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

[rushbattle]

Good troubleshooting is just a logical orderly process of elimination!

It's so easy to assume that it is some weird second order effect, but it comes down to continuity between points usually. In other words, it's hard for me to start with the easy and obvious. My mind goes straight to a really odd part failure or something instead.

 

[stefanm]

I've also got these nice connectors, all 10 pin and waterproof, six are for my 3 pendant lights when I get around to swapping them out and one is spare for the controller, now I wish I'd bought some more....

 

[Ranjib]

Good troubleshooting is just a logical orderly process of elimination!

Well said

 

[theatrus]

@theatrus
I bought 2 drok branded before Xmas that are fantastic. 12 dollars for 2 3m probes. Real high temp silicone insulation. Double crimped. Real Stainless, the wire was shielded. ALAS, they ran out and no more to be had. I work in industrial settimg and these are industrial quality!
The last one from Drok looks like the one in your picture...disappointing, but its going to be my ambient air temp sensor.

Yeah these looks really nice.

I’ve gotten some that were epoxy filled or capped and a flat bottom pill, but the steel wasn’t very stainless. All of these sensors are super cheap though, just wondering if it’s the labor effort to fix them vs using a better one (e.g. the SparkFun one)

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

Has anyone gotten the optical sensor working on the pico board yet?

 

[tankaholic]

context?? is this here in r2r thread?

I still have yet to start of the beginning of this thread...Work has been crazy with xmas holiday and now
valentines day is around corner...It is on my MUST READ list...just skimming other people's build threads
to see if my goals are possible and is there a shopping list??

I do have tons of questions after all reading so far...Can I ask her or do i need to do somewhere else?
thanks in advance

 

[Bigtrout]

Yeah these looks really nice.

I’ve gotten some that were epoxy filled or capped and a flat bottom pill, but the steel wasn’t very stainless. All of these sensors are super cheap though, just wondering if it’s the labor effort to fix them vs using a better one (e.g. the SparkFun one)

I may poke around industrial sites looking for something similar to those 2...who knows, they may be decently priced

 

[bishoptf]

I may poke around industrial sites looking for something similar to those 2...who knows, they may be decently priced

I still see these on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/DROK-Tempera...d=1547343645&sr=8-3&keywords=DS18B20+silicone

 

[Bigtrout]

I still see these on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/DROK-Tempera...d=1547343645&sr=8-3&keywords=DS18B20+silicone

Thats the ones i got...they are back in stock! Ordering another set now!

Ordered! They have been out of stock since before Xmas...

 

[bishoptf]

Thats the ones i got...they are back in stock! Ordering another set now!

wooot

 

[bishoptf]

I didn't get everything I wanted to get done today due to the 12+inches of snow on the ground, heavy wet snow. Have about half the driveway left to do, anyone want to lend a hand?

I did get my reef-pi mounted and the temp probes are in the tanks, so I did make some progress, will have some pictures tomorrow on the installation, more wire management kungfu left to do.

 

[bishoptf]

Can someone provide more information regarding the lighting pwm configuration. I am currently using the rpi pwm circuits and was playing around with the auto setting to simulate sunrise/sunset but trying to understand what I am seeing. I have the settings to come on at 10am @ 10% then @12 go to 30% then @2 go to 45% and then ramp down from there.

What I see though is its 10:48 local time and it appears that if I turn off the 10am setting it doesn't go off, it appears to be using the 12pm setting, if I set the 12pm setting to 0 then it stays on the 10am setting unless its 0 then its off. Basically in order to turn it off you have to have both the 10am and 12pm setting set to 0. Maybe its ramping up from the 10am to the 12pm setting, so from 10% to 30%.

I did a search and tried to find more detailed information concerning the light auto setting but just havn't found the information that explains how it works.

Nevermind I found it in the adafruit guides:

reef-pi linearly increments/decrements the PWM values in between the two-hour intervals. This is an effective way to simulate the daylight cycle with finer control over how steep the PWM value ramp up/down will be.
​

 

[Bigtrout]

@Ranjib
I have a question on the temperature controller. Fooling around with it, I take it there is no hysteresis setting yet?
For example if you set it at 78, the heater goes on above 78 and goes off below 78?
I recall that a hysteresis band may be a 3.0 feature?

As an example there are 2 different ways your home thermostat works to keep the house temps steady.
One method is your thermostat has a hysteresis or "swing" setting. To prevent your furnace from cycling too fast if you set the temp at 78, with a hysteresis of 1 degree, the furnace will run until it is 78 degrees and shut off, and not come back on until the temp drops 1 degree below 78. Smaller swing settings mean the heat cycles more often, larger swing settings make it cycle less often but with more of a temperature swing.

The second method a home t-stat can prevent short cycling is by using a cycles per hour method. If you set the cycles per hour to lets say 6, and thr temperature to 78, every ten mins the tstat checks to see if its below 78, and will run the furnace until it hits the target and shut down. More cycles per hour means a steadier temp, but too many cycles per hour cause the furnace to short cycle and turn on and off too much.

For anyone interested, reef pi already has a cycles per hour method. It can be set up by how often the temp controller checks the temperature!
If you set reef pi temp controller to 78 degrees, and check temperature every 5 seconds, it will read temp every 5 seconds and turn on the heater when it drops below 78, and turn it off when it reads above 78. The longer the check temp interval is set, the less often the heater runs but it will have a longer run time, and you will get a greater temperature swing . The shorter you set the check temp interval, the heater will run more often, but for shorter run times and keep the temperature steadier. No one wants the heater clicking on and off once a second, so this setting can be fine tuned to your specific tank and heater combo.

 

[Bigtrout]

Can someone provide more information regarding the lighting pwm configuration. I am currently using the rpi pwm circuits and was playing around with the auto setting to simulate sunrise/sunset but trying to understand what I am seeing. I have the settings to come on at 10am @ 10% then @12 go to 30% then @2 go to 45% and then ramp down from there.

What I see though is its 10:48 local time and it appears that if I turn off the 10am setting it doesn't go off, it appears to be using the 12pm setting, if I set the 12pm setting to 0 then it stays on the 10am setting unless its 0 then its off. Basically in order to turn it off you have to have both the 10am and 12pm setting set to 0. Maybe its ramping up from the 10am to the 12pm setting, so from 10% to 30%.

I did a search and tried to find more detailed information concerning the light auto setting but just havn't found the information that explains how it works.

Nevermind I found it in the adafruit guides:

reef-pi linearly increments/decrements the PWM values in between the two-hour intervals. This is an effective way to simulate the daylight cycle with finer control over how steep the PWM value ramp up/down will be.
​

You beat me to the punch!

 

[brandon clow]

So I have been successfully using reef pi since the start of November. Mainly the temp and Lighting PWM function. I ran into an issue today that has me wondering about the limitation of the PCA9685 board. I run 3 boards, one for each light fixture. They are equipped with a ldd mean well 1000mA (blues), 1000mA(Whites), and a 700mA(UV/Violets). Each board has jumpers to enable the PWM function of the ldd driver. I use a total of 9 pins from the PCA board, all works great until I go 80% on my blues, 60% on my whites, and 80 on my UV/Violets. The entire system dims to almost in half on every pwm output (visually, since the system status in terminal shows whats set in the UI of reef pi). I can pull all 9 jumpers and 100% on every channel without issue. I am only using the PWM portion of thePCA9685. I did validate that I can run a 80/60/80 on two lights and the last one at a 80/10/80 without loss but anything higher on the last one starts to dim the rest of the system.

Any ideas? I have also played with the frequency with stop and start command in the terminal after to make sure its getting a fresh start after hitting update int he UI.

 

[Bigtrout]

So I have been successfully using reef pi since the start of November. Mainly the temp and Lighting PWM function. I ran into an issue today that has me wondering about the limitation of the PCA9685 board. I run 3 boards, one for each light fixture. They are equipped with a ldd mean well 1000mA (blues), 1000mA(Whites), and a 700mA(UV/Violets). Each board has jumpers to enable the PWM function of the ldd driver. I use a total of 9 pins from the PCA board, all works great until I go 80% on my blues, 60% on my whites, and 80 on my UV/Violets. The entire system dims to almost in half on every pwm output (visually, since the system status in terminal shows whats set in the UI of reef pi). I can pull all 9 jumpers and 100% on every channel without issue. I am only using the PWM portion of thePCA9685. I did validate that I can run a 80/60/80 on two lights and the last one at a 80/10/80 without loss but anything higher on the last one starts to dim the rest of the system.

Any ideas? I have also played with the frequency with stop and start command in the terminal after to make sure its getting a fresh start after hitting update int he UI.

How are you powering your PCA board?

 

[brandon clow]

How are you powering your PCA board?

Right from the pi...that's what I have been wondering if I need to get a separate 5v power supply to the pca board.

 

[Bigtrout]

Right from the pi...that's what I have been wondering if I need to get a separate 5v power supply to the pca board.

And you are running just a pwm signal from the PCA, one to each meanwell LDD? Do you have a pic of your hook ups

 

[stefanm]

Right from the pi...that's what I have been wondering if I need to get a separate 5v power supply to the pca board.

If it helps, I run a clone of storm x for my lights, based on Arduino, the PCA is powered directly from the Arduino, the pwm output goes to the meanwell drivers, the ground and + are not used on the output, should be the same on the pi, you do need to put are wire from the output side of the pwm ground and common it to the PSU of the lights.

And don't forget the pull down on the ldd's from the pwm.

 

[Bigtrout]

If it helps, I run a clone of storm x for my lights, based on Arduino, the PCA is powered directly from the Arduino, the pwm output goes to the meanwell drivers, the ground and + are not used on the output, should be the same on the pi, you do need to put are wire from the output side of the pwm ground and common it to the PSU of the lights.

And don't forget the pull down on the ldd's from the pwm.

Grounding was going to be my next question, kinda why I wanted to see his hookups