electrical idiot builds a controller - a reef pi build

[dantimdad]

I can't find where to buy the board. It doesn't have an add to cart button on blue acro.

I can't wait anymore. I am going to jump on building one of these. But, mine is only going to be for reading ph, controlling temp and lights.

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

I can't find where to buy the board. It doesn't have an add to cart button on blue acro.

I can't wait anymore. I am going to jump on building one of these. But, mine is only going to be for reading ph, controlling temp and lights.

Which board? Theatrus’s baseboard?

Send him a message here and he will send you the link.

 

[Ranjib]

I can't find where to buy the board. It doesn't have an add to cart button on blue acro.

I can't wait anymore. I am going to jump on building one of these. But, mine is only going to be for reading ph, controlling temp and lights.

https://blueacro.com/controllers/picobeta

 

[Diamond1]

Mic drop!

If you like. @theatrus !

Very nice enclosure. Is that the laser cut one from blue acro?

 

[Ranjib]

Very nice enclosure. Is that the laser cut one from blue acro?

yes

 

[Diamond1]

yes

@theatrus is rocking this!

 

[theatrus]

I promise to get proper labeling of the I/O soon. Opted for using vinyl decals over having it factory pad printed/silk screened due to setup costs ($$) and potential to have more revisions.

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

I have a working controller!!!!!

Oh. And. Holy crap is it cold here. It is so cold the ski slopes are closing for safety.

The case came from theatrus if you hadn’t guessed. It is laser cut for a perfect fit to the base board and cost next to nothing. Win! This guy does amazing work.

I decided not to use my screen. The trolls were so busy watching the show that they stopped breeding and the raspberry was slowing down from lack of workers. The show is gone and I’m going to leave some viagra next to the controller to get the numbers up. The screen was just too small and hard to use to make it worth it. It also didn’t quite fit the case.

I purchased the American DJ SR P8| 8ch Relay...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007EYHBVQ?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

This thing cost $50 but all you have to do is connect it to the baseboard with a db9 male to female cable. ( no viagra jokes, please). Though after walking outside today I thought maybe My db9s got so tight for warmth that I turned into a female.

Once connected the next step is to set the outlets to pin numbers. This step was confusing. I knew from reading osmosis that it wasn’t 1,2,3... I read Ranjib’s guide and used the PIN numbers he used. You enter these on the configuration/connectors/outlets area. Next on the equip tab assign those outlets to equip name. I was very creative and called the outlets, out 1,2,3. And then assigned the equipment as eq1 to out 1 and on and on.

This didn’t work.


I was able to make a couple plugs work only. I figured this was the pin numbers I used. I looked over theatrus’s (‘es?) stuff and thread for a bit then it dawned on me to look directly at the baseboard. I had a picture of it here and didn’t have to open the case to find them. Sure enough he printed it right on the board. How convenient! So I changed all the outlets pin numbers . Now all the plugs worked but eq 1 turned on plug 4. And eq 4 turned on 3 and 2 was 8 and so on. So I carefully wrote down all the clues and solved the puzzle. Always the professor with a candle stick.

Next on the temperature tab set the heater to turn on at your favorite temp and plug the heater into the power strip. Finally I have a controller!!!! This is thing is incredible. Ranjib does some amazing work (for $0 that I can see)!!! Truly amazing!

I set this up temporarily on my 20 gallon freshwater tank. I found out that the heater controlling itself ranged from 79.3 to 83.5 degrees. With the pi controlling it there is nearly no variation except it seems my heater is too small. I never knew this. Overnight the heater ran constantly but the water temp fell nearly a degree below the set point and stayed there until day time. I guess I’m in the market for a larger heater.

Stay warm and protect your db9s.

 

[Diamond1]

WOW that was quick.
Are you and the trolls planning on adding ATO, PH and light controls?

 

[Bigtrout]

The american dj makes quick work with a good premade hat!

 

[Ranjib]

w00t

 

[Hillbillyreefer]

Nice job! All I can find in my shop are orcs with battleaxes, I’ll have to go look in the neighbors for some trolls, then I can get started.

 

[Bigtrout]

Rest assured, mine works without trolls or orcs, although I do have an old battleaxe around...
Aww crap she saw me type this! Yikes!!!

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

I think this thread is coming to an end. Soon there won't be much left to write about. I will be playing with the temperature check frequency to get a bit of hysteresis. Also I will move the reef-pi to my salt water tank. I'll run my skimmer on a simple timer in reef-pi to make it quiet in the evening. But those things are boring and not worth writing about. The fun stuff is already done or won't start until summer time. If something does come up I'll write about it. I want to make cool stickers to put on the case. Maybe soon.

WOW that was quick.
Are you and the trolls planning on adding ATO, PH and light controls?

YES!
I will add ATO and AWC. But I am running a temporary tank in a temporary location. My ATO and AWC will be run by a dosing pump in my basement next to my mixing station. I need to run tubing from the basement to the tank but I don't want to do that until it is in a final position. I doubt I have the final tank ready until summer.

PH yes, once it is working. I don't plan to do anything with the number but if it is easy then why not.

Lights - no. I have a FOWLR and the lights have a nice controller already for aesthetics.

The american dj makes quick work with a good premade hat!

It does!

w00t

Woot!

Nice job! All I can find in my shop are orcs with battleaxes, I’ll have to go look in the neighbors for some trolls, then I can get started.

You should fumigate those orcs before bringing in trolls. You don't need a war breaking out. See below. An un taken care of orc battleaxe or an orc battleaxe that sees you with a troll is a scary thing to deal with. There is a reason bobbit worms have that name.

Rest assured, mine works without trolls or orcs, although I do have an old battleaxe around...
Aww crap she saw me type this! Yikes!!!

Make sure to polish that axe often. A dull axe will cut you worse than a well taken care of razor sharp one.

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

I ended up settling on a 10 minute temperature check interval. This reduces the number of on/off cycles on the heater from checking more frequently. On my 75gal tank the temperature swing is about 0.3 degrees. The temperature probe resolution is 0.1 degrees so this swing isn’t much at all, but reduces off/on cycles by 10x from checking once a minute.

 

[Ranjib]

How the trolls are doing? I already miss them

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

How the trolls are doing? I already miss them

Haha.

They are behaving very well. Tank temp is stable. Skimmer turns on and off when I want. I don’t ask much and they deliver.

I was reading about all these other people having problems; temp sensor disappeared, pi locking up for 4 days. I’m thinking to myself that their trolls went on strike. Time 4 a thin crust with pepperoni, sun dried tomatoes and feta. Hmm feed the trolls.

I’ve been installing a wood floor and we just adopted two cats. Busy busy.

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

So the cats are doing good. The one that was starving when rescued is putting weight on well. So far they haven’t run off the trolls.... Reef-pi working perfect still.

Wood floor done. It looks good.
.
I keep reading about people having reef-pi failures. If others can have failures I probably could too. I think I want to be alerted if something is not right. Reef-pi has a built in email alert function but what if I have a high level failure; Like power goes out at my house. I think I want something watching the reef-pi and will let me know if it isn't there. Luckily there is an adafruit.io telemetry function in reef-pi that does just that. Tonight I am going to try to get it to work.

First I am heading over to adafruit.io to see if I can sign up for an account. ....

so that was painless. I have an account, now what... I think I'll search on ranjib's tutorials. .. yep he has a tutorial. ! : )

So on the adafruit site. click on the "IO" thing on top. then view aio key. put this stuff in the reef-pi config/telemetry area. Press update and reload.

check for feeds on the adafruit site. It works!

so now create a dashboard on adafruit. There is no tutorial here. I just clicked stuff until I got stuff. You can do it too! I ended using a line chart for every feed.

I didn't easily see how to send and email from adafruit if it doesn't see the reef-pi. I will keep looking.

okay, so it appears triggers in adafruit.io can send email if something is outside a limit. I could use this for too hot or too cold. but I still don't know how to get an email if adafruit isn't given new data. i'll keep looking.

okay finally found it. I clicked on feeds and then the CPU usage feed. On the right is something called notifications. I clicked this and it was easy to setup an email if no update is received after 10 minutes. ... now I'm going to shut reef-pi off and see if I get
an email... wish me luck.

It worked!!!

 

[Ranjib]

So the cats are doing good. The one that was starving when rescued is putting weight on well. So far they haven’t run off the trolls.... Reef-pi working perfect still.

Wood floor done. It looks good.
.
I keep reading about people having reef-pi failures. If others can have failures I probably could too. I think I want to be alerted if something is not right. Reef-pi has a built in email alert function but what if I have a high level failure; Like power goes out at my house. I think I want something watching the reef-pi and will let me know if it isn't there. Luckily there is an adafruit.io telemetry function in reef-pi that does just that. Tonight I am going to try to get it to work.

First I am heading over to adafruit.io to see if I can sign up for an account. ....

so that was painless. I have an account, now what... I think I'll search on ranjib's tutorials. .. yep he has a tutorial. ! : )

So on the adafruit site. click on the "IO" thing on top. then view aio key. put this stuff in the reef-pi config/telemetry area. Press update and reload.

check for feeds on the adafruit site. It works!

so now create a dashboard on adafruit. There is no tutorial here. I just clicked stuff until I got stuff. You can do it too! I ended using a line chart for every feed.

I didn't easily see how to send and email from adafruit if it doesn't see the reef-pi. I will keep looking.

okay, so it appears triggers in adafruit.io can send email if something is outside a limit. I could use this for too hot or too cold. but I still don't know how to get an email if adafruit isn't given new data. i'll keep looking.

okay finally found it. I clicked on feeds and then the CPU usage feed. On the right is something called notifications. I clicked this and it was easy to setup an email if no update is received after 10 minutes. ... now I'm going to shut reef-pi off and see if I get
an email... wish me luck.

It worked!!!

Hey this is awesome. @pickupman66 you can set this up to get notification in case pi does.
@Mikeneedsahobby for context, we were debating how to get notified when reef-pi/raspberry pi dies, since it wont be sending notification. I tried adafruit.io trigger but it didnt work out for me . But your approach is bit different, and if its working we should just recommend it to everyone. Together with reef-pi 's builtin notification and adafruit.io as external monitor , its a robust failsafe.

 

[geekengineer]

just stopping by. It looks like your having fun with your build.