Reef-Pi The All In One Pi Challenge

[AquaRaider44]

The doser can be powered externally, correct? I suppose I would just need signalling to go to the motors in the housing. I think I can figure that out.....

The RJ cable carries the power so it would be easiest to power it through the cable like it was intended and power off of the 12v going to your reef pi and Darlington transistor. I suppose you could open it up and attach 12v directly to it but this would require etching the motherboard inside.

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

The RJ cable carries the power so it would be easiest to power it through the cable like it was intended and power off of the 12v going to your reef pi and Darlington transistor. I suppose you could open it up and attach 12v directly to it but this would require etching the motherboard inside.

Pico board is a bit different....

 

[AquaRaider44]

@Ranjib I am starting to see some useful information on my PH monitor but had a question. Does a larger negative mean the ph is higher or lower? For example, is -9000 more acidic or more basic then -9500? Just trying to understand as I have 2 days until my calibration fluid is here so it will then read properly.

 

[AquaRaider44]

Pico board is a bit different....

I meant the motherboard inside of the jeabo slave doser if you wanted to power that directly with 12v instead of going through the cable. I am not sure how you would set this up on a pico board. Does the pico board have a pca9685 built in that you can connect to for signals? If it does then I assume you would need to break out to a board like mine and just connect a Darlington transistor to up the 5v pwm to 12v pwm and then also conenct the doser wires to 12v. If it doesn't have a PCA built in then you could connect a pca9685 through the SDA, SCL then go to the a break out board.

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

@Ranjib I am starting to see some useful information on my PH monitor but had a question. Does a larger negative mean the ph is higher or lower? For example, is -9000 more acidic or more basic then -9500? Just trying to understand as I have 2 days until my calibration fluid is here so it will then read properly.

The closer to positive values, the higher the pH, was my experience.

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

I meant the motherboard inside of the jeabo slave doser if you wanted to power that directly with 12v instead of going through the cable. I am not sure how you would set this up on a pico board. Does the pico board have a pca9685 built in that you can connect to for signals? If it does then I assume you would need to break out to a board like mine and just connect a Darlington transistor to up the 5v pwm to 12v pwm and then also conenct the doser wires to 12v. If it doesn't have a PCA built in then you could connect a pca9685 through the SDA, SCL then go to the a break out board.

The pico board can handle the signalling, but I would not try to have it power the pumps because my current power supply can't handle it, and I don't think the board allows for it. It was initially designed for use with nano and pico reefs in mind with a pi-zero as the computer, so the functionality is fairly limited, but it does provide all the functions I need on my 90 gallon. I'm testing it's application with a pi3b, because I already had one dedicated to the project, so I'm available to test the pico board, and any USB functions that might come along. I also wanted to take advantage of the additional resources the pi3 provides.

 

[Garold R Seifert]

I really like your build log so far. I had a question about your float switches. I bought the same ones and was wondering how did you wired them up to the pi?

 

[AquaRaider44]

I really like your build log so far. I had a question about your float switches. I bought the same ones and was wondering how did you wired them up to the pi?

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...-on-raspberry-pi.289256/page-356#post-5312272
Super simple and easy to use if you follow this guide then just make an inlet for the gpio pin you use in the configuration.

 

[AquaRaider44]

The pico board can handle the signalling, but I would not try to have it power the pumps because my current power supply can't handle it, and I don't think the board allows for it. It was initially designed for use with nano and pico reefs in mind with a pi-zero as the computer, so the functionality is fairly limited, but it does provide all the functions I need on my 90 gallon. I'm testing it's application with a pi3b, because I already had one dedicated to the project, so I'm available to test the pico board, and any USB functions that might come along. I also wanted to take advantage of the additional resources the pi3 provides.

That's cool that it has signaling so I assume it's just 3.3/5v pwm signal and needs to be scaled up to 12v with Darlington transistor on breakout board and it sounds like you will need a 12v power supply as well to run the doser.

 

[AquaRaider44]

Quick update

Another Part used which I didn't list.
Letter Love Fashion Furniture Trisonic100feetblac Fashion 100' Telephone Extension Cord Cable Line Wire Rj11 Modular, Black

I built 2 custom cables tonight for prep for tomorrow's mars aqua lighting install adventure. One 10ft to connect from the reef pi to the first light and one 3ft to connect from light one to light two in a daisy chain.

 

[AquaRaider44]

New parts ordered

ESUPPORT Blue 12v 15 Led 30cm Car Flexible Waterproof Underbody Light Strip Pack of 8

Will be trying to control these with the 12v PWM from my Darlington and PCA

I hope I can dim these to almost 0 as I would like to implement a full lunar cycle where it gets brighter and dimmer.

 

[Bigtrout]

New parts ordered

ESUPPORT Blue 12v 15 Led 30cm Car Flexible Waterproof Underbody Light Strip Pack of 8

Will be trying to control these with the 12v PWM from my Darlington and PCA

I hope I can dim these to almost 0 as I would like to implement a full lunar cycle where it gets brighter and dimmer.

The uln2803 is fast enough that you should get good dimming, just watch the current thru the chip, there is a per channel max, but the chip will fry if you go over the chip max which is NOT 8 times the per channel max

 

[AquaRaider44]

The uln2803 is fast enough that you should get good dimming, just watch the current thru the chip, there is a per channel max, but the chip will fry if you go over the chip max which is NOT 8 times the per channel max

I only plan to use 3 strips of 3 leds one per side and one for middle of the tank. I think each LED is 20-30mA at peak brightness and each of the 8 Darlington pairs of the ULN2803A can do 500 mA max according to http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/uln2803a.pdf so I think I am good on the current. Am I correct in thinking I am good?

I also have 5 more if I do fry one

 

[AquaRaider44]

I think I need to move my PH sensor so it is not influenced by my kalk and 2 part dumping into the sump lower/more negative is more basic

 

[AquaRaider44]

@Michael Lane @Ranjib Is variations of approximately 100mv normal like you see above?

 

[Ranjib]

I only plan to use 3 strips of 3 leds one per side and one for middle of the tank. I think each LED is 20-30mA at peak brightness and each of the 8 Darlington pairs of the ULN2803A can do 500 mA max according to http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/uln2803a.pdf so I think I am good on the current. Am I correct in thinking I am good?

I also have 5 more if I do fry one

Yes.

 

[Ranjib]

I think I need to move my PH sensor so it is not influenced by my kalk and 2 part dumping into the sump lower/more negative is more basic

This looks very similar to my experience. I think its correct, we'll know for sure after a week and calibration

 

[AquaRaider44]

This looks very similar to my experience. I think its correct, we'll know for sure after a week and calibration

Amazing thanks for all your help so far I am really loving this more and more. Any way you can add my build thread to https://reef-pi.github.io/additional-documentation/resources/ . I can't wait to see more development on things like kh and calc and mag monitoring as well as ammonia and nitrate and phosphate. I know it's only a matter of time.

 

[AquaRaider44]

Here is an interesting bug I discovered with my jeabo doser setup. The last two dosers which were run continue to be powered at very low power after turning off. I noticed the green indicator light is slightly lit up barely visable unless it's pitch black. The unit also emits a hum very quietly which you can only hear when you are an inch away from it. What would cause this? Why only the last two stay lit up you can see on pic below. I am wondering if this is a PCA bug with frequency or something where since 100% works now 0 isn't 0. Could a Darlington transistor leak voltage? How shod I troubleshoot this?

Probably unrelated but the doser also doesn't run below 50% speed at stock 1500 frequency has anyone tried changing this to see if it will allow scaling to 0%

 

[Ranjib]

Amazing thanks for all your help so far I am really loving this more and more. Any way you can add my build thread to https://reef-pi.github.io/additional-documentation/resources/ . I can't wait to see more development on things like kh and calc and mag monitoring as well as ammonia and nitrate and phosphate. I know it's only a matter of time.

LOL. I dont know, some of those things are really hard. I was hoping more of optical/image analysis based tank monitoring, introspecting time series data for our sensors and predictively alert (learn about the tank's health), have sharable profiles to reproduce a specific coral growth under a specific setup etc.. those are all viable and I can see coming..