5 without any problem? I still have my customisation?

Thanks

Yes

 

[Kurtzisa]

reef-pi up to date.
I have a ph probe in my calcium reactor and a solenoid valve. How can I close the solenoid valve when I reach 6,6 ph?

 

[Ranjib]

reef-pi up to date.
I have a ph probe in my calcium reactor and a solenoid valve. How can I close the solenoid valve when I reach 6,6 ph?

Ph control ? Set the max threshold value to 6.6 upon which reef-pi should switch off the solenoid (assuming the solenoid is relay or some other type of outlet controlled)

 

[Kurtzisa]

reef-pi up to date.
I have a ph probe in my calcium reactor and a solenoid valve. How can I close the solenoid valve when I reach 6,6 ph?

Like this?

 

[92Miata]

Looking for what is probably more of a pi problem than a reef-pi problem.


After a while of inactivity, my reef pi seems to drop off the network and stop making readings. pH is a constant in the graphs once this happens. The CPU/memory graphs still seem to be tracking.

I turned off power saving on the wlan and put in a script to produce some network activity every couple of minutes, and that seemed to make the window where it was up longer, but it still drops off after a while.

I have to unplug it and plug it back in to get it to come back up.


Any ideas where to start? This was happening before I put the pi into the robo-tank hardware, so I don't think it has anything to do with the pH circuit, or the sensor/etc hardware.

 

[Ranjib]

Looking for what is probably more of a pi problem than a reef-pi problem.


After a while of inactivity, my reef pi seems to drop off the network and stop making readings. pH is a constant in the graphs once this happens. The CPU/memory graphs still seem to be tracking.

I turned off power saving on the wlan and put in a script to produce some network activity every couple of minutes, and that seemed to make the window where it was up longer, but it still drops off after a while.

I have to unplug it and plug it back in to get it to come back up.


Any ideas where to start? This was happening before I put the pi into the robo-tank hardware, so I don't think it has anything to do with the pH circuit, or the sensor/etc hardware.

How are you powering your pi ? Any chance it’s getting under voltage condition ? Vcgencmd get_throttled should show it.

 

[Ranjib]

Like this?

You don’t need the upper function or threshold , since you don’t have anything that can bring down ph. Set lower threshold to 6.7 with hysteresis .1 and that will tell reef-pi to turn on the solenoid when the ph goes below 6.6 (6.7-.1) . Reef-pi will automatically turn off the solenoid when Ph goes above 6.8 (6.7+.1) .

Does that make sense ?


On a separate note, ph chasing via direct dosing is risky. I feel it’s safer to just do periodic dosing and slowly adjust the quantity to attain an expected value.

 

[Ranjib]

Looking for what is probably more of a pi problem than a reef-pi problem.


After a while of inactivity, my reef pi seems to drop off the network and stop making readings. pH is a constant in the graphs once this happens. The CPU/memory graphs still seem to be tracking.

I turned off power saving on the wlan and put in a script to produce some network activity every couple of minutes, and that seemed to make the window where it was up longer, but it still drops off after a while.

I have to unplug it and plug it back in to get it to come back up.


Any ideas where to start? This was happening before I put the pi into the robo-tank hardware, so I don't think it has anything to do with the pH circuit, or the sensor/etc hardware.

Which version of pi you are using ? Is it running a full raspbian desktop or just the lite version. The desktop version has all these things, I’ll check some more resources

 

[92Miata]

How are you powering your pi ? Any chance it’s getting under voltage condition ? Vcgencmd get_throttled should show it.

Returns

throttled=0x0

It's on a 12v 6a power supply through whatever Rob is using to step down. It's a cheap one though - so maybe - I bought a meanwell lrs-100-12 the other day, so I'll try it on that at some point.

It's a pi4 2gb in case that matters. Running reef-pi 3.5 and buster.

 

[92Miata]

Which version of pi you are using ? Is it running a full raspbian desktop or just the lite version. The desktop version has all these things, I’ll check some more resources

I think it's the full desktop - I had installed the newest version of lite and was having a ton of issues - found a post saying newest version was causing all sorts of issues with reef-pi, so downgraded.

Running headless - so maybe that's it.

Used version @robsworld78 (I think it's him ) suggested in here:

Robo-Tank DIY Aquarium Controller Forum