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

[philshel]

I've had quite a few PLA parts in my tank for close to two years straight now with no obvious change. I check them regularly to make sure but nothing has happened. There's actually a lot of coraline growing on them.

Funny thing is i actually used PLA to print a strainer for a DIY biopellet reactor which i had in use for a few months (6-8 if i remember correctly). I refilled the biopellets a few times but the strainer came out the same way it went in when i decommissioned the reactor.

It is true that PLA is biodegradable but the level that that happens and the speed at which it happens has been extremely exaggerated around the interwebs. It's a wonderful material to work with, it's absolutely safe and cheap to come by. I would not use it on any project that will be outside in direct sunlight but in my reef i have no problem.

Maybe it's the brand of PLA I'm using like you said, who knows...

Just thought I'd share my personal experience on this.

Thank you for jumping in, it helps a lot to hear actually real life experience. I have never tried PLA in the tank because of all the stories of it dissolving. Can you elaborate on where and how you have used it please?

 

[morpheas]

Thank you for jumping in, it helps a lot to hear actually real life experience. I have never tried PLA in the tank because of all the stories of it dissolving. Can you elaborate on where and how you have used it please?

Sure thing. I've made probe holders, tubing holders, frag racks, zip tie holders, egg create holders and all sorts of things. I actually print and sell a lot of my parts. Because of the intrinsic safety of PLA i feel comfortable doing that. We put so many metals and magnets in our tanks that PLA is much safer than those. Some will argue that the dye in the PLA might be toxic but, again, i haven't experienced that either.

One of my oldest parts in the tank is a probe holder which is closing in on two years now. I inspect often, as i said, but i have yet to see any structural changes to it or seeing it becoming brittle.

I've also had a zip tie holder in there that's holding my heater for about six months now and it's covered in coraline but has no structural change whatsoever. Since it's magnetic, I've made it a point to regularly check it (along with the other magnetic parts i have in there) and i see no change.

The point I'm trying to make is that from my personal experience i haven't had any problems thus far using PLA for parts that go in or out of the water (i print a ton of those too).

I hope some of this helps!

 

[philshel]

Sure thing. I've made probe holders, tubing holders, frag racks, zip tie holders, egg create holders and all sorts of things. I actually print and sell a lot of my parts. Because of the intrinsic safety of PLA i feel comfortable doing that. We put so many metals and magnets in our tanks that PLA is much safer than those. Some will argue that the dye in the PLA might be toxic but, again, i haven't experienced that either.

One of my oldest parts in the tank is a probe holder which is closing in on two years now. I inspect often, as i said, but i have yet to see any structural changes to it or seeing it becoming brittle.

I've also had a zip tie holder in there that's holding my heater for about six months now and it's covered in coraline but has no structural change whatsoever. Since it's magnetic, I've made it a point to regularly check it (along with the other magnetic parts i have in there) and i see no change.

The point I'm trying to make is that from my personal experience i haven't had any problems thus far using PLA for parts that go in or out of the water (i print a ton of those too).

I hope some of this helps!

I'll have to try it then, PLA in theory should be the safest, assuming it's processed cleanly and doesn't have any toxic pigments or additives. Problem is, as you know, nobody knows what they put in it. What brand/color are you using? PLA+ ?

 

[MaccaPopEye]

I suspect you're already aware, but just in case. PLA will break down in saltwater but is safe otherwise, and ABS is consider "reef safe'ish", though there are some question regarding the pigments. I personally believe that natural PET should be safe as well. And everything but ASA will suffer to various degrees under the our lights.

I've had quite a few PLA parts in my tank for close to two years straight now with no obvious change. I check them regularly to make sure but nothing has happened. There's actually a lot of coraline growing on them.

Funny thing is i actually used PLA to print a strainer for a DIY biopellet reactor which i had in use for a few months (6-8 if i remember correctly). I refilled the biopellets a few times but the strainer came out the same way it went in when i decommissioned the reactor.

It is true that PLA is biodegradable but the level that that happens and the speed at which it happens has been extremely exaggerated around the interwebs. It's a wonderful material to work with, it's absolutely safe and cheap to come by. I would not use it on any project that will be outside in direct sunlight but in my reef i have no problem.

Maybe it's the brand of PLA I'm using like you said, who knows...

Just thought I'd share my personal experience on this.

When I looked into it PLA needed a pretty specific set of parameters and a specific type of bacteria to break down. I thought I would give it a go with a basic feeder ring which has been in the tank for a bit over 4 months now and shows no signs of degrading. It was also a bad print (quite under extruded) so if it does degrade, it will be noticeable, but so far there is no more holes in the side than when I first printed it.

Because that looks to be doing ok I decided to step it up and print a nitrate reactor with PLA. This will house massive amounts of bacteria so if anything is going to degrade, this will be it! It's only been in the tank for a couple of weeks now so I'm keen to see how it goes.

I've also printed a light bracket for my fuge light. This isn't in contact with salt water, but heat was a concern. The light socket itself doesn't get over 30 degrees so it also shouldn't be an issue but I'm keeping an eye on it. 3 weeks so far and no signs of deformation.

 

[Ranjib]

I have heard good things about ninjatek products (armadillo, ninjaflex etc)

 

[Ranjib]

When I looked into it PLA needed a pretty specific set of parameters and a specific type of bacteria to break down. I thought I would give it a go with a basic feeder ring which has been in the tank for a bit over 4 months now and shows no signs of degrading. It was also a bad print (quite under extruded) so if it does degrade, it will be noticeable, but so far there is no more holes in the side than when I first printed it.

Because that looks to be doing ok I decided to step it up and print a nitrate reactor with PLA. This will house massive amounts of bacteria so if anything is going to degrade, this will be it! It's only been in the tank for a couple of weeks now so I'm keen to see how it goes.

I've also printed a light bracket for my fuge light. This isn't in contact with salt water, but heat was a concern. The light socket itself doesn't get over 30 degrees so it also shouldn't be an issue but I'm keeping an eye on it. 3 weeks so far and no signs of deformation.

This is so awesome . Thanks for sharing
I hope in future we can have something like an open reef , with all sorts of open hardware /3d designs for different reef tank related things

 

[philshel]

When I looked into it PLA needed a pretty specific set of parameters and a specific type of bacteria to break down. I thought I would give it a go with a basic feeder ring which has been in the tank for a bit over 4 months now and shows no signs of degrading. It was also a bad print (quite under extruded) so if it does degrade, it will be noticeable, but so far there is no more holes in the side than when I first printed it.

Because that looks to be doing ok I decided to step it up and print a nitrate reactor with PLA. This will house massive amounts of bacteria so if anything is going to degrade, this will be it! It's only been in the tank for a couple of weeks now so I'm keen to see how it goes.

I've also printed a light bracket for my fuge light. This isn't in contact with salt water, but heat was a concern. The light socket itself doesn't get over 30 degrees so it also shouldn't be an issue but I'm keeping an eye on it. 3 weeks so far and no signs of deformation.

Going to have to give it a try, most of the stuff I print aren't critical anyway if the do start to degrade, and it sounds like it takes alot longer that reported. Again, any particular brand that you have been using?
Tell me about the nitrate reactor? Did you post the .stl? Not too long ago someone started a poll on a 3d sub forum, shame it never got off the ground.

 

[morpheas]

I've had great success with filaments from http://www.wyzworks.com

Reasonably priced and sensibly consistent...

 

[ReefSharkBuilder]

Not very relevant to 3d printed stuff, but for analogous features in project box, I prefer this:
- All connectors on the bottom, I mount builds straight on wall. Power jack on left, rest everything right side.
- For

led circuit won’t work for pumps, it’s for low current workload.
You’ll need l293d. Pi zero is fine ( just don’t run it in GUI mode ).
Macro / feed mode is not there yet, it’s something I’ll work next

You could also use something like a mosfet, but for larger voltage. Using the arduino for the gate

 

[Des Westcott]

So I've gone and messed something up again

I was playing with the Dashboard settings, trying to get the Dashboard to display bigger on my PC particularly. I set column width to 800 and now when I try load the IP address to access the Reef-Pi, I see the dashboard flash on for a fraction of a second - like literally a blink and then blank screen.

I've tried on my iPhone and laptop. I've also tried logging into the Pi directly through Teamviewer and get the same result every time.

The system is running fine though.

Can someone please help un-fcuk this thing.

 

[Erica-Renee]

So I've gone and messed something up again

I was playing with the Dashboard settings, trying to get the Dashboard to display bigger on my PC particularly. I set column width to 800 and now when I try load the IP address to access the Reef-Pi, I see the dashboard flash on for a fraction of a second - like literally a blink and then blank screen.

I've tried on my iPhone and laptop. I've also tried logging into the Pi directly through Teamviewer and get the same result every time.

The system is running fine though.

Can someone please help un-fcuk this thing.

There is a config file you can edit.. I forget where its at .

 

[U.P.Guy]

Hey everyone,
I am having trouble getting software to run. I can access reef-pi but it does not appear to be running correctly. I currently do not have anything hooked up to the controller but I was hoping to play around with it and start off with a ATO then temp. Here is the error that I am getting in the terminal, I am running 1.5. Can you guys help me out?

reef-pi
2018/07/21 19:46:44 DB: reef-pi.db
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Successfully started subsystem: system
2018/07/21 19:46:44 INFO: equipment subsystem: Finished syncing all equipment
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Successfully started subsystem: equipments
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Successfully started subsystem: timers
2018/07/21 19:46:44 ERROR: ato sub-system failed to restore usage statistics from db. Error: Item 'usage' does not exist in bucket 'ato'
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Successfully started subsystem: ato
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Starting ato sub system
2018/07/21 19:46:44 ERROR: temperature sub-system failed to restore usage statistics from db. Error: Item 'usage' does not exist in bucket 'temperature'
2018/07/21 19:46:44 ERROR: temperature sub-system failed to restore readings from db. Error: Item 'readings' does not exist in bucket 'temperature'
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Successfully started subsystem: temperature
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Starting temperature controller
2018/07/21 19:46:44 reef-pi is up and running
2018/07/21 19:46:44 ERROR: health check sub-system failed to restore hourly usage statistics from db. Error: Item 'm_usage' does not exist in bucket 'reef-pi'
2018/07/21 19:46:44 ERROR: health check sub-system failed to restore weekly usage statistics from db. Error: Item 'h_usage' does not exist in bucket 'reef-pi'
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Starting health checker
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Starting http server at: 0.0.0.0:80
2018/07/21 19:46:44 ERROR: Failed to run http server. Error: listen tcp 0.0.0.0:80: bind: permission denied

 

[Erica-Renee]

Hey everyone,
I am having trouble getting software to run. I can access reef-pi but it does not appear to be running correctly. I currently do not have anything hooked up to the controller but I was hoping to play around with it and start off with a ATO then temp. Here is the error that I am getting in the terminal, I am running 1.5. Can you guys help me out?

reef-pi
2018/07/21 19:46:44 DB: reef-pi.db
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Successfully started subsystem: system
2018/07/21 19:46:44 INFO: equipment subsystem: Finished syncing all equipment
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Successfully started subsystem: equipments
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Successfully started subsystem: timers
2018/07/21 19:46:44 ERROR: ato sub-system failed to restore usage statistics from db. Error: Item 'usage' does not exist in bucket 'ato'
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Successfully started subsystem: ato
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Starting ato sub system
2018/07/21 19:46:44 ERROR: temperature sub-system failed to restore usage statistics from db. Error: Item 'usage' does not exist in bucket 'temperature'
2018/07/21 19:46:44 ERROR: temperature sub-system failed to restore readings from db. Error: Item 'readings' does not exist in bucket 'temperature'
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Successfully started subsystem: temperature
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Starting temperature controller
2018/07/21 19:46:44 reef-pi is up and running
2018/07/21 19:46:44 ERROR: health check sub-system failed to restore hourly usage statistics from db. Error: Item 'm_usage' does not exist in bucket 'reef-pi'
2018/07/21 19:46:44 ERROR: health check sub-system failed to restore weekly usage statistics from db. Error: Item 'h_usage' does not exist in bucket 'reef-pi'
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Starting health checker
2018/07/21 19:46:44 Starting http server at: 0.0.0.0:80
2018/07/21 19:46:44 ERROR: Failed to run http server. Error: listen tcp 0.0.0.0:80: bind: permission denied

I am not positive but i think you have added Dashboard components with no Physical hardware

 

[U.P.Guy]

I am not positive but i think you have added Dashboard components with no Physical hardware.
.

I have gone through and added dashboard components but that was after I was experiencing this problem

 

[U.P.Guy]

Sorry i'm new to this, can i delete everything and start over? How would i do that?

 

[Erica-Renee]

I have gone through and added dashboard components but that was after I was experiencing this problem

Reef-pi is looking for hardware .. Go into settings and turn temp. ATO . AND SO ON off. reload and see if this helps

or since you have nothing installed

https://reef-pi.github.io/additional-documentation/troubleshooting/

 

[Erica-Renee]

Sorry i'm new to this, can i delete everything and start over? How would i do that?

Yes follow my post i just posted it will remove database ..

 

[U.P.Guy]

I went through and removed what you mentioned and hit reload and got this. ... {"error":"Failed to reload reef-pi. Output:. Error: signal: terminated"

 

[U.P.Guy]

Yes follow my post i just posted it will remove database ..

I did this and have the same problem.

 

[Erica-Renee]

I did this and have the same problem.

@Ranjib will replay when he comes to check on our mistakes ......He is the Master