Reef-pi dosing question

[Wayne1712]

I have been reading through multiple threads for the last few months on the reef-pi builds.
My question is can the reef-pi software be programmed so a dosing pump can dose on the hour (24 doses per day per pump)?

 

[Michael Lane]

Welcome to reef2reef!

reef-pi does support dosing pumps, and can run every hour, on the hour. There are a few builds that integrate dosing pumps into reef-pi, as well as a build guide that shows it. Here are a few recent links that I can think of.

Ranjib's dosing controller guide on Adafruit
My reef-pi build with dosing
AquaRaider44's build with dosing
Stefanm's build with dosing

A lot of it can depends on what you are going to use for the dosing pumps. Feel free to post progress and questions. There are lots of helpful people here.

 

[Wayne1712]

Thank you for the reply, it's been very helpful. The building side of the project doesn't bother me, programming I wouldn't have a clue which is why I have been looking at reef-pi. Just wasn't sure if it could do what I wanted, now I know it can I'll continue with the build.

 

[Ranjib]

Thank you for the reply, it's been very helpful. The building side of the project doesn't bother me, programming I wouldn't have a clue which is why I have been looking at reef-pi. Just wasn't sure if it could do what I wanted, now I know it can I'll continue with the build.

You dont need any programming knowledge, but you do need to type some basic commands during in raspberry pi during the initial setup phase

 

[Wayne1712]

Thanks Ranjib.
I have read several guides on installing it an feel confident in that part, if I run into any problems I'll ask here for advice

 

[marekd1]

Hello,

You mentioned that … "reef-pi does support dosing pumps, and can run every hour, on the hour"

Can you provide example of how I would program 4 events per day on a single pump every 6 hours?

I've tried Timers but I can not associate PUMP with the timer. The only way I could do it is have different times assigned to the same pump resulting in PUMP1 having 4 configurations one for different time.

I am hoping that there is a better way.

Ideally it would be nice if you could have ability to set another time setting under each pump.

Best Regards
Mark

 

[marekd1]

Hello,

You mentioned that … "reef-pi does support dosing pumps, and can run every hour, on the hour"

Can you provide example of how I would program 4 events per day on a single pump every 6 hours?

I've tried Timers but I can not associate PUMP with the timer. The only way I could do it is have different times assigned to the same pump resulting in PUMP1 having 4 configurations one for different time.

I am hoping that there is a better way.

Ideally it would be nice if you could have ability to set another time setting under each pump.

Best Regards
Mark

 

[Michael Lane]

You can set up the doser with Hour as */6 to run every 6 hours.

Or if you want to specify the hours, you could specify the hours

Here's a cheatsheet that I occasionally refer to

Cron Expression Syntax Cheatsheet - Healthchecks.io

Cron syntax reference and examples on how to schedule cron jobs to run every minute, at specific time, several times a day, only on workdays, every 15 minutes.

healthchecks.io

 

[marekd1]

You can set up the doser with Hour as */6 to run every 6 hours.

Or if you want to specify the hours, you could specify the hours

Here's a cheatsheet that I occasionally refer to

Cron Expression Syntax Cheatsheet - Healthchecks.io

Cron syntax reference and examples on how to schedule cron jobs to run every minute, at specific time, several times a day, only on workdays, every 15 minutes.

healthchecks.io

VERY COOL!!!!, thank you for quick response.

 

[marekd1]

I have setup the schedule as shown below, where it should execute pump at 3:01AM , 7:01AM, 11:01AM, 3:01PM, 7:01PM and 11:01PM. The schedule only seems to run once. It did run once yesterday just after it was setup and 3:01AM.

Is there something wrong with my config or is there an issue with the Reef-Pi bug.

Thanks Mark

 

[Michael Lane]

The configuration looks good to me. Have you confirmed that the pumps are not running at the specified times? I wonder if the chart isn't showing what you expect. You could also check the logs for any lines containing "doser sub system: scheduled run".

sudo journalctl -u reef-pi.service | grep "doser sub system"

 

[marekd1]

The configuration looks good to me. Have you confirmed that the pumps are not running at the specified times? I wonder if the chart isn't showing what you expect. You could also check the logs for any lines containing "doser sub system: scheduled run".

sudo journalctl -u reef-pi.service | grep "doser sub system"

Michael, I think its just the chart thingy. I am leaving it over night with water containers on one pump to see if the actual dosing happens and if it is as expected. I will test over few days just to make sure.

Thank you for the repose!!!!