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

[Matt Carden]

Double post

 

[Ikk]

welcome to reef2reef and thank you for trying out reef-pi.
Now, onto hs300 setup
- Go to Configuration -> Drivers section and add a new driver with type "hs300" and provide ip:port as addresss. Port should be 9999. IP you can get from your wifi router.
- Go to connector section and create 6 new outlet and analog inputs. You can name them whatever you want. I prefer to use Plug1 -> Plug6 to reflect Kasa's original naming. Associate them with pin 0 to 5 for plug1 to plug 6.
- After that you can create equipment and associate them with relevant outlets. You can also create fake ph probes and associate them with the corresponding analog input to chart current usage (in Amps)

This is probably the third time im writing these steps down :-( , i really need some help to update the adafruit guides

 

[Ikk]

Thank you so much for your help. Sorry for not finding the prior instructions. I did go through a bunch of different discussions, but didn't find any like the ones you just provided. I ordered a Leviathan board, and will be using it on a Frag Tank I am setting up. If all goes well, I will add one to my main aquarium. Once again thank you for your dedication and help.

 

[Ranjib]

Different, but basically the same. As per my previous post, yes, AC Positive and Negative are switching at the Hz cycle - 60 times a second, so both wires are essentially the same. Hot / Neutral / Positive / Negative = same-same :) Like I said - different terminology.

Your gfci is used as what we call "Earth Leakage Unit" over here. While I'm not 100% sure exactly how our units work, I was under the impression that they monitored the earth connection and tripped if a value larger than a certain milliamp reading was sensed. Hence the importance of connecting those wires to equipment chassis etc.

Thank you for the clarification.

GFCI detects sudden surge in usage (amp) and break the circuit if needed. It can be used in cases where Ground or earth is not available.
There are subtle difference between the neutral and live wire. Though they both carry current, neutral will read 0 volt compared to ground, while live/hot wire will read 120V compared to ground. Most equipment will not be impacted by this difference, but some will. Its a very common question and you'll find plenty of stack threads and quora questions on this exact topic.

 

[Zippyfear]

The ATO is running well and consistently for the last few days, but I was doing a water change the other day and it ran a lot, didn't alert or shut off as expected.. Is the alert # in seconds for any given hour? It ran 2 hours straight with no alert or shutoff. I also noticed someone asked about that the other day and I didn't see if there was a reply or anyone verified that it wasn't a bug in 3.3

 

[Bigtrout]

GFCI detects sudden surge in usage (amp) and break the circuit if needed. It can be used in cases where Ground or earth is not available.
There are subtle difference between the neutral and live wire. Though they both carry current, neutral will read 0 volt compared to ground, while live/hot wire will read 120V compared to ground. Most equipment will not be impacted by this difference, but some will. Its a very common question and you'll find plenty of stack threads and quora questions on this exact topic.

As an electrician I will chime in here to hopefully clear a few things up. This is for the US and only applies to residential electric services. Commercial and industrial stuff can be much different.

The transformer feeding your house has a 240V secondary winding. It is center tapped giving you 120V between one leg and the center tap and 120 volt between the other leg and the center tap. This center tap is grounded and is called your NEUTRAL wire. The legs are your HOT wires. The reason it is grounded is to keep the voltage between each leg and ground at 120v to ground. If the neutral was not grounded with differing current loads on each leg, one leg could go to 180v to ground while the other dipped to 60v. It also gives a low impedance path to ground that allows breakers to trip at their current rating.
The Hot wires are the black wire on an outlet. The neutral wire is the white wire.

You also have another wire. The green wire which is the equipment ground. The GROUND wire is bonded to the NEUTRAL wire at the service entrance panel and both are grounded there. They are not connected at any other place other than at the service panel. The equipment ground is for safety and gives a dedicated low impedance path for electricity to go to ground safely(instead of thru you or other things). In most equipment this connects to the metal frame of the equipment being used.

GFCI breakers and outlets work like this:
Both the HOT and the NEUTRAL wire have a current transformer to sense the amount of current that flows thru each. These currents should be equal. If 1.3 amps flows on the HOT wire then 1.3 amps should flow on the NEUTRAL wire. If these currents are NOT EQUAL it means current must be flowing to ground somewhere else, which is unsafe because it could be flowing thru a person or some othet unwanted path that a person could come in contact with.

If the current sensed on the HOT wire differs from the current on the NEUTRAL wire by greatet than 5 milliamps. Then the GFCI trips. Why the 5 milliamp threshold? Because more than 5 milliamps flowing thru your heart can stop or damage it.

You may have another special breaker called an AFCI or an arc fault circuit breaker which works as @Ranjib described. If it senses a large current flowing very quickly it trips. This means something is arcing which causes a large current spike in a short amount of time. These can trip sometimes when high current motor starts which sometimes have a high enough current spike to cause nuisance trips.

Hope this clears things up a bit

 

[Matevz Savarin]

Would it be difficult to add reset button for charts?lets say my ato doses 10; but when I am out of water it d0ses 3600, so this number stays and I cant see 10 s graphs anymore.. if there would be reset it would be great. Now I have to delete it and make another..its same with other graphs..it takes a lot of work and if I delete it in diffrent order, i get something error and then I need to import settings and do it again..
Really annoying..

 

[Ranjib]

The ATO is running well and consistently for the last few days, but I was doing a water change the other day and it ran a lot, didn't alert or shut off as expected.. Is the alert # in seconds for any given hour? It ran 2 hours straight with no alert or shutoff. I also noticed someone asked about that the other day and I didn't see if there was a reply or anyone verified that it wasn't a bug in 3.3

I just tested this with slightly different values (5 second poll and 100s disable threshold) . This is the third time we have encountered this, if i recall correctly. The limit values are enforced at an hour level.
I am running some more tests with exactly your setting to see if i can reproduce. The ato alert and all other settings were exactly same on 13th and 16th March (those peak utilization days)?

In my case I could see the ato being disabled and the ato usage chart is also not visible (since we dont show it for disabled ato's in reef-pi).

 

[Ranjib]

Would it be difficult to add reset button for charts?lets say my ato doses 10; but when I am out of water it d0ses 3600, so this number stays and I cant see 10 s graphs anymore.. if there would be reset it would be great. Now I have to delete it and make another..its same with other graphs..it takes a lot of work and if I delete it in diffrent order, i get something error and then I need to import settings and do it again..
Really annoying..

right now there is no easy way,. as the charts are built from the usage data directly. You can use the reef-pi db command to edit the ato_usage value to get rid of that specific usage, if you are up for some command :
1) Stop reef-pi
2) Get a list of ato id's. Identify the one that you want to fix
3) Dump the usage data of that ato in a file.
4) Edit that file to remove the value (with whatever you prefer). And then update it .

I am sharing the exact command for my ato (with id). I have the jq command installed to make it easy to read the usage data (installl: sudo apt-get install jq)

sudo systemctl stop reef-pi.service
sudo reef-pi db list ato
reef-pi db -store reef-pi.db  show ato_usage 2  | jq .  > usage.json
cat usage.json | sudo reef-pi db updare ato_usage 2

I have updated the doc with reef-pi db usage :-0) . I realize i should not wait for long release and start incrementally update the official docs.. even if their quality if not great, at least having these details there saves my time :) .

 

[Des Westcott]

right now there is no easy way,. as the charts are built from the usage data directly. You can use the reef-pi db command to edit the ato_usage value to get rid of that specific usage, if you are up for some command :
1) Stop reef-pi
2) Get a list of ato id's. Identify the one that you want to fix
3) Dump the usage data of that ato in a file.
4) Edit that file to remove the value (with whatever you prefer). And then update it .

I am sharing the exact command for my ato (with id). I have the jq command installed to make it easy to read the usage data (installl: sudo apt-get install jq)

sudo systemctl stop reef-pi.service
sudo reef-pi db list ato
reef-pi db -store reef-pi.db  show ato_usage 2  | jq .  > usage.json
cat usage.json | sudo reef-pi db updare ato_usage 2

I have updated the doc with reef-pi db usage :-0) . I realize i should not wait for long release and start incrementally update the official docs.. even if their quality if not great, at least having these details there saves my time :) .

I tried this to familiarise myself with the process.

When I run "reef-pi db -store reef-pi.db show ato_usage 2 | jq . > usage.json" I get the following
"parse error: Invalid numeric literal at line 1, column 7"

My ATO ID's seem to be 1, 2, 3, so I tried all of them as options and get the same response. Maybe this fiddling around stuff just isn't for me LOL

 

[Ranjib]

I tried this to familiarise myself with the process.

When I run "reef-pi db -store reef-pi.db show ato_usage 2 | jq . > usage.json" I get the following
"parse error: Invalid numeric literal at line 1, column 7"

My ATO ID's seem to be 1, 2, 3, so I tried all of them as options and get the same response. Maybe this fiddling around stuff just isn't for me LOL

Try with sudo and you don’t have to pass the -store argemnt, the example was from my laptop, for actual build the default (/var/lib/reef-pi/reef-pi.db) should work

 

[Des Westcott]

Try with sudo and you don’t have to pass the -store argemnt, the example was from my laptop, for actual build the default (/var/lib/reef-pi/reef-pi.db) should work

Thanks

I was using Putty from my laptop. I'll try VNC in as well and see if I get a result

 

[cnidus]

Just wanted to pop my head in here and say thanks everyone for creating this project & community! I've been out of the hobby for 6 years and just getting a tank plumbed and setup, finding reef-pi is the highlight so far (but plumbing hardpipes is a close 2nd).

I put myself in for the robotank hardware kickstarter, to simplify the hardware build and got reef-pi installed on a RPi-2b I had laying around last night. Looking forward to getting the tank automated from day 1 :)

 

[Bigtrout]

Just wanted to pop my head in here and say thanks everyone for creating this project & community! I've been out of the hobby for 6 years and just getting a tank plumbed and setup, finding reef-pi is the highlight so far (but plumbing hardpipes is a close 2nd).

I put myself in for the robotank hardware kickstarter, to simplify the hardware build and got reef-pi installed on a RPi-2b I had laying around last night. Looking forward to getting the tank automated from day 1 :)

Be sure to make a build thread!!!

 

[Matevz Savarin]

Ranjib I managed to save db file for my ato 1 with this command:
reef-pi db -output reef-pi.db show ato_usage 1 | jq . > usage.json
but now I dont know how to open it.. yes I know:)
tnx

 

[skywurz]

Ranjib I managed to save db file for my ato 1 with this command:
reef-pi db -output reef-pi.db show ato_usage 1 | jq . > usage.json
but now I dont know how to open it.. yes I know:)
tnx

Notepad++ (Windows)
Nano(Linux)

 

[GaryE]

I'm getting errors when reef-pi tries to connect to adafruit IO, it's trying to connect with IPv6, but I have that disabled. What can I do about that?

 

[b4tn]

Has anyone hacked into an eheim auto feeder yet? I’m debating cracking mine open to try and make a reefpi auto feeder.

 

[theatrus]

Has anyone hacked into an eheim auto feeder yet? I’m debating cracking mine open to try and make a reefpi auto feeder.

Nope but keep us posted. I run one of the Eheim ones as a backup. I imagine the method of depressing the dispense now button will work the same as the other feeders.

 

[Ranjib]

Ranjib I managed to save db file for my ato 1 with this command:
reef-pi db -output reef-pi.db show ato_usage 1 | jq . > usage.json
but now I dont know how to open it.. yes I know:)
tnx

Try nano . It’s a text editor .