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

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Any suggestions for better quality relays assuming that turns out to be the issue?

Legit Omron (buy from Digikey, Arrow, etc) relays are probably the best you'll get without going to a solid state. Adding a snubber helps with eating the spikes when relay cycles (especially when DC equipment is turned off).

 

[brian.badge]

Legit Omron (buy from Digikey, Arrow, etc) relays are probably the best you'll get without going to a solid state. Adding a snubber helps with eating the spikes when relay cycles (especially when DC equipment is

Legit Omron (buy from Digikey, Arrow, etc) relays are probably the best you'll get without going to a solid state. Adding a snubber helps with eating the spikes when relay cycles (especially when DC equipment is turned off).

My current controller setup is leviathan board and enclosure. Looking at the relays I have now vs those at grainger I may be a bit over my head.

 

[ReeferLou]

Any suggestions for better quality relays assuming that turns out to be the issue?

Make sure you have snubber diodes on the relays - could extend the life.

 

[stefanm]

Any suggestions for better quality relays assuming that turns out to be the issue?

Try tapping the relays with a screwdriver handle, if they click then they're stuck. I'm going to switch over to solid state relays, I had a relay board fail last year, I bought a made in India board which is nice but two major flaws firstly the holes for standoffs are way too tiny and secondly the PCB thickness is 1mm or less very flimsy.

 

[stefanm]

Does anyone have an idea why the temp graphs do this on occasion?

This happens to me when it's been powered off, it takes about 6 hours to sort itself out, it seems to have new data over old data in the graph but works properly from version 3.4 onwards only.

 

[Des Westcott]

This happens to me when it's been powered off, it takes about 6 hours to sort itself out, it seems to have new data over old data in the graph but works properly from version 3.4 onwards only.

That makes sense to what it's doing then. Although I don't recall it losing power around that time. Might have been a bad dip that caused it.

I'm on version 4.1

 

[Des Westcott]

Anybody?

I run 2 x 500W heaters in my cube (just under 1000l total volume). For a while I just had them connected together and reef-pi treated them as one heater, I noticed that when they had to run, typically, they got the tank up to temp pretty quickly. The tank is in a non-climate controlled house in a sub tropical climate

What I've decided to do now is to separate them onto two separate temp monitors - using the same temp sensor in the sump. I've called them Temp1 and Temp2 (original, I know). Temp1 heater control is set at 25.5degC with a 0.2 hysterisis and Temp2 is set at 25.2 with a 0.2 hysterisis.

he thinking behind this is that on days where the ambient brings down the tank temp slowly, it heats up slowly and the days when it is colder, the extra horsepower of the 2 x heaters is available. I relaise in terms of the basic energy equation, that it takes the same amount of energy input to get a given volume of liquid from one temperature to another, so this isn't an energy saving measure, it's more about smoothing the curve of the temperature fluctuations.

As far as your issue with the boot-up time on the heaters you use...... What does that actually matter? Does the boot-up process require some human input, or does it run it's course automatically? To me, it wouldn't matter if there was a 1, 2 or even 3 minute delay between the controller turning the heater on and the heating actually starting.

I also like the Reef-Pi controlling the temperature and the built-it thermostat in the heater acting as the failsafe. Biggest benefit to me is the heater / chiller usage stats. It's helped me catch a faulty relay before.

 

[Ranjib]

For my pico tanks i use one two heaters both controlled by reef-pi. the hydor 50w one is set at 78 with reef-pi set at 79.5, hence its always on. The second one, (hygger??) is the one actually controlled (on/off) by reef-pi, at 79.5, and its own thermostat set at 81. This is due to my learning that the hydor by itself is not sufficient and tank was dropping down to 76 when the ambient temperature goes below 54 (tank is in my workshop). And the workshop does not have hvac, it gets 54 when ambient temperature dips below 32/31. From late December, i am using the ambient temperature to control a 800w dish heater via a kasa hs100 to keep workshow above 55. Its required only at late night to early morning, right before the sun comes out.


For the tank, all equipment are connected to hs300 power strip, and i can use the current monitoring data for the corresponding outlet (proxied as a ph probe) as an indicator of when /how frequently its turning on/off. During winter time its mostly on. In summer its opposite, the extra heater is replaced with fan and reef-pi starts to control both hydor heater as well as the fan. My tanks still hit 84/86F couple of times early in the season, later i built a evaporative cooler (controlled by reef-pi) that addressed it. Im still thinking of a better strategy for this year (to deal with the heat waves)

 

[bishoptf]

I've been playing with prometheus and grafana and have things kind of working but scratching my head on something. If I go back in time to look at a piece of equipment say -2days it shows me no data, but if I go back like 12 hours it does show data. Is there a retention setting somewhere in Grafana that I missed to set up, just not sure why it doesnt show me the historical data when I look back.

Thanks :)

 

[bishoptf]

Update, figured it out needed to increase my maximum data points to have it show me the data, so many knobs so much to learn. If anyone has any cheatsheets for grafana and what they have done with reefpi, let me know. Would love to see it etc... :)

 

[Boostable]

Update, figured it out needed to increase my maximum data points to have it show me the data, so many knobs so much to learn. If anyone has any cheatsheets for grafana and what they have done with reefpi, let me know. Would love to see it etc... :)

I thought you where making notes for the rest of us! :cool:

 

[Boostable]

Not a technical Reef-Pi subject, but thought I would share. I wanted to add a monitor to my tank, as I am always forgetting my phone when its feeding time and I wanted to be able to walk over in the morning and see how things are doing. I thought about using an old Iphone (which you can do) but I had an old Ipad Mini and decided to use that. Works great and just what i needed. I made a mount for it that goes on the tank. Here is it.

I printed it last night, came out great. Just figure I would share in case anyone has any interest in doing something similar. Can be scaled for phone, bigger ipad, other tablet, etc.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

Thoughts about why my Ph graphs look like this? It has all the data points but no graph. I've rebooted and no luck as well as deleted the ph Sensor from the page, and the ph sensor device itself. Im running 4.1 from the official repo. Also why is the current pH reading out to like 15 decimal places.

 

[Boostable]

Thoughts about why my Ph graphs look like this? It has all the data points but no graph. I've rebooted and no luck as well as deleted the ph Sensor from the page, and the ph sensor device itself. Im running 4.1 from the official repo. Also why is the current pH reading out to like 15 decimal places.

The decimal places can't be edited (yet) and any chance your graph color is set to white?

 

[bishoptf]

I thought you where making notes for the rest of us! :cool:

Yeah I am taking notes, install is easy enough but tweaking grafana setup etc, lot of knobs.

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

The decimal places can't be edited (yet) and any chance your graph color is set to white?

Is there a place to set the graph color? All ive done is setup a 2x2 grid and put in my temp and ph probes, i see nowhere to set colors?

 

[Alaa]

Reef-Pi controlled Jebao Wave Maker

Hi

I have 3 Jebao WM and I wanted to override their native controller to generate random flow in the tank. I researched the subject and came with no clear solution. There is plenty of data on return pump control, however the situation is different with WM as there is variable modes with different wave forms.

I bought a used WM for this project and as you see from the pic there is a central controller and 3 buttons (speed/feed, Mode/night, and WiFi link/lock), on the back there is the WiFi chip.

The 3 wire going out for the motor are positive, negative, and yellow one for the signal. The voltage on the + and – wires is always fixed at 24V. The yellow wire changes from 3.6 to 4.9 V, and is variable with the mode selected.

Being not able to control the central controller or the Wifii chip. I tried to connect the control buttons with relay switches. I connected the positive end of the speed and mode buttons to the NO side of RS, and the negative end to the comm. Then controlled the RS with reef pi, and it worked nicely.

For those with Jebao WM, you know that the speed button increase the speed with each press to max then decrease to the lowest and then back up again, to overcome this and start from the same speed each time you want to change the speed to the desired new setting for the required time, then when it is time to return back to the original speed you do a full cycle that is bring the speed to lowest first then back to the original speed. For example from 4 to 6 you turn the relay 2 times, however from 6 back to 4 you turn the relay 12 times so that next time you run your macro it will go from 4 to 6 and not from 4 to 2.

I hope this helps and if you have any suggestions or better ways to write the macros you are welcome to share.

 

[Des Westcott]

I did something similar a few weeks ago.

 

[Boostable]

Is there a place to set the graph color? All ive done is setup a 2x2 grid and put in my temp and ph probes, i see nowhere to set colors?

Now that you mention it, I am not sure the PH graph is editable. I am not in a position to verify, but can check later. Perhaps someone else will chime in on that. Browser issue?

 

[Boostable]

I did something similar a few weeks ago.

Comes in handy doesn't it.