Controlling Jebao DP4-S

[Michael Lane]

I just finished a small adapter to control a Jebao DP4-S slave doser with reef-pi. It's a super simple circuit based on a ULN2803 to accept 3.3v pwm to control 12v DC motors. Schematic and layout are available on github.

This time I experimented with milling the pcb using a cheap 3018 CNC engraver. I used Kicad, FlatCam, and OpenCNCPilot. It look a couple of attempts to get everything right, but I finally ended up with something useable at the end.

 

[Ranjib]

This is awesome. Thanks for sharing @Michael Lane . Are you passing pwm signal to control the doser speed or its just straight 12V on/off ?

 

[Michael Lane]

Thanks!
This is running from PWM signal from a PCA9685. Simple to set up and super simple to configure in reef-pi on the dosing tab.

I just received pcb prototypes and I'm really happy with how it has turned out.

Now I have this one dosing vodka to my nitrate reactor and acro power to the tanks.

 

[Ranjib]

Thanks!
This is running from PWM signal from a PCA9685. Simple to set up and super simple to configure in reef-pi on the dosing tab.

I just received pcb prototypes and I'm really happy with how it has turned out.

Now I have this one dosing vodka to my nitrate reactor and acro power to the tanks.

Nice. this will be in your tindie shop? These doseer are stepper motor based or just plain dc motors?

 

[Ranjib]

Also curious @Michael Lane how is that milling machine doing?

 

[Michael Lane]

These are plain DC motors, super easy to control with pwm and ULN2803.

The milling machine is acceptable so far. I originally got it to try directly expose UV sensitive film with a UV laser, but I wasn't able to get the beam small enough for what I wanted. I'm finding pretty good results with 0.35mm traces and 0.1mm engraving depth. It's slow, but I don't have to mess with chemicals.

Here's the last board I milled. I found that enlarging the pads is also important, otherwise the copper tends to lift off when soldering.

 

[Urtoo]

@Ranjib https://www.tindie.com/products/ranthalion/dosing-pump-adapter/
I will be ordering this with my PH board in a few weeks! @Michael Lane, you are awesome and thank you for amazing prices.

 

[burningbaal]

so...


But seriously, I'm thinking I want to set up a 4-part dosing (TM balling plus kind of coral nutrient or something) in the next few months. When I do, I'll buy it and the pH adapter thingy.

Question: Do you have any plans to add a GPIO-extender to your store? I'm rapidly realizing we will likely consume the 26 pins. My next tank will have 8-9 lighting channels (4 black boxes and might add a moonlight fixture), 4 dosing pumps, lots of powerheads, three return pumps (one manifold), refugium light, heaters, ATO, water change pump, etc, etc.

 

[Michael Lane]

so...


But seriously, I'm thinking I want to set up a 4-part dosing (TM balling plus kind of coral nutrient or something) in the next few months. When I do, I'll buy it and the pH adapter thingy.

Question: Do you have any plans to add a GPIO-extender to your store? I'm rapidly realizing we will likely consume the 26 pins. My next tank will have 8-9 lighting channels (4 black boxes and might add a moonlight fixture), 4 dosing pumps, lots of powerheads, three return pumps (one manifold), refugium light, heaters, ATO, water change pump, etc, etc.

lol
We have an issue tracked on github to add driver support for MCP23017. I don't think it's going in release 3, but it could probably come soon after.

A lot of those features can be PWM based, so you could just add more PCA9685 breakouts. In fact, I believe release 3 also supports using PCA9685 as digital output, so that would probably solve that problem as long as you don't need more inputs.

PCA9685 and MCP23017 already have commodity breakout board available, so I don't plan to design anything new for those, but I would be interested if there's a novel application or setup that isn't already available.

 

[Ranjib]

so...


But seriously, I'm thinking I want to set up a 4-part dosing (TM balling plus kind of coral nutrient or something) in the next few months. When I do, I'll buy it and the pH adapter thingy.

Question: Do you have any plans to add a GPIO-extender to your store? I'm rapidly realizing we will likely consume the 26 pins. My next tank will have 8-9 lighting channels (4 black boxes and might add a moonlight fixture), 4 dosing pumps, lots of powerheads, three return pumps (one manifold), refugium light, heaters, ATO, water change pump, etc, etc.

As michael mentioned, you can reserve the GPIO for inlets use case exclusively and use PCA9685 for outlets. Remember we are also adding wifi based outlets,

 

[joyz76]

You can use the same circuit, but use the software linked here:

Arduino DIY Dosing Pump with blackout alert and containers alert

Hi guys, I wanted to share with you my Arduino DIY Dosing Pump. I worked on them for some time so i have many versions of it, but the final one is great and can dose with a great precision (0.1 ml). Here a pic of the finale work: Build on Nodemcu, a ESP8266 chip based they are controlled via...

www.reef2reef.com

so you can use your jebao wifi.

 

[skywurz]

These are plain DC motors, super easy to control with pwm and ULN2803.

The milling machine is acceptable so far. I originally got it to try directly expose UV sensitive film with a UV laser, but I wasn't able to get the beam small enough for what I wanted. I'm finding pretty good results with 0.35mm traces and 0.1mm engraving depth. It's slow, but I don't have to mess with chemicals.

Here's the last board I milled. I found that enlarging the pads is also important, otherwise the copper tends to lift off when soldering.

Hi @Michael Lane Im working on building this out because i see you are out of stock. I wanted to ask a few questions. Do I need to connect the ULN2803A to the PWM pins on the PI (13,16,18,19)? i guess i can move around my outlet pins. Second how many mah is your 12v adapter?

Thx

 

[Michael Lane]

Hi @Michael Lane Im working on building this out because i see you are out of stock. I wanted to ask a few questions. Do I need to connect the ULN2803A to the PWM pins on the PI (13,16,18,19)? i guess i can move around my outlet pins. Second how many mah is your 12v adapter?

Thx

@skywurz You can use whichever pwm pins you have available. There's no need to move any of your other pins.

I don't remember the rating in the 12 boost converter I'm using. It's one of the super common ones on eBay or Amazon, so it's probably an amp or less.

The DP4S motors take about 150 mA, so most 12 v sources should work fine. I only run a single dosing pump at a time. For me, it wasn't a matter of power; I don't want the supplements to mix and precipitate before they can be dispersed.

 

[skywurz]

Thank you Michael!
Sounds like I don't have to use the dedicated Hardware PWM if I don't want to.

Sounds like I should have 600mah available just in case I ever wanted to run all 4 motors at once at full speed.

 

[Joekovar]

Sounds like I should have 600mah available just in case I ever wanted to run all 4 motors at once at full speed.

720ma. 600+20%. 1A supplies are pretty common.

The thing about one pump running at a time to give chemicals time to disperse makes sense. Adding a 200ma PTC to the line would ensure only one pump could ever run at a time too.

 

[thoeffe]

Does this only work with the dp4 slave pump or will it also work with the normal dp4 with the screen

 

[Michael Lane]

This only works with the slave pumps. The port on the master unit is only intended for output to another device and cannot accept an input signal.

Controlling the master unit would require bypassing the existing circuitry, possibly by completely disconnecting the control board and screen, or maybe by adding another circuit between the pumps and control board. It might be possible to set something up that would allow both reef-pi and the screen to control the pumps, but I'm not sure that would be a good idea.

 

[cnidus]

Ordered a board yesterday. Going to give this a go for AWC and dosing all-for-reef when the tank's ready for corals. Thanks for blazing the trail ahead of me

 

[Carlo Rios]

I'm sorry I'm new to Reef pi by the way awesome job to everyone. I need to have a dosing pump I was thinking about getting a jebao slave and make my own circuit base the one Mr. lane but I have a dumm question where do I conect the circuit to run the pump in the Raspi gpio? Which pins I have a ezo ph temp and 4 relay outlet all ready I know I can move the outlets if need to to add the jebao slave pump whit the circut made by Mr.lane.

 

[Michael Lane]

I'm sorry I'm new to Reef pi by the way awesome job to everyone. I need to have a dosing pump I was thinking about getting a jebao slave and make my own circuit base the one Mr. lane but I have a dumm question where do I conect the circuit to run the pump in the Raspi gpio? Which pins I have a ezo ph temp and 4 relay outlet all ready I know I can move the outlets if need to to add the jebao slave pump whit the circut made by Mr.lane.

They are typically connected to PCA9685, but you can use any PWM from the rpi to drive them. If you would like to control them just based on a timer, then you could connect them to any available GPIO.