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

[Ranjib]

I have the exact same concerns as you when it comes to safety. I don’t currently have a raspberry setup at all but I’m pretty much convinced I want to set one up using that adj 8ch relay. Can you explain with a little more detail your prototype circuit for converting the 3.3v to 12v. Is that accomplished with a transistor?.

Follow the adafruit guide on power controller (second guide ), it has all the details

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

That will be awesome , I’m seeing i2c error on the board , you could double check if you are experiencing same . I’m waiting on @theatrus to get back to me on this, as I suspect this has something to do with firmware. While I continue with the ph board

Okay. As all the probes with BNC connectors should work the same. I will buy a similar but different brand probe to see if it acts different.

I also read that the probes should output 0 mV at a ph of 7. Maybe negative equals greater than 7 ph and positive is less than 7.

Milwaukee Instruments MA913B/3 Is on the way.

 

[Bigtrout]

updates on the pico board ph test setup. There are three big observations:
- I am hitting some i2c issues, where the ADC ic is getting lost from i2c bus. persistently, after running several hours of monitoring at 1 min interval. I have manually verify this with i2cdetect -y 1
- Not sure why the millivolt reading is in negative, wrong byte read or something else..
- Also the trend is opposite. That time of the day , pH tend to go down.. I am not sure this is calibration will fix. We'll see. Can be bad probe . I am using american marine pin point probes ..bought from Amazon

Here is the four hour run for the sensor, before the i2c address was lost:

Around the breakage point:

I have rebooted pi and the i2c address for ADC reappeared., so sensor is sending data again. I'll see how it goes now. Meanwhile I'll start to put the ph board build in action some time this week. Stay tuned..

On the DO probe side, after reading through atlasscientific ezo circuit docs, I think reef-pi can read the DO probe as it is with ph driver code. So, if one does the do probe UART to I2c setup and calibration using the atlas scientific python code and then add the DO sensor as pH sensor in reef-pi, that should work. I'll see if I can get a sensor and ezo circuit , I have an extra voltage isolator and bnc probe (tentacle shield actually) ... but still its another 200-250$ :-O .

@Ranjib
pH above 7 is negative voltage, the more negative the voltage the higher the ph

pH at 7 is zero volts

pH below 7 is positive voltage, the more positive the number is, the lower the ph

 

[PaulJ2303]

you guys are great i'm so chuffed to be able to follow on and build the fruits of your labours ... fruits lol you see what i did there :)

 

[Zekth]

@DirtDiggler2823 here is my screenshot, it's only been 4 days since I had to rebuild due to the last upgrade, but mine stays pretty level...

Here are my telemetry settings:

View attachment 1042394

Tom, are those peaks corresponding to your timer? Looks like loading something and GC cleaning it.

 

[bishoptf]

Tom, are those peaks corresponding to your timer? Looks like loading something and GC cleaning it.

Good question I've never really paid much attention to it since the CPU and memory stay pretty low. I am driving lights via rpi pwm, and have timers for one additional light. Also one of my heaters is being controlled by reef-pi but it has warmed up here and it shouldn't be coming on. I can do a top and see what processes are most active, but it's pretty much just dedicated to reef-pi. I'm running raspbian lite and no additional packages.

 

[Kremins]

Just thought I would throw this out there as an example. I bought a bundle of the temp sensors on Amazon which was 5 for about the same price as the 2 pack of Drok sensors. I had these hooked up to my reef-pi through a Y adapter and pico board, even though they were advertised as stainless steel you can see it is not high quality from the picture. As soon as I noticed I ordered the Drok sensors and replaced them. Right one was on my IM14 in the tank since January and the left one was in my IM40 that I just started cycling at the beginning of March.

 

[buddy.]

Just thought I would throw this out there as an example. I bought a bundle of the temp sensors on Amazon which was 5 for about the same price as the 2 pack of Drok sensors. I had these hooked up to my reef-pi through a Y adapter and pico board, even though they were advertised as stainless steel you can see it is not high quality from the picture. As soon as I noticed I ordered the Drok sensors and replaced them. Right one was on my IM14 in the tank since January and the left one was in my IM40 that I just started cycling at the beginning of March.

All of my amazon probes did the same thing. They continued to work but I removed them anyway. I have since bought the Drok probes.

 

[Ranjib]

@Ranjib
pH above 7 is negative voltage, the more negative the voltage the higher the ph

pH at 7 is zero volts

pH below 7 is positive voltage, the more positive the number is, the lower the ph

Hmm.. that's interesting, thank you so much for sharing this information. If this is the case then I should expect the reading to be positive during afternoon hours, i.e. when ph is high. I have not checked my pico tank's ph, but I know the nano is definitely always above 7

 

[Ranjib]

Tom, are those peaks corresponding to your timer? Looks like loading something and GC cleaning it.

Since I started using the grafana integrations (with 3.0 development branch) I have lot more data around memory utilization. Here is the usage of my pico tank's controller (running @theatrus ' base board with one temp sensor, adj power strip, pwm control for light). Notice the two restart even (me testing the ph setup)

And here is the memory consumption of reef-pi app/process specifically.. i see theres some increase periodically, but nothing too concerning yet.

I'll keep you all posted about my findings. Let me know if you want to me test out anything specific. It's been little crazy testing out all the different versions with different setups :-) , but I do want to address any serious performance issues if there any

 

[PaulJ2303]

Just thought I would throw this out there as an example. I bought a bundle of the temp sensors on Amazon which was 5 for about the same price as the 2 pack of Drok sensors. I had these hooked up to my reef-pi through a Y adapter and pico board, even though they were advertised as stainless steel you can see it is not high quality from the picture. As soon as I noticed I ordered the Drok sensors and replaced them. Right one was on my IM14 in the tank since January and the left one was in my IM40 that I just started cycling at the beginning of March.

I've
seen someone previously covered their temp probe in silicone to stop the rust ... is that a good idea do you think ?

 

[hockeyhead019]

Since I started using the grafana integrations (with 3.0 development branch) I have lot more data around memory utilization. Here is the usage of my pico tank's controller (running @theatrus ' base board with one temp sensor, adj power strip, pwm control for light). Notice the two restart even (me testing the ph setup)

And here is the memory consumption of reef-pi app/process specifically.. i see theres some increase periodically, but nothing too concerning yet.

I'll keep you all posted about my findings. Let me know if you want to me test out anything specific. It's been little crazy testing out all the different versions with different setups :) , but I do want to address any serious performance issues if there any

Is this running on a pi zero or full pi? I doubt there should be any differences besides RAM availability, just curious.

 

[Bigtrout]

Is this running on a pi zero or full pi? I doubt there should be any differences besides RAM availability, just curious.

I monitor 3 temps, control 2 heaters, power conttoller, 4 channels of PWM for lights with some assorted macros and timers, with a pi zero w and memory hangs aroynd 9 percent. A pi zero is just fine.

 

[bishoptf]

Hmm.. that's interesting, thank you so much for sharing this information. If this is the case then I should expect the reading to be positive during afternoon hours, i.e. when ph is high. I have not checked my pico tank's ph, but I know the nano is definitely always above 7

I no nothing about salt water but for freshwater planted tanks the pH goes down when the lights are on, even more so with co2 injection. I would suspect even with salt water you should see a difference when the lights are on vs when they are off, probably not as high of a swing but a difference none the less.

:)

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

I've
seen someone previously covered their temp probe in silicone to stop the rust ... is that a good idea do you think ?

Silicone doesn’t seem durable enough for me. I potted mine in 2 part epoxy. But the better solution is the drok probe made of better material.

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

@Ranjib
pH above 7 is negative voltage, the more negative the voltage the higher the ph

pH at 7 is zero volts

pH below 7 is positive voltage, the more positive the number is, the lower the ph

This is great news!

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

Tom, are those peaks corresponding to your timer? Looks like loading something and GC cleaning it.

I have some telemetry going to adafruit, but all of my system errors are related to certain communications with adafruit failing. My memory usage is creeping up to 30% now.

 

[bishoptf]

I have some telemetry going to adafruit, but all of my system errors are related to certain communications with adafruit failing. My memory usage is creeping up to 30% now.

@DirtDiggler2823 that's a good catch, I am not doing any telemetry to adafruit so maybe it has something to do with that since that appears to be a major difference.

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

@DirtDiggler2823 that's a good catch, I am not doing any telemetry to adafruit so maybe it has something to do with that since that appears to be a major difference.

Quite possibly. I'm not getting all of the telemetry I should be getting, but i get some of it. Might have to do a total controller rebuild once 3.0 comes out.

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

@DirtDiggler2823 that's a good catch, I am not doing any telemetry to adafruit so maybe it has something to do with that since that appears to be a major difference.

Maybe I'll turn that function off and reboot. I'm not getting any value out of the adafruit telemetry functions.