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

[marekd1]

@Michael Lane Do you have a thread where you'd prefer people ask questions rather than this beast?

Does the goby hat *require* its own power source? I'm not clear on that, I know it *can* use one, but am not sure if it's necessary.

I wired up a temp probe this morning, enabled temperature in 3.0, rebooted, but the Sesnor list remains empty, so I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. I plugged in the hat, wired up a ds18b20 (all colors to like wires) and plugged the probe into the hat.

Make sure the DS18b20 is properly connected

 

[raketemensch]

Yup, I just looked at the FAQ, and it clearly states:

JST wire colors may not match the temperature probe wire colors.

I'll have to experiment to find the right colors with these probes. Glad I didn't solder yet :]

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Yup, I just looked at the FAQ, and it clearly states:



I'll have to experiment to find the right colors with these probes. Glad I didn't solder yet :]

Yeah that's the only downside to these probes. There is pretty much no standard they conform to, at least color wise. Basically, you're rolling the dice if you've got it wired up right.

Best bet is to use a vendor for which color codes are known from other diy-ers.

Also, it's not limited to temp sensors. My optical/no contact sensors are two completely different colors and no documentation lol. Makes things fun with 4 wires.

 

[Des Westcott]

Hi, i need help figuring how to power @Michael Lane Hat to work with 2 sets of 8 (5V) relay switch
i will be providing separate power to the relay boards and using VCC signal from reef pi (or Hat in this case).
the first set is easy as i will use the 8 GPIO breakout pins and the positive line with them
the second set will be connected to the other GPIO pins connected through ULN2803, this is originally designed to receive 12 V for 12V relays, i have seen others saying to connect 5 volt instead of the 12v to power the ULN2803
i need clarification to this step
do i connect positive and negative to the 12V or since ill be powering the relays from a separate power source i can use the VCC from the first breakout set to signal the second relays
I'm upgrading my original setup to use ML HAT and it was designed to work with separate power supply for the relays as i feel it will keep the load low on reef pi. in the original setup i connected 2 5V from Pi to VCC of relay board and it worked great

thanks for your help

I run one of @Michael Lane Reef-Pi Hats and had exactly the same question as you

As per the image above, you can see that there are the 5V GPIO pins labeled IO21 to IO5 or "Power 1". These are made to run 5V relays directly off the RPi. Below are the pins labeled IO8 to IO23 or "Power 2". These are meant to run 12V relays powered through 12V supplied by the "12V Power" port and the ULN2803A.

What I am doing is running 8 x 5V relays through the ULN2803A by supplying 5V to the "12V Power" port. Then I run 8 x 5V relays directly off the GPIO pins. Below is the picture Michael sent me when I asked him the same questions.

 

[Des Westcott]

Yup, I just looked at the FAQ, and it clearly states:



I'll have to experiment to find the right colors with these probes. Glad I didn't solder yet :]

If you go by the pin layout @Michael Lane supplies above and match that to the manufacturer's details, I have not had a problem yet. But no. Colours do not correspond.

 

[burningbaal]

OK, I was stupid and bricked my sd card, so I'm resetting everything with reef-pi 3 now. I got through the walkthrough to apt-get upgrade and do the config for pwm-2chan and i2c and 1 wire and SLI, etc. I dkpg the deb file and when I go to the url on my other computer, it just shows a white page. error in the reef-pi logs (it does say it's running) includes:
Initializing DB for timers bucket
Dec 25 12:56:48 reefpikjm reef-pi[1453]: 2019/12/25 12:56:48 Successfully started subsystem: timers
Dec 25 12:56:48 reefpikjm reef-pi[1453]: 2019/12/25 12:56:48 reef-pi is up and running
Dec 25 12:56:48 reefpikjm reef-pi[1453]: 2019/12/25 12:56:48 ERROR: Failed to load credentials. Error Item 'credentials' does not exist in bucket 'reef-pi'
Dec 25 12:56:48 reefpikjm reef-pi[1453]: 2019/12/25 12:56:48 ERROR: health checker. Failed to load usage. Error: Item 'health_stats' does not exist in bucket 'reef-pi'
Dec 25 12:56:48 reefpikjm reef-pi[1453]: 2019/12/25 12:56:48 Starting health checker
Dec 25 12:56:48 reefpikjm reef-pi[1453]: 2019/12/25 12:56:48 Starting http server at: 0.0.0.0:80
Dec 25 12:56:48 reefpikjm reef-pi[1453]: Methods: [GET]
Dec 25 12:56:48 reefpikjm reef-pi[1453]: 2019/12/25 12:56:48 API Doc path: /api/settings
Dec 25 12:57:48 reefpikjm reef-pi[1453]: 2019/12/25 12:57:48 health check: Used memory: 21.9 Load5: 0.56
Dec 25 12:58:48 reefpikjm reef-pi[1453]: 2019/12/25 12:58:48 health check: Used memory: 22.08 Load5: 0.55

FYI, I installed teamviewer and I'm super stoked about being able to (essentially) RDP into it from anywhere!

 

[burningbaal]

hmmm....so it works when I type in the ip in my laptop's browser, but not by hostname. I don't get a rejection, just a white page. html I'm getting by hostname:

<html><head></head><body></body></html>

 

[raketemensch]

For me, it went:

JST red -> probe black
JST black -> probe yellow
JST yellow -> probe red

 

[raketemensch]

Three probes up and running -- more than I need, probably, but still:

1) Main tank
2) Main tank backup
3) Sump

That was pretty easy in the end. I do have to find the right silicone before I can drop them in the tank, though.

I also did a calibration to 32F via an insulated mug, water and a ton of ice cubes, with lots of stirring and 4 minutes of letting the temp stabilize.

Thanks for the help, everyone!

 

[raketemensch]

I'm a little confused about how the ATO works on the goby board.

I've got an ATO set up already using a float switch and a 5v relay, so I have everything I need to hook it up to the reef-pi, but I'm unsure about the wiring. It seems like normally you would set up the float switch as an inlet and then set an outlet to the rely, but on this board there are two "ATO" labeled JST plugs.

Has anyone stumbled onto a guide for setting this up? The ATO is working well right now, but it would be awesome to hook it up to the pi so I can see how often/when it triggers, as I'm trying to adjust things to better stabilize my salinity.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

I'm a little confused about how the ATO works on the goby board.

I've got an ATO set up already using a float switch and a 5v relay, so I have everything I need to hook it up to the reef-pi, but I'm unsure about the wiring. It seems like normally you would set up the float switch as an inlet and then set an outlet to the rely, but on this board there are two "ATO" labeled JST plugs.

Has anyone stumbled onto a guide for setting this up? The ATO is working well right now, but it would be awesome to hook it up to the pi so I can see how often/when it triggers, as I'm trying to adjust things to better stabilize my salinity.

Didn't follow any guide other than basic ATO guide from Ranjib on ReefPi. It's really easy with the hat.

Wire up a "low-level" float switch, optical, no-contact sensor to the ATO plug on thr HAT. In ReefPi, create an inlet tied to one of the GPIOs (18,27). Go into ATO tab, select the inlet you created and use it to trigger an outlet (power bar) to activate the ATO pump. This runs until the "low" level sensor is tripped which turns off the outlet for the ATO pump.

Hope that makes sense. I got a bottle of 17 year Balvenie Doublebarrel for Xmas so I'm doing some quality assurance testing now... You know, just to be safe. I might be of more help tomorrow, but until then hopefully someone else can chime in as well.

 

[raketemensch]

Wire up a "low-level" float switch, optical, no-contact sensor to the ATO plug on thr HAT.

Where it falls apart for me is that the ATO plug is 4 wires, the float switch is two. I wasn't sure if the other two wires were related to the relay circuit.

In ReefPi, create an inlet tied to one of the GPIOs (18,27). Go into ATO tab, select the inlet you created and use it to trigger an outlet (power bar) to activate the ATO pump. This runs until the "low" level sensor is tripped which turns off the outlet for the ATO pump.

So in this case you are setting up the relay as a separate power bar/outlet, that makes sense to me, although it confuses me even more about why the ATO would need 4 wires...

Hope that makes sense. I got a bottle of 17 year Balvenie Doublebarrel for Xmas so I'm doing some quality assurance testing now... You know, just to be safe. I might be of more help tomorrow, but until then hopefully someone else can chime in as well.

I'm into some homemade 4-year old corn whiskey myself, which probably isn't helping...

 

[burningbaal]

Not sure what changed. It did power cycle because I moved where the rpi was plugged in, but I had tried reboots before to no avail.
But now it works by hostname just fine...weird

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Where it falls apart for me is that the ATO plug is 4 wires, the float switch is two. I wasn't sure if the other two wires were related to the relay circuit.



So in this case you are setting up the relay as a separate power bar/outlet, that makes sense to me, although it confuses me even more about why the ATO would need 4 wires...



I'm into some homemade 4-year old corn whiskey myself, which probably isn't helping...

Yeah I'm not sure about float switches, I'm using a no-contact sensor on the side of the sump which measures water level through the glass. It has a 4-wire plug.

As for power outlets, you had it right, it's a 5v 8 channel relay that controls 8 outlets triggered by pi GPIOs.

 

[burningbaal]

okay @Ranjib (don't rush...Today's Christmas and I'll be out of town until the weekend). But I finally got ssh'd into my reef-pi to check on that issue where my temp sensors would disappear on me. It happened again now that I've rebuilt the image from scratch (with reef-pi 3). I've got the whole thing working with my ADJ 8ch and timers/etc.
In the temp tab, I picked one of the three in the dropdowns as a temp gauge, but it soon disappeared.

so I have these directories:
$ ls /sys/bus/w1/devices/


22-29c8000a14c0 22-69c8000a14c0 22-a9c8000a14c0 w1_bus_master1


with this error message:
Failed to read sensor temp 1. Errorpen /sys/bus/w1/devices/28-0119123f5374/w1_slave: no such file or directory

 

[Ranjib]

okay @Ranjib (don't rush...Today's Christmas and I'll be out of town until the weekend). But I finally got ssh'd into my reef-pi to check on that issue where my temp sensors would disappear on me. It happened again now that I've rebuilt the image from scratch (with reef-pi 3). I've got the whole thing working with my ADJ 8ch and timers/etc.
In the temp tab, I picked one of the three in the dropdowns as a temp gauge, but it soon disappeared.

so I have these directories:
$ ls /sys/bus/w1/devices/


22-29c8000a14c0 22-69c8000a14c0 22-a9c8000a14c0 w1_bus_master1


with this error message:
Failed to read sensor temp 1. Errorpen /sys/bus/w1/devices/28-0119123f5374/w1_slave: no such file or directory

You have three different sensors detected , but none of them are the one that you had configured. Remind us about your setup? Any build thread I can look at?

 

[Ranjib]

Merry Christmas everyone

 

[raketemensch]

Merry Christmas everyone

thanks for everything you do!

 

[Ranjib]

Where it falls apart for me is that the ATO plug is 4 wires, the float switch is two. I wasn't sure if the other two wires were related to the relay circuit.



So in this case you are setting up the relay as a separate power bar/outlet, that makes sense to me, although it confuses me even more about why the ATO would need 4 wires...



I'm into some homemade 4-year old corn whiskey myself, which probably isn't helping...

im going with home made old fashioned this time, with Gentleman Jack (i prefer bourbon over rye).
The 4 wires are intended for phote electrics probes (such as the one by dfrobot, mentioned in the adafruit guide). You can use the first two wires of those 4 wires for float switch.
I'll let @Michael Lane confirm.

 

[Alaa]

I run one of @Michael Lane Reef-Pi Hats and had exactly the same question as you

As per the image above, you can see that there are the 5V GPIO pins labeled IO21 to IO5 or "Power 1". These are made to run 5V relays directly off the RPi. Below are the pins labeled IO8 to IO23 or "Power 2". These are meant to run 12V relays powered through 12V supplied by the "12V Power" port and the ULN2803A.

What I am doing is running 8 x 5V relays through the ULN2803A by supplying 5V to the "12V Power" port. Then I run 8 x 5V relays directly off the GPIO pins. Below is the picture Michael sent me when I asked him the same questions.

Much appreciated, very nice diagram.