reef-pi :: An opensource reef tank controller based on Raspberry Pi.

[janos]

Thank you Ranjib i was not sure i did something again or just the beta testing. Everything is working perfect on the bread board now i should try the arrangement in a box and change for perma proto board.Thank you for your work.

 

[Des Westcott]

Making progress. Mounting everything in an old PC case I had kicking around. Lots of power options in there.

What settings do you all find work well on the ATO

 

[aquaalgae]

Greetings everyone! I recently put together a tc reef-pi build and it was a lot fun. This was my first time doing anything with a Raspberry pi or linux and everything went along smoothly thanks to the build guides and everyone on this thread.

I'm having an issue with telemetry. On adafuit, only the default created system-load5 and system-mem-used feeds are getting data. How can I get the temperature feed to work?

I'm also having trouble with the lighting values going to Adafruit.

 

[jcmental]

Evening chaps. Need a bit of help / advice. Anyone know what the lightning bolt is in the top right of my screen?

 

[MaccaPopEye]

Evening chaps. Need a bit of help / advice. Anyone know what the lightning bolt is in the top right of my screen?

As said above it's under-powered / inconsistent power, apparently it can be bad to run the Pi when it is showing that symbol.

I got the same symbol when I tried to power the Pi using a LM2596 and when using the Pi with a display (not sure if the same power issues occured without a display as I can't see the lightning bolt :p)

The LM2596 can provide up to 3A (I think) and I was using an 8A 12V power supply stepped down to 5V so it should have had ample current so I can only assume it was caused by the irregular supply issues that Ranjib has been investigating recently. To fix this I've now got some dedicated 240V AC to 5V DC 3A (they were also advertised as 'low ripple EMI isolated' whatever that means :p) converters that I am going to test out (haven't tested them yet though)

 

[jcmental]

As said above it's under-powered / inconsistent power, apparently it can be bad to run the Pi when it is showing that symbol.

I got the same symbol when I tried to power the Pi using a LM2596 and when using the Pi with a display (not sure if the same power issues occured without a display as I can't see the lightning bolt :p)

The LM2596 can provide up to 3A (I think) and I was using an 8A 12V power supply stepped down to 5V so it should have had ample current so I can only assume it was caused by the irregular supply issues that Ranjib has been investigating recently. To fix this I've now got some dedicated 240V AC to 5V DC 3A (they were also advertised as 'low ripple EMI isolated' whatever that means :p) converters that I am going to test out (haven't tested them yet though)

Thanks guys, I'm hopping your right, my kettle tripped the house the other day and when I went to start the pi it was dead so plugged in a usb phone charger. had issues with my touch screen to but now powering that from a 5v 10A power supply into the power pins.

 

[janos]

Hi to all again. What do i do wrong what is wrong with network.

 

[ReefSpy]

No mater what you do, your pumps are going to leak voltage that affect a pH probe. You have to isolate the pH probe. Look into galvanic isolation or check out atlas scientific. They sell serial enabled chips that are isolated. If you don’t do this, then anytime there is other electrical equipment in the tank, your pH reading will be off. I tried to build three pH circuits for my tank before I discovered this.

Thanks for the tips. Were you able to isolate you circuits successfully?

 

[jcmental]

Oww while on the subject of expanding stuff, if I put a gpio triple expansion card on my pi to control extra relays how would this affect the pin configuration when setting up the pins in the connections menu please? https://thepihut.com/products/gpio-...=334794644bafe6ed3b5173127cf764ed&fo_s=gplauk

 

[wykat]

Oww while on the subject of expanding stuff, if I put a gpio triple expansion card on my pi to control extra relays how would this affect the pin configuration when setting up the pins in the connections menu please? https://thepihut.com/products/gpio-...=334794644bafe6ed3b5173127cf764ed&fo_s=gplauk

Looking at the PCB lay-out this hat only parallels the GPIO pins, it doesn't add new IO ports. Couldn't find a document describing the product in more detail.

 

[jcmental]

Looking at the PCB lay-out this hat only parallels the GPIO pins, it doesn't add new IO ports. Couldn't find a document describing the product in more detail.

yep your right @wykat just doing some further research and they are just expanding the same pin, I'd need a few of these but have no clue how or if they would work with reef pi https://www.abelectronics.co.uk/p/54/io-pi-plus

 

[wykat]

yep your right @wykat just doing some further research and they are just expanding the same pin, I'd need a few of these but have no clue how or if they would work with reef pi https://www.abelectronics.co.uk/p/54/io-pi-plus

Based on the MCP23017 from Microchip Technologies Inc

This is not yet supported. Latest I know is that Ranjib is thinking of implementing in 2.x.

 

[jcmental]

This is not yet supported. Latest I know is that Ranjib is thinking of implementing in 2.x.

oow I hope so, I think it would be a great improvement to the system. I'm using all IO's except the ones for ATO, temp and PH I need at least 2 for each light channel I'm running and then there's the power bars and feeder signal.

While we're on the 2.0 upgrade I have an issue with my touch screen, I cant get it to bring up a text box when I want to put parameters in say for a timer or add equipment, do you think there is a possibility this could be incorporated into the reef pi program, it sucks having to connect a keyboard if you want to change something.

 

[Des Westcott]

I have everything working except lighting at the moment. The LED's just flash. Running like mad at the moment, will post my question in detail a bit later

 

[Des Westcott]

https://grobotronics.com/images/detailed/5/LEDs.jpg[/IMG]

OK. More info on my lighting problem-

As stated before, I have 5 dimmable channels of 12VDC currently run by a TC420.

I tried to change them over to the schematic that Ranjib gave me above. I got it to sort of work for a few few minutes and then it stopped with a pop sound from the "Reef-Pi" area. Some investigation found the ULN 2803 to be very hot, so I needed to get another. Checking and double checking, found another amateur mistake. I had connected the output from the PCA9685 from the PWM poles instead of Gnd. I changed that, installed a new ULN 2803 and tried again. Now the lights just flash - frequency roughly once per second. I even tried changing the channels on the PCA9685 and the same thing.

Question :- Did my error on the connection to the PCA9685 possibly cook it? Did I cook the PWM on the Pi?

My thinking is to try connect one channel of lights to the PWM signal directly from the Pi to see if that is working. If it does, my guess is that the PCA9685 needs replacing (such is the cost of school fees). BUT, I can't find a guide to connecting lights directly to the PWM signal directly from the Pi. Also, thinking about it, I'd like to try get the two PWM channels available direct off the Pi working as a temporary measure.

Any advice anyone?

On a side note, I have 4 pieces of equipment and the ATO working perfectly and I'm very happy. Just waiting for my temp probe to arrive and then once I have the lighting going I'll start thinking about PH and dosing.

 

[aquaalgae]

I've been trying to use the Reef Pi for the last week or so for my lighting. I am running 1.5. I am running 15 channels (0-14) of PWM. 3 of which (0-2) are going to a driver that requires 10v PWM so I am using a converter circuit (similar to the one shown in this thread - but doubled up so inverting the signal is not needed). The issue that I am running into is that in the mid range things look ok, but on the higher and lower end the voltage is dropping and at 100%, the voltage is 0. At first it seems like I would just need to use the invert option in Reef Pi, but I have used the circuit several times before with no issue and when I try the invert option anyway, it still does not behave as expected. The issue of 100% be 0 is the case in all of my channels however from what I have seen the issue of the dimming going down as I near 100% and 0% is restricted to just the channels that are going through this circuit. Has anyone experienced this? I have attached a pic of the circuit...

 

[jcmental]

I've been trying to use the Reef Pi for the last week or so for my lighting. I am running 1.5. I am running 15 channels (0-14) of PWM. 3 of which (0-2) are going to a driver that requires 10v PWM so I am using a converter circuit (similar to the one shown in this thread - but doubled up so inverting the signal is not needed). The issue that I am running into is that in the mid range things look ok, but on the higher and lower end the voltage is dropping and at 100%, the voltage is 0. At first it seems like I would just need to use the invert option in Reef Pi, but I have used the circuit several times before with no issue and when I try the invert option anyway, it still does not behave as expected. The issue of 100% be 0 is the case in all of my channels however from what I have seen the issue of the dimming going down as I near 100% and 0% is restricted to just the channels that are going through this circuit. Has anyone experienced this? I have attached a pic of the circuit...

Dont you need to set the max and minimum for each lighting channel, In lighting under settings, where you set the sliders for the light intensity i.e min value : 2 and maximum value :98 ?

 

[aquaalgae]

Dont you need to set the max and minimum for each lighting channel, In lighting under settings, where you set the sliders for the light intensity i.e min value : 2 and maximum value :98 ?

Yeah, I had the maximum set at 100 and then set the manual slider to 100 and it seems the PWM value being sent to the lights was 0.

 

[Erica-Renee]

Yeah, I had the maximum set at 100 and then set the manual slider to 100 and it seems the PWM value being sent to the lights was 0.

Remember this is actually 0-99 the number 100 is 0 This is computer code not counting numbers. 100 SHOULD Give you no output..
0 is 1% 99 is 100%

SET LOW TO 2% HIGH to 98% seems best result.. I am using a mosfet to drive my 12v Led and dosing pumps.

 

[jcmental]

Remember this is actually 0-99 the number 100 is 0 This is computer code not counting numbers. 100 SHOULD Give you no output..
0 is 1% 99 is 100%

SET LOW TO 2% HIGH to 98% seems best result.. I am using a mosfet to drive my 12v Led and dosing pumps.

what are you dosing? I was thinking of using a dosing pump to top up my tank 2 ltrs a day but wanted it over a 24 hour period, have you just set a time with intervals throughout the day?