My Reef-Pi build (fresh water) + Home Assistant custom integration

RedViper · Jun 12, 2021

Hello,

I was reading this forum and finally decided to start my own thread.

My Reef-Pi build is pretty basic: temperature, 6 channels for equipment.
I am planning to add Ph in future, but don't have a probe yet.
I build a custom board for equipment. The power is controlled by triacs (BT-139 and isolated from controller by MOC3041):

I also created a custom integration for Home Assistant:

GitHub - tdragon/reef-pi-hass-custom: Reef Pi integration for Home Assistant

Reef Pi integration for Home Assistant. Contribute to tdragon/reef-pi-hass-custom development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

You can try it, if you want. It supports basic reef-pi information, temperature, pH (experimental support as I don't have sensor yet) and equipment (you can see state, history and control it).
Feel free to report any issues or suggest any improvements

And finally, this is how my aquarium looks:

robsworld78 · Jun 14, 2021

Looks good, I like what you did with the power bar. How hot do your triacs get after a few amps? I've played with those and needed a massive heatsink.

That part number sounded familiar, I used the same BT139 and optoisolator as well, have a bag of about a 100 of both haha.

https://www.ween-semi.com/sites/default/files/2018-10/bt139-800e.pdf

Tank looks great too, I'm a plant guy as well.

RedViper · Jun 15, 2021

robsworld78 said:
Looks good, I like what you did with the power bar. How hot do your triacs get after a few amps? I've played with those and needed a massive heatsink.

That part number sounded familiar, I used the same BT139 and optoisolator as well, have a bag of about a 100 of both haha.

https://www.ween-semi.com/sites/default/files/2018-10/bt139-800e.pdf

Tank looks great too, I'm a plant guy as well.

With my current load triacs are cold. The biggest load is my 300W heater and it’s rarely needed during summer.
But as you can see on the picture I lined them on the board so it should be easy to attach a big common heatsink to all of them.

BT139 is good, it can communicate up to 10A

robsworld78 · Jun 16, 2021

Yeah they are nice. I had them lined up like yours and strapped a 6" x 3/4" square aluminum bar to them, it did well but still got quite warm at 10 amps. I never expected they could put out so much heat.