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

[Mikeneedsahobby]

Hey guys,

I've been away for quite a while. But my 2 reef pi's continue to run without any hiccups. Perfecto!

I just updated one of them from v4.1 to v5.1. Upgrade went almost too easy.

I wanted to ask if there was someone I could copy to control a brushless motor. My perilistic pump is using a brushless motor. My wife complains about how noisy it is. I'm running it like a normal motor but I can't control it's speed like a normal motor. It's 100% or 0%. If I could slow it down it would be quieter.

If not no worries. I'll get her ear plugs.
And thanks again!!!

 

[Ranjib]

Hey guys,

I've been away for quite a while. But my 2 reef pi's continue to run without any hiccups. Perfecto!

I just updated one of them from v4.1 to v5.1. Upgrade went almost too easy.

I wanted to ask if there was someone I could copy to control a brushless motor. My perilistic pump is using a brushless motor. My wife complains about how noisy it is. I'm running it like a normal motor but I can't control it's speed like a normal motor. It's 100% or 0%. If I could slow it down it would be quieter.

If not no worries. I'll get her ear plugs.
And thanks again!!!

Do you have a link for the pump ? Can you use pwm or a hardware based speed controller to set the speed manually ?

 

[GaryE]

I also have an ancient Raspberry PI clone called a Roseapple Pi. I fired it up this AM and am getting it updated so I can test Reef-PI on it. Should be interesting.. It runs a debian release and I believe it to be pin compatible with the RPi GPIO..
We shall see..

It runs, but it chokes on the i2c, drivers and I get a 404 error on the UI.


2022/01/27 05:59:58 ERROR: Failed to initialize i2c. Error: open /dev/i2c-1: no such file or directory
2022/01/27 05:59:58 Initializing DB for drivers bucket
2022/01/27 05:59:58 ERROR: failed to initialize drivers. Error: can't build hal pin 8: embd: your host ": ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v7l)" is not supported at this moment. request support at https://github.com/reef-pi/embd/issues
2

I'm not sure how to initialize i2c on this board as it's 7 years out of production and the company that made is out of business..

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

Do you have a link for the pump ? Can you use pwm or a hardware based speed controller to set the speed manually ?

I think this will help. First image is the motor. 2nd image is the adaptor board this connects to in the reef pi (Mike Lanes doser adaptor.

Currently the red and white wires are routed to pin 6 +12V on the 6P6C of the adaptor. The black wire is routed to pins 4 and 5 to give me twice the current capacity through the ULN2803A. Green and yellow are not connected. Pins 1-3 are used for a 2nd brushed motor. I no spare connectors in the box available. If I need to run new wires from the reef pi to the doser box then I need to cut into the cases.

I think what I should do is route the black wire to pin 4. Use pin 4 as on/off equipment. Leave the red wire on pin 6. Connect the white wire to pin 5. Use this as the doser pin and that would allow speed control through the PWM. i can leave the green and yellow wires unconnected.

Is this correct? I would lose the extra current capacity I currently have. The motor is rated to 12V 10w. So 0.8a.

 

[bishoptf]

Just got one of my lights working with one of the new Viparspectra boards from @theatrus had made up, looks like at least the one I am using is working fine. I did have some issues trying to get the pca9685 setup and working on 5.1. I reverted back to 4.3 but I need to go back and see if it was me or a bug, but had no luck getting pwm to work, most likely a mis configuration by me but need to circle back on that. It was a new setup so there were lots of possibilities but appears to be working now.

 

[theatrus]

I think this will help. First image is the motor. 2nd image is the adaptor board this connects to in the reef pi (Mike Lanes doser adaptor.

Currently the red and white wires are routed to pin 6 +12V on the 6P6C of the adaptor. The black wire is routed to pins 4 and 5 to give me twice the current capacity through the ULN2803A. Green and yellow are not connected. Pins 1-3 are used for a 2nd brushed motor. I no spare connectors in the box available. If I need to run new wires from the reef pi to the doser box then I need to cut into the cases.

I think what I should do is route the black wire to pin 4. Use pin 4 as on/off equipment. Leave the red wire on pin 6. Connect the white wire to pin 5. Use this as the doser pin and that would allow speed control through the PWM. i can leave the green and yellow wires unconnected.

Is this correct? I would lose the extra current capacity I currently have. The motor is rated to 12V 10w. So 0.8a.

Took me a minute to realize the Kamoer motors have the brushless driver in them. I somehow assumed they didn't

This can also help. In theory, you can control just the blue wire with a PWM and leave the pump powered. Its likely to work like most fan BLDC drives and just stop on a zero volt PWM input.

 

[Ranjib]

I think this will help. First image is the motor. 2nd image is the adaptor board this connects to in the reef pi (Mike Lanes doser adaptor.

Currently the red and white wires are routed to pin 6 +12V on the 6P6C of the adaptor. The black wire is routed to pins 4 and 5 to give me twice the current capacity through the ULN2803A. Green and yellow are not connected. Pins 1-3 are used for a 2nd brushed motor. I no spare connectors in the box available. If I need to run new wires from the reef pi to the doser box then I need to cut into the cases.

I think what I should do is route the black wire to pin 4. Use pin 4 as on/off equipment. Leave the red wire on pin 6. Connect the white wire to pin 5. Use this as the doser pin and that would allow speed control through the PWM. i can leave the green and yellow wires unconnected.

Is this correct? I would lose the extra current capacity I currently have. The motor is rated to 12V 10w. So 0.8a.

There are many off the shelf Bldc driver that you can get from Amazon and then hook up with pi via pwm.

 

[Lslusar]

I went a couple weeks ago to a few sites that sell them and put myself in on the "notify me" deals, I was able to stock up.. picked up 2 Zero 2 W's and two Pi4 2gb all in one week..

I also have an ancient Raspberry PI clone called a Roseapple Pi. I fired it up this AM and am getting it updated so I can test Reef-PI on it. Should be interesting.. It runs a debian release and I believe it to be pin compatible with the RPi GPIO..
We shall see..

I found a second hand in the marketplace facebook pi4 4gb. I was very happy. Paid 80 dollars. And it turned out to be a scammer!!!!:mad:
How to choose the most suitable among all - banana, lychee, orange ....

 

[Lslusar]

it seems similar. See who understands please
Orange Pi PC 1GB H3 SoC Support Android4.4 Ubuntu Debian Image
Features:100% brand new and high quality
Orange Pi PC is not only a consumer product, but also designed for anyone who wants to use technology to create innovations. It is a very simple, interesting and practical tool. It supports Android4.4, Ubuntu, Debian.
It's an open-source single-board computer.It uses the Allwinner H3 Soc,and has 1GB DDR3 SDRAM
Adopt H3 quad-core A7 high-performance processor, integrated Ethernet, infrared receiver, video, audio output and other interfaces, support HDMI-compatible Avout video output and other functions
Despite its small size, the design is compact and beautiful, with a rich set of interfaces, including HDMI-compatible Ethernet, USB-Host, USB-OTG, Dvp camera, etc.
Integrated onboard microphone, WiFi network, infrared receiver, compatible with Raspberry Pi GPIO port, and unique debugging serial port, etc.
Specifications:CPU: H3 Quad-core Cortex-A7 ARM
GPU: Mali400MP2 GPU 600MHz Support Opengl Es 2.0
Memory: 1GB DDR3 (Shared with GPU)
Onboard storage: TF (maximum 64GB)/MMC card slot
Onboard network: WiFi
Video input: camera module with CSI interface
Audio input: Mic
Video output: HDMI-compatible
Power: DC input ; MicroUSB (OTG) cannot be used as power input
USB2.0 port: 1 USB2.0; OTGx2
Low-Level: 40Pin Header
Note:Those who need to download the software can log in to the website: http://www.orangepi.org/downloadresources/
Due to the problems of lighting effects and shooting angles, there will be certain tolerances in the product, please understand.
Please allow 0-1cm error due to the manual measurment.Package includes:1 Set x ARM Development Board

 

[waynel]

I’m running reef up 4.1 and getting this error when trying to edit my temp probes (I have three) under temperature tab:

something went wrong:
TypeError: undefined is not an object (evaluating 't.length')
in AreaChart in div in s in div in i in Connect(i) in div in div in div in div in form in Ru in Qn in WithFormik(Ru) in li in l in l in ul in div in i in Connect(i) in i in div in div in div in div in i in Connect(i) in i in a


I’ve powered it down and rebooted. The temp graphs are working as far as I can tell.

 

[theatrus]

it seems similar. See who understands please
Orange Pi PC 1GB H3 SoC Support Android4.4 Ubuntu Debian Image
Features:100% brand new and high quality
Orange Pi PC is not only a consumer product, but also designed for anyone who wants to use technology to create innovations. It is a very simple, interesting and practical tool. It supports Android4.4, Ubuntu, Debian.
It's an open-source single-board computer.It uses the Allwinner H3 Soc,and has 1GB DDR3 SDRAM
Adopt H3 quad-core A7 high-performance processor, integrated Ethernet, infrared receiver, video, audio output and other interfaces, support HDMI-compatible Avout video output and other functions
Despite its small size, the design is compact and beautiful, with a rich set of interfaces, including HDMI-compatible Ethernet, USB-Host, USB-OTG, Dvp camera, etc.
Integrated onboard microphone, WiFi network, infrared receiver, compatible with Raspberry Pi GPIO port, and unique debugging serial port, etc.
Specifications:CPU: H3 Quad-core Cortex-A7 ARM
GPU: Mali400MP2 GPU 600MHz Support Opengl Es 2.0
Memory: 1GB DDR3 (Shared with GPU)
Onboard storage: TF (maximum 64GB)/MMC card slot
Onboard network: WiFi
Video input: camera module with CSI interface
Audio input: Mic
Video output: HDMI-compatible
Power: DC input ; MicroUSB (OTG) cannot be used as power input
USB2.0 port: 1 USB2.0; OTGx2
Low-Level: 40Pin Header
Note:Those who need to download the software can log in to the website: http://www.orangepi.org/downloadresources/
Due to the problems of lighting effects and shooting angles, there will be certain tolerances in the product, please understand.
Please allow 0-1cm error due to the manual measurment.Package includes:1 Set x ARM Development Board

The various Pi-formfactor devices do not use the same processor (the Broadcoms) - this has an Allwinner SoC. They're both ARMs, but the peripherals are not an exact match.

They do run Linux, but the specific IO pins and busses may not be in the same "spot" in Linux, or not supported right now by the Reef-Pi libraries. With some software work to remap some of the pins its likely to work just fine, but never tried one of these out of the box.

 

[bishoptf]

Morning folks, just thought I would post a question. I have been using some @Michael Lane goby hat boards for a couple years now and I am thinking about making some additional boards up for test rigs and spares (I always like having spares, lol). Just looking to see if anyone would be interested in having one as a test board etc, just trying to see if there is any interest. I have not worked out the cost yet but these are not intended to compete with the likes of robotank or leviathan but at least for me they are really useful and provide enough capability and are quick to do.

Here is the board on @Michael Lane tindie store - https://www.tindie.com/products/ranthalion/ml-reef-pi-hat-goby/#specs

Looks like if I get assy done on the boards it cost the same whether I do 5 boards or 20, just thought I would ask.

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

Morning folks, just thought I would post a question. I have been using some @Michael Lane goby hat boards for a couple years now and I am thinking about making some additional boards up for test rigs and spares (I always like having spares, lol). Just looking to see if anyone would be interested in having one as a test board etc, just trying to see if there is any interest. I have not worked out the cost yet but these are not intended to compete with the likes of robotank or leviathan but at least for me they are really useful and provide enough capability and are quick to do.

Here is the board on @Michael Lane tindie store - https://www.tindie.com/products/ranthalion/ml-reef-pi-hat-goby/#specs

Looks like if I get assy done on the boards it cost the same whether I do 5 boards or 20, just thought I would ask.

I’m running one his boards. If you get a batch then I’ll pick one up as a spare.

 

[bishoptf]

I’m running one his boards. If you get a batch then I’ll pick one up as a spare.

Noted, my other plan is to try to make up a cheap loaner system that I can ship out for people to kick the tires and see if they want to pursue, so it's a cheaper option for a loaner system. I have one now but want to get a couple, the main issue I have right now is getting cheap pi's to go along with them.

I got in my batch of the vipar adapters from PCBway, they look good and tested one and it tested fine.

 

[theatrus]

Noted, my other plan is to try to make up a cheap loaner system that I can ship out for people to kick the tires and see if they want to pursue, so it's a cheaper option for a loaner system. I have one now but want to get a couple, the main issue I have right now is getting cheap pi's to go along with them.

I got in my batch of the vipar adapters from PCBway, they look good and tested one and it tested fine.

Pis are hard to get. If someone does want to buy some spare Pi-Zero-W (Gen1) boards I have a small collection, as well as a bunch of the new compute modules (but those do require a carrier board).

 

[bishoptf]

Pis are hard to get. If someone does want to buy some spare Pi-Zero-W (Gen1) boards I have a small collection, as well as a bunch of the new compute modules (but those do require a carrier board).

Shoot me a PM I would be interested in some zero's...I can get the zero2 when they are in stock at Microcenter but its rare when they get them in then they limit the purchase.

 

[GaryE]

Shoot me a PM I would be interested in some zero's...I can get the zero2 when they are in stock at Microcenter but its rare when they get them in then they limit the purchase.

I got an email notification yesterday that Sparkfun had 1 PI Zero W in stock...

HA! That thing was gone long before I clicked the link.

 

[GaryE]

For those of you who are looking for them...

Find Raspberry Pi computers in stock - rpilocator

Find Raspberry Pi computers in stock - rpilocator

rpilocator.com

Raspberry Pi 4 model B, Compute Module 4, Pi Zero 2 W, and Pico availability

 

[Kraig]

Well, I've been thinking about jumping in. This will be a big learning curve for me. I've been trying to figure out the best Raspberry pi to get. Seems a lot use the Zero 2 w. Is there one that is a little better than others? I'm not sure how much processing power or memory is truly needed (and the answer is probably depends)

 

[GaryE]

the Zero W (version 1) is just fine.. Zero 2 W is a bit faster..