reef-pi 3.0 - Release announcement

[Ranjib]

Hivemind,
The reef-pi community is excited to announce the immediate availability of reef-pi 3.0, our next major release. This culminates a year worth of development, field testing and a host of experimentation that we started with 2.0. Here are some of the key features that 3.0 release brings:

1. An improved and versatile device management: reef-pi now has a dedicated Hardware Abstraction Layer, with this we have extended reef-pi 's ability to utilize smart outlets (Kasa smart plug , powerstrip), current monitoring, pH sensors etc. This also allows us using multiple of devices of each kind( ph sensors, PWM boards etc), making reef-pi one of the most capable controllers out there in terms of sheer number of power outlets, sensors, ATOs support.
2. An enhanced control system features: pH sensors module has been extended with control capabilities. All sensor-based controls in reef-pi (such as temperature, ph) now supports native one and two-point calibration, hysteresis and ability to control multiple equipment (via macros).
3. Arbitrary PWM profile: reef-pi 3.0 introduces arbitrary PWM profiles that can be used for a variety of light simulation and wavemakers. Right now we have support for sine curve, diurnal cycle, random, lunar cycles, arbitrary intervals with linear interpolation and composite profile types. From daylight simulation to custom wavemaker setup, we expect a lot of innovation coming our way using this as our foundation.
4. An ecosystem of opensource boards and HATs: reef-pi community has now a host of opensource boards and HATs to ease building controller for those who want to avoid soldering or tinkering with electronics. The opensource pH board, a number of HATs and add on boards are now available at small scale from various community memnbers. 3.0 release went through testing against this boards, other than scratch built, through-hole components based electronics.
5. 3d printed enclosures, contraptions and more: reef-pi 3.0 stretched its scope from opensource controller software, open hardware-based electronics to incorporate open source 3d printable designs for building controller enclosures, various contraptions (ATO sensor holder, brackets for mounting enclosures etc). These models are intuitive, beginner-friendly and can be done by most entry-level 3d printers. Other than the actual 3d printable parts, we have also open-sourced the stub designs of various internal components that you all can use to easily build your custom enclosures and components. With innovation on the housing side, users can now make reef-pi reef-pi controllers that are 1/3rd of the size compared to their 2.0 counterparts.
6. Internationalization: reef-pi 3.0 now supports multiple languages. This is a new initiative that we are taking one, with a handful of languages. We could use all of your help to make this better. At the time of this write up we have French, Dutch, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese and Persian language support.

Here are some useful link for further information:

• Release packages
• Adafruit tutorials (still in process of being updated)
• Reef2reef main thread
• Thingiverse community
• Additional resources

reef-pi will continue its journey as an open source software, open hardware, modular, extendable and affordable reef tank controller. We hope reef-pi will add values to its current consumers and help us teach and learn all the things involved in the making process.

Last but not least and most important above everything, I want to take this opportunity in this auspicious occasion to thank the countless folks who have helped reef-pi making this journey:
- Raspberry Pi foundation and Adafruitl, for all the opensource hardware components, learning resources and giving us a platform to build on
- @revhtree and team reef2reef: The place reef-pi calls home. For providing us a safe and welcoming forum to host all discussion, feedback and brainstorm ideas.
- @Michael Lane and @Zekth for going above and beyond on the software development side. Bulk of reef-pi 3.0 UI is Michael's work. @Zekth lead the internationalization effort and helped us across all things UI
- @Bigtrout @b4tn @Des Westcott @brandon clow @sfgabe @BenB @burningbaal @Urtoo @Soulreefer @AbjectMaelstroM @PaulJ2303 @Schreiber @Zippyfear @mk1scott @hhaase @Mike Kearns @Blaxkin @Matevz Savarin @buddy @adityaduggal and countless other reef2reef members who have built, tested and helped us making reef-pi better. For those of you whose name im missing here, forgive me, because you made a difference, you deserve a shoutout, and all of reef-pi users will benefit form your effort.

Happy thanksgiving r2r family

 

[Ranjib]

Here are some photos of my builds and the boards I received from the community

My dev tank. Powered by an pi 3 based reef-pi 3.0 , configured with kasa hs300. Ph, ato, temperature are all on reef-pi. Light is timer based

Close up

The hs300 smart power strip powers everything including the dosing pump (for ato). 3D printed enclosure and power strip bracket

An assortment of pico base board , ph board and ml hat

My tiniest test build , a pi zero based ato , temp controller.

It couples with hs103 or hs110 smart plugs

A great plan b and versatile in use, I can use it for water change , non reef tank related one-off use etc

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Huge thumbs up to @Ranjib and @Michael Lane for putting out great products, both on software and hardware side to make the life easier on the rest of us in the reefing community. It's people like you that make this community great

 

[robbyg]

Very nice work!
I love the direction this is going in. It would be great if you guys had some long term testing videos. I think if people had data on reliability it would make more people give it a try.

 

[buddy.]

Congrats @Ranjib and everyone involved on the new release!
I am building a new LED light and hopefully will finish it this weekend and also go from 2.3 to 3.0

 

[Michael Lane]

I feel like this last year was another tremendous leap forward with reef-pi! I'm proud to be part of the reef-pi and reef2reef community. I'm also incredibly grateful to everyone that's helped develop and test reef-pi.

 

[raketemensch]

Don’t forget the Mars Aqua boards, which add timing and dimming customization to one of the more popular affordable LED options!

 

[Ranjib]

Some screenshots of various 3.0 builds from my tanks

Front page dashboard

Equipment tab

Temperature controller tab (heater/cooler utilization is in seconds spent in ON state) . I'll post bit more details around the impact of controllable hysteresis and how it compares to heater's built in ones

ATO tab. Utilization represented as seconds ATO pump was in ON state

pH tab. I have not calibrated the probe yet, so the values are still in raw milivolts. This build is using the opensource reef-pi ph board. Notice, when we first connect the board without any probe attached it gives reading -20K range, while with probe attached and immersed in tank it gives anywhere between -8K to -8.7K reading. From my past experience this roughly translates to 7.8 -> 8.1 pH. We'll see that post calibration (still recovering from 3.0 release work and Thanksgiving food coma )

One of the nifty feature in 3.0 is the Kasa smart power strip/outlet support that provides current monitoring as well. In reef-pi these current values are modeled as analog inputs and can be visualizaed/utilized via ph module, by modelling them as any oridinary ph probe . This allows monitoring as well as controlling equipment based on the current values. Following example shows the current utilization of the heater.

I plan to use this for understanding heater's aging process and cross-validating the wattage. My theory is if we can combine tank water volume, heater utilization and ambient temperature, then we should be able to do a close loop control system and decipher heater issues predictively..

 

[Stang67]

ok so this is so way above my head its not even funny. I was hoping there would be a way to purchase one that someone has made and coded already. I have 2 Mars Aqua lights that i would like the dimming functionality control. Is anyone out there making them for people? Pls feel free to PM me if so I am a total idiot with this stuff or i would seriously try myself.

 

[Ranjib]

ok so this is so way above my head its not even funny. I was hoping there would be a way to purchase one that someone has made and coded already. I have 2 Mars Aqua lights that i would like the dimming functionality control. Is anyone out there making them for people? Pls feel free to PM me if so I am a total idiot with this stuff or i would seriously try myself.

Michale has some of this stuff on his store, but you still have to assemble it at your end. Lets hope some one is interested in making these for you

 

[Ranjib]

Ok, continuing on the 3.0 related features, reef-pi has a built in telemetry module that allows configurable amount of telemetry retention at fine grained level (individual readings) as well as coarse grained level (hourly rollup). Since Raspberry Pi computing power is finite and the SD cards are the most common failure points, we encourage to use restricted retention. Out of the box reef-pi store 3 days of fine grained telemetry and 30 days of coarse grained telemetry. This is configurable at the telemetry section

This is very important, as it impacts reef-pi CPU/memory utilization. For heavily loaded builds with lots of modules, this should be set at lower level.
But that means reduced visibility to historical data. This along with the fact that we cant see a customize graph (style or charting duration) cause some pain in 2.0. To address this we have incorporated Prometheus . Prometheus is a industry-grade metrics system that can scrape metrics from reef-pi , which can then be visualized with Grafana. Both of these are opensource, easy to install/use system that can be run on a separate pi or desktop computer. What it means that users can now store the reef-pi metrics for any arbitrary time period and use way more sophisticated visualizations without impacting the actual controller performance.
Now, here are some sample graphs from that system , i,e, reef-pi emitted metrics, scraped and stored by prometheus and visualized using grafana for my garage pico tank

Here is another example of diurnal light profile

I current use an intel nuc for grafana /prometheus server. Its configured to store 5 years of data.

 

[raketemensch]

Could you talk a little about the wavemaker bits? I haven't been able to find much information about how it works.

 

[Ranjib]

Could you talk a little about the wavemaker bits? I haven't been able to find much information about how it works.

That's because there's not been many builds of wavemakers using PWM profiles. Since most commercial wavemakers come with their own controllers there really limited appetite for this. But, pre-3.0 this was not possible due to the PWM system tightly coupled with lighting module. So reef-pi itself was not good at this. We changed that by making it decoupled from light, along with adding features that are good for simulating wavemaker functionalities.

To exploit reef-pi 3.0 PWM profile capabilities you will require a variable speed externally controllable DC pump. Which means you have to either mod an existing commercial variable speed pump or find a specific one that allows this and build the necessary circuit for it. During 3.0 I have tested a few things and here are the concrete things that I know: the PWM connectors from reef-pi (jack as we call them) can be wired to BLDC boards, which control the wavemaker pumps in turn. One such example will Raspberry Pi (for pwm) + DROK BLDC board + Jebao DC pumps.

I'll be testing these things in the coming days, since we have all the software things in place now. Its hard for me to test this as I have a nano tank. For my pico tank I was able to use just two 12V DC submersible pumps and use l293d for alternate pulses. Here the PWMs are 0% of 100%. These pumps are not variable speed. But its DC which means they are good for backup as well. I do not expect any difficulty from reef-pi side, but the actual BLDC /BEMF boards and the pump combination is something we have to test/figure out. And just like lighting , we'll know some and have some idea about the other.. but probably not all combinations. Let me know if you have interest in a specific setup, happy to help anyway I can

 

[PaulJ2303]

1. An improved and versatile device management: reef-pi now has a dedicated Hardware Abstraction Layer, with this we have extended reef-pi 's ability to utilize smart outlets (Kasa smart plug , powerstrip), current monitoring, pH sensors etc. This also allows us using multiple of devices of each kind( ph sensors, PWM boards etc), making reef-pi one of the most capable controllers out there in terms of sheer number of power outlets, sensors, ATOs support.

Hi @Ranjib can you give me some details about how to control WiFi Powerstips with reef-pi ?
I'm interested in buying a (Generic) wifi powerstip and I'm unclear how i'd connect to it from reef-pi

Cheers

 

[hotdrop]

Nice can’t wait to buy one of these reef pi 3.0 ph boards. Someone sell me one lol.

 

[raketemensch]

Let me know if you have interest in a specific setup, happy to help anyway I can

In my naive head, I was picturing simply using controlled outlets to turn pumps on and off in specific (or non-specific) patterns — it wouldn’t be as good as pwm-controlled DC pumps, but it could be sort of a poor-man’s wavemaker? Or not, as I said, I’m new.

Nice can’t wait to buy one of these reef pi 3.0 ph boards. Someone sell me one lol.

I think you can just order one:

Isolated pH Probe Interface for reef-pi by ML Reefkeeping on Tindie

Read pH over I2C with Arduino or Raspberry Pi

www.tindie.com

 

[Des Westcott]

In my naive head, I was picturing simply using controlled outlets to turn pumps on and off in specific (or non-specific) patterns — it wouldn’t be as good as pwm-controlled DC pumps, but it could be sort of a poor-man’s wavemaker?

Yes, but know that the cheaper AC flow pumps don't like being turned on and off a lot. Seriously shortens their lifespan.

 

[raketemensch]

Yes, but know that the cheaper AC flow pumps don't like being turned on and off a lot. Seriously shortens their lifespan.

Would it be ok with DC pumps?

 

[Des Westcott]

Would it be ok with DC pumps?

Probably

 

[hotdrop]

In my naive head, I was picturing simply using controlled outlets to turn pumps on and off in specific (or non-specific) patterns — it wouldn’t be as good as pwm-controlled DC pumps, but it could be sort of a poor-man’s wavemaker? Or not, as I said, I’m new.



I think you can just order one:

Isolated pH Probe Interface for reef-pi by ML Reefkeeping on Tindie

Read pH over I2C with Arduino or Raspberry Pi

www.tindie.com

Someone makes one that’s an all in one that has a temp and ph probe without a riser board. I was hoping to buy one of those.