Reef Pi Build

[Michael Lane]

@Roberto_b is currently working on a hardware design to include battery back up support. I don't recall anything that would notify reef-pi that it is running on battery, but it seems like a good idea.

 

[Diamond1]

So my OCD kicked in and I went looking for a solution to the battery backup and found this:
https://www.logicsupply.com/openups2/
Looks like it might be programmable to do a soft shutdown of a laptop or pc when power is interrupted. It connects to the motherboard via USB and has a small footprint.
I don't know much about these things but it could be a viable option if it does shut down your device on power being interrupted.
Since it has it's own programing it shouldn't need any additional reef-pi programing to work.
Any thoughts?

 

[hockeyhead019]

This is commonly done with capacitors in the field that I work in. I would have to think it's an option for the pi. You'd need to size the cap correctly to give it enough juice to complete the memory dump. The way our PLC's work is that it's both a system memory dump and a RAM dump so that during restart the system can be aware of the last configuration of inputs/outputs. I think the latter is excessive for our real time application but it would definitely be awesome to not have to worry about blackouts meaning that your system controller goes down.

A quick googling session leads me to think that something along the lines of: http://juice4halt.com/ is what we're looking for

 

[primo21]

Looks much better!

@Brew12 ...is there a better, more secure way than using wire nuts? i get nervous about them coming off. what are your thoughts on soldering/heat shrink. thanks.

 

[primo21]

I was having my coffee this morning and decided to do a cost analysis of where I'm at so far in this build.

Raspberry pi Kit - $63.00
8 Channel relay - $8.00
LM2596 - $3.00
50 gph water pump - $5.75
3 foot db9 cable - $4.00
DB9 terminals - $6.00
12 volt power supply - $10.00
Electrical outlets - $8.00
Electical outlet face plates $5.00
ULN2803 - $1.95
IC socket - $0.95
Male header pins - $0.50
Male to female jumper wires - $3.95
Panel mount TRS jack - $0.75
Male 3.5mm stereo plug - $0.95
DS18B20 temp probe - $9.95
Perma proto pi hat -$7.00
Water level sensor - $6.75
Nylon standoffs - $8.90
22AWG wire - $15.99
Male power socket - $7.49
Helping Hands - $14.99
Soldering Iron and solder - $12.00
Romex wire - $10.00

TOTAL: $214.69

As of now with the modules I have
8 channel power supply
Temp probe and heater control
ATO system

I'm at $215.00 US including the tools and supplies I bought.

Not bad.

Comparing this to an Apex Jr at $240.00, I get 4 more channels of switched power and an ATO system.
Now that I have the tools and supplies to build one I could knock the price down by about 50 bucks bringing the price of just parts to around $165.00.
Also the knowledge and experience from building this myself is priceless.
Of course the price will go up once I add the ph monitoring and dosing pumps but even if that adds $200 or $250 to the total cost the price still comes in at less then an Apex base model.

@Diamond1 ...which PI kit did you buy? i see them on amazon for ~$25-30 for the PI0. just wondering what ur kit has compared to these.

thanks.

 

[Diamond1]

@Diamond1 ...which PI kit did you buy? i see them on amazon for ~$25-30 for the PI0. just wondering what ur kit has compared to these.



thanks.

The pi I used is a pi 3. It came with a case 16gig sd card loaded with noobs software, an hdmi cable and a power supply. I got it off ebay . I can post a link to it tonight after I get off work if you want.

 

[primo21]

oh, that makes sense. i thought you used the PI0 from watching your video. did you upgrade somewhere in the thread and i missed it?

 

[Diamond1]

No sorry for the confussion but that video was a youtube video I refferenced to show reef pi programming at work.

I started the build with a pi3.

 

[Erica-Renee]

@Brew12 ...is there a better, more secure way than using wire nuts? i get nervous about them coming off. what are your thoughts on soldering/heat shrink. thanks.

Not @Brew12 But i recently started using these .
https://www.amazon.com/Ideal-30-103...541729622&sr=8-6&keywords=push+wire+connector

They hold very well with the excepting of Stranded wire. I would not use them for that. Much quicker and neater .
Here is a Example of them in use.

 

[Brew12]

@Brew12 ...is there a better, more secure way than using wire nuts? i get nervous about them coming off. what are your thoughts on soldering/heat shrink. thanks.

Soldering with heat shrink is great if you are good at it and want to take the time.

Not @Brew12 But i recently started using these .
https://www.amazon.com/Ideal-30-103...541729622&sr=8-6&keywords=push+wire+connector

There are a very good option for solid copper wires.

Another option that I use for stuff like this, especially if I think it might change, are insulated spade connectors. Properly crimped, they hold well and can be disconnected to make changes.

 

[Diamond1]

Not much of an update. I'm waiting on some more parts for my dosing pump module.
I'm thinking that I will build the dosing pumps and the ph probe into a single module that I can fit in the cabinet close to the sump and run both off a separate raspberry pi.

I id add this today.
Thanks @MaccaPopEye for the logo!

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

Not much of an update. I'm waiting on some more parts for my dosing pump module.
I'm thinking that I will build the dosing pumps and the ph probe into a single module that I can fit in the cabinet close to the sump and run both off a separate raspberry pi.

I id add this today.
Thanks @MaccaPopEye for the logo!

I like the logo

 

[Diamond1]

Here's the Fritzing diagram for the dosing pump build. Thank's to @Ranjib for reworking it as he found an error in the old one promptly fixed it and posted a new diagram. This is the diagram that will be used when the module is released on the Adafruit build guide.

 

[Diamond1]

Ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon today. I should be able to get started working on the dosing pumps by the weekend.

 

[MaccaPopEye]

Not much of an update. I'm waiting on some more parts for my dosing pump module.
I'm thinking that I will build the dosing pumps and the ph probe into a single module that I can fit in the cabinet close to the sump and run both off a separate raspberry pi.

I id add this today.
Thanks @MaccaPopEye for the logo!

Awesome mate! I love what you did with the Pi symbol too, genius!

 

[hockeyhead019]

Looking forward to seeing you build the pH probe. Out of curiosity, why do you want to run them on a separate pi?

 

[Diamond1]

Glad you like it. I wonder if @Ranjib will notice those corals are his acros.
I hope he doesn't mind, it just seemed appropriate.

 

[Ranjib]

Glad you like it. I wonder if @Ranjib will notice those corals are his acros.
I hope he doesn't mind, it just seemed appropriate.

I love it . Actually I like it now more , since we have some corals in the logo, else its just fowlr pi

 

[Ranjib]

on that note, I do think that we should at least inform the reefpi.net folks, it will be bad if they find it by surprise

 

[Diamond1]

Looking forward to seeing you build the pH probe. Out of curiosity, why do you want to run them on a separate pi?

With the power, ATO and temperature modules built on the pi hat I currently have, adding the dosing pumps and ph probe to it could be problematic with the limited amount of power, gpio pins and space I have.
As of now the ph probe is up on the Adafruit site as a stand alone unit and Ranjib said the dosing pumps will also be posted as a stand alone unit.

Looking at the circuits for both it shouldn't be to hard to incorperate both modules into a single build and it just made sense to have the ph probe and dosing pumps together. That way I can mount everything inside my stand next to the sump and the pumps and processing power of the main pi won't have to work as hard.

With the planned clustering option in the next version of reef-pi I should be able to control everything from the main pi in any case. I plan on using a piO for this so that brings the cost down a bit.
I'm thinking I might do the same with a light controller.

Hopefully that all makes sense.