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

[Nicolas Sabrun]

@Ranjib I've got a couple comments/questions

1. I'm definitely interested to see what hardware you can salvage from the Digital Aquatics kits that are now obsolete and unsupported

2. Have you done any investigations/studies on the limitations of the various pi models? I'm interested to give this a shot with the Pi Zero W instead of buying a Pi 3 kit strictly because of cost. I just want to make sure I'm not losing any functionality or limiting myself somehow by doing so.

Cheers on an awesome build and project! And your write ups on adafruit are fantastic and easy to follow.

I am plannimg on opening all my DA module and share pics on here to see if we can use any of these module with Pi. I think it will help a lot of people recycle their DA stuff.

I am actually asking myself the same question regarding the pi zero or 3B+

Anyone knows the limitations between the 2 in terms of expandability?

 

[Nicolas Sabrun]

My last question for the time being is:

Reef pi offers a ramp up/down on a 2h schedule. Can it be modify to a shorter ramp up/down? Like every 15mins.

 

[MaccaPopEye]

Would you mind sharing info?(wiring, parts needed...) How did you do to control your Mars Aqua?

I got 3 165w mars aqua that i would like to control again ( lost all automation since my RKE gave up)

I looked on here but the lighting control are for Kessil. The Mars Aqua use a 0-10v analog signal I believe. How did you get the pwm from Pi to VDM?

I could use all the help i can get. I am a dummie when it comes to electronic.

If you search my name in this thread and "black box" or something like that you should be able to find a post from a couple of days ago where I linked to some previous posts with good info on this (including a great how to video). I havent done it myself yet but i will eventually.

While the Mars aqua is an analog signal I believe it doesnt seem to have an issue with a pwm signal either (or maybe that is ok only the sb reef lights, I'm not sure)

 

[speedstar]

@wykat I think I found an error in your board layout or documentation. On the temperature sensor the tip goes to the GPO line with 4.7K resistor the middle ring goes to pin 17. I could not get the sensor working till I swapped them. hoe that makes sense Thanks

 

[Dave's Reef]

I got all three of my temps up and going thanks for the help. Is it possible to have all of them in the same graph?

 

[speedstar]

Starting to box it up, went with just a basic 9pin had them already, did the outlets I think different than most with whips and grommets, like the light-o-rama controllers use. Hopefully be testing again tonight.

Not waterproof but again I had the enclosures around.

Rebuilt it using the Hat board tonight. Ordering a new case plastic to drill it easier. Can anyone remind me where to go for the latest release the ATO doesn't seem to be correct in RC0 that I am running.

 

[Erica-Renee]

I am plannimg on opening all my DA module and share pics on here to see if we can use any of these module with Pi. I think it will help a lot of people recycle their DA stuff.

I am actually asking myself the same question regarding the pi zero or 3B+

Anyone knows the limitations between the 2 in terms of expandability?

Power and ports.. the pi zero is a 1ghz single core cpu , 1 micro usb port, 1 micro power port , 1 micro usb port, w variant has wifi built on board.

Pi 3 .. dual core 1.4 cpu.. 4 FULL Size usb ports, Full size hdmi port .. On board wifi and wired networking .

both have the same gpio
The pi zero is best ran with no gui Command line only .

Pi3 can run full gui operating system reef-pi Full web browsing and so on.

For a reef-pi build on a pi zero is perfectly fine. My full build is running on pi zero. but my next build will be pi3 .. I personally think having the Gui and working with pi on that device with its browser is useful..

Hope this helps ..

 

[speedstar]

What version does this ATO documentation refer too? https://reef-pi.github.io/build-guides/ato/ I can't seem to get RC0 to configure properly. Thanks

 

[hockeyhead019]

Power and ports.. the pi zero is a 1ghz single core cpu , 1 micro usb port, 1 micro power port , 1 micro usb port, w variant has wifi built on board.

Pi 3 .. dual core 1.4 cpu.. 4 FULL Size usb ports, Full size hdmi port .. On board wifi and wired networking .

both have the same gpio
The pi zero is best ran with no gui Command line only .

Pi3 can run full gui operating system reef-pi Full web browsing and so on.

For a reef-pi build on a pi zero is perfectly fine. My full build is running on pi zero. but my next build will be pi3 .. I personally think having the Gui and working with pi on that device with its browser is useful..

Hope this helps ..

So can you not run the GUI at all on the Zero W? Or is it just laggy because of the load on the processor?

 

[Erica-Renee]

What version does this ATO documentation refer too? https://reef-pi.github.io/build-guides/ato/ I can't seem to get RC0 to configure properly. Thanks

Not sure what all has changed it anything but here is a much better version
https://learn.adafruit.com/reef-pi-water-level-controller

 

[Erica-Renee]

So can you not run the GUI at all? Or is it just laggy because of the load on the processor?

You can. But for me its Super slow.. Command line is much better.. If you are patient it does kinda work..

 

[hockeyhead019]

You can. But for me its Super slow.. Command line is much better.. If you are patient it does kinda work..

Hmmm, sounds like it might be worth the extra couple bucks to grab a pi 3 and just have a smoother experience all around

 

[speedstar]

Not sure what all has changed it anything but here is a much better version
https://learn.adafruit.com/reef-pi-water-level-controller

im running rc0 and have noting that looks like that either. This is my screen shot and hitting save doesnt add it anyhow, but there is no option as to what to control either.

 

[wykat]

@wykat I think I found an error in your board layout or documentation. On the temperature sensor the tip goes to the GPO line with 4.7K resistor the middle ring goes to pin 17. I could not get the sensor working till I swapped them. hoe that makes sense Thanks

It should be wrong in the documentation then. Unfortunately I don't have that connector yet as I'm waiting for a larger order to avoid shipment costs. I tested it with just some normal jumper connectors and the temperature sensors (I believe I tested 3 DS18B20's simultaneously) did work for me.
Priority at the moment is to complete the PWM module, lay-out has been updated, BOM has been checked (several times) and I'm completing the documentation now. Will order the new PWM PCB's later today and upload to Github all files as soon as the doc is finished. Then I would like to make a review and update of the HAT module package. Therefor it's very helpful to get your feedback

 

[Nicolas Sabrun]

So I managed to open DA PB4 partially and the ALC module.

Judging by the picture, is there anyway to make the ALC with reef pi?

I was not able to take the top of PB4 off yet so I could not look at the relay in there.

Thank you for your advice.

 

[Ranjib]

This isn't a big deal. You can use a simple RC integrator circuit to turn the pwm into analog (aka low pass filter). Put a resistor on the output with a capacitor to ground. I used this technique to control Mars Aqua lights. I can help with specific values this evening.

exactly, 0-5V analog should work with 5V pwm, if not you can throw in some RC circuit to make it work

 

[Ranjib]

@Ranjib I've got a couple comments/questions

1. I'm definitely interested to see what hardware you can salvage from the Digital Aquatics kits that are now obsolete and unsupported

2. Have you done any investigations/studies on the limitations of the various pi models? I'm interested to give this a shot with the Pi Zero W instead of buying a Pi 3 kit strictly because of cost. I just want to make sure I'm not losing any functionality or limiting myself somehow by doing so.

Cheers on an awesome build and project! And your write ups on adafruit are fantastic and easy to follow.

pi zero can run pretty muchg everything as long as you are not running graphical user interface , i.e. install raspbian lite . reef-pi is written in go and is pretty lightweight compared to python/nodejs based apps. Its nearly as efficient as C. I run pi zero based AIO builds with ATO, Temperature , outlets and 2 channel pwm without any issues. I'l recommend going with the recommend check intervals and observe the CPU/Memory utilization and then go from there. Lesser check intervals will lead to higher CPU/Memory consumption. You want to run your build at less than 30% CPU and memory usage

 

[Ranjib]

From what I've read, the pump itself is analog and the controller is pwm, so it all depends on where you are adding the reef-pi connection.

I actually did a quick test of the PWM connection last night. I wired a 3.5 audio jack into the input for the Jabao controller (it comes with a dc jack in that spot so I just bypassed that to connect to the board), and changed the mode to "C" which is supposed to be controller mode. From there I just plugged in my Kessil input wire and played around with the lighting controls a bit. It did work, though I wasn't sure which channel was for what so I was essentially putting in numbers at random. I couldn't get a feeling for speed changes without taking the pump out of the tank, so I'm not sure if the controller was working to that degree either. What I did find was that a "0" setting on both channels turned it off, and 1-50 on both turned it on. A 0/50 made it kind of twitch a bit but not move, which I assume is some kind of conflict. I didn't want to go higher than 50 because I've read about the 5V signal max.

I also came to the same conclusion as @pickupman66 - writing the script to control it will be the challenge. @Ranjib you linked to the feed button example, which looks like a good place to start. I see it's a python script - would it get added into reef-pi as a macro? Is there a config for "if [this] --> run [script]"?

did you use 5V pwm or 10V pwm?Kessil uses 10V pwm, and i wont recommend using that. Use PCA9685 to get 5V PWM directly, without any transistor in between.

 

[Ranjib]

I am plannimg on opening all my DA module and share pics on here to see if we can use any of these module with Pi. I think it will help a lot of people recycle their DA stuff.

I am actually asking myself the same question regarding the pi zero or 3B+

Anyone knows the limitations between the 2 in terms of expandability?

Pi three is way more powerful, if you are planning to use GUI , then dont choose pi zero at all. Pi zero W is handy, small and does the job for pretty much all my builds except camera. I run all my builds in text mode, without any GUI (raspian lite)

 

[speedstar]

It should be wrong in the documentation then. Unfortunately I don't have that connector yet as I'm waiting for a larger order to avoid shipment costs. I tested it with just some normal jumper connectors and the temperature sensors (I believe I tested 3 DS18B20's simultaneously) did work for me.
Priority at the moment is to complete the PWM module, lay-out has been updated, BOM has been checked (several times) and I'm completing the documentation now. Will order the new PWM PCB's later today and upload to Github all files as soon as the doc is finished. Then I would like to make a review and update of the HAT module package. Therefor it's very helpful to get your feedback

Thanks for doing this it cleaned up my build a bunch. I'll mention anything else I might run across. My direct needs now don't require PWM, but once the board is available i'll add it to the stack and do some testing as well.