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

[Ranjib]

But could others be used, the non green ones?

Some of them. Black & red ones can not be. Pink, blue and yellow ones can be, but you'll loose some other stuff.

What are you specifically looking for? you can hook upto 12-16 relays without touching the non-green ones

 

[dburg30]

Some of them. Black & red ones can not be. Pink, blue and yellow ones can be, but you'll loose some other stuff.

What are you specifically looking for? you can hook upto 12-16 relays without touching the non-green ones

I just get curious about such things.. Thanks!

 

[Ranjib]

I just get curious about such things.. Thanks!

For what its worth, the number of I/O pins should not limit us. As of now, I have not heard of anyone using more than 16 channel relay. In case if someone wants to build a much bigger (say 40 channel relay) we can introduce I/O expanders such as mcp23017, each of them will give 16 additional GPIOs and can be daisy chained on I2C pins (same one that pca9685 pwm IC uses).. this is one of the thing in my mind for post 1.0 as well

 

[alphab3ts00p]

I started making my own controller with a Raspberry Pi 2 and started looking around online to see if anyone had already done a lot of the heavy lifting and I came across this thread! this is awesome! I am a developer myself and would love to get involved with this project. (I need to build it first). Its nice to see that so many people agree that the hobby is so overpriced that we need to disrupt the market with DIY/OpenSource. A possible module you could add to this is a spectrometer to test water for the presence of ammonia and nitrates/nitrites. I saw a few DIYs that didnt seem super expensive, but I'm not sure on the sensitivity/accuracy of them.

 

[Ranjib]

I started making my own controller with a Raspberry Pi 2 and started looking around online to see if anyone had already done a lot of the heavy lifting and I came across this thread! this is awesome! I am a developer myself and would love to get involved with this project. (I need to build it first). Its nice to see that so many people agree that the hobby is so overpriced that we need to disrupt the market with DIY/OpenSource. A possible module you could add to this is a spectrometer to test water for the presence of ammonia and nitrates/nitrites. I saw a few DIYs that didnt seem super expensive, but I'm not sure on the sensitivity/accuracy of them.

I am glad you like this project. I would love to get any help with coding, or testing or documentation (anything is good actually). If you have not figured out already, the code is here: https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi , a somewhat correct developer environment setup guide is available here: https://reef-pi.github.io/additional-documentation/development/ .
reef-pi project's primary focus is to offer a hackable, modular opensource reef tank controller. Which means feature priority is decided by usefulness in reef keeping.
reef-pi is on track for 1.0 release with handful of basic features (equipment control, temperature control, ato and day light cycle for lightings, along with telemetry/alert/authentication etc), and I plan to work on ph, multiple temperature & ato , macros, doser and wavemaker for 2.0 release (post x-mas till next year).

I dont think ammonia is primary concern for most pressing thing for reef keeping (open for suggestions still). I am currently reading about both spectrometers (like raman pi) as well as AI based image processing (for titrations), both of them are very promising, but will require very heavy R&D investment to make them easy to use while ensuring it solves some common reef keeping problem (like Ca, Mg, Alk monitoring)... It is too early to say if any of these will make it to public relase soon, currently only couple of folks using such features to test out lab experiments..I'll keep you all posted on how things go on that front,

again, thanks for considering reef-pi, would be awesome to get any help with coding/testing/documentation.

 

[HM3105]

this has caused confusion in past as well. UX (user experience) in software is a hard problem. Software engineers, in particular are pretty bad at it. I am still not sure if this is the best we can do, for the equipment tab. But my current understanding is , for a anware person the button is intuitive. I am all ears for possible improvements,

I think I was pushing the current state and functions together.

While in my mind it does seem to make sense that the buttons would show the current state and by clicking one you are changing the state to the only other option available. That being said, once I understood how it was meant to work it also makes sense.

It might be worth adding text or something to the equipment tab that indicates this so that other people just joining in won't be confused. Of course I might be the only confused person and if that is the case just ignore me =).

Appreciate you putting this together, I'm planning to install mine over the Christmas holiday.

 

[Ryan115]

I think I was pushing the current state and functions together.

While in my mind it does seem to make sense that the buttons would show the current state and by clicking one you are changing the state to the only other option available. That being said, once I understood how it was meant to work it also makes sense.

It might be worth adding text or something to the equipment tab that indicates this so that other people just joining in won't be confused. Of course I might be the only confused person and if that is the case just ignore me =).

Appreciate you putting this together, I'm planning to install mine over the Christmas holiday.

You are not alone in this, as Ranjib said we went through this before. I fought it for a few weeks before it finally clicked for me.
I do think the text would help, and also switching the labeling in the outlet creation from Reverse to NC (Normally Closed).

 

[Somnifac]

this has caused confusion in past as well. UX (user experience) in software is a hard problem. Software engineers, in particular are pretty bad at it. I am still not sure if this is the best we can do, for the equipment tab. But my current understanding is , for a anware person the button is intuitive. I am all ears for possible improvements,

My vote is still for it displaying the actual power state of the outlet, and color code accordingly. If the outlet is feeding power to the device, it should read "On" and be coded green. If the outlet is not feeding power it should read "Off" and be coded red. It should take into account the NO/NC wiring of the relay itself, via the "Reverse" checkbox.

 

[Bronc]

My vote is still for it displaying the actual power state of the outlet, and color code accordingly. If the outlet is feeding power to the device, it should read "On" and be coded green. If the outlet is not feeding power it should read "Off" and be coded red. It should take into account the NO/NC wiring of the relay itself, via the "Reverse" checkbox.

I agree.

 

[Somnifac]

Quick question:

I'll be using an L7810 voltage regulator to bring the 12v to 10v for the lighting control circuit. I wanted to double check how much heat it's going to need to dissipate.

I can't imagine that the current draw will be much, but does anyone have an idea what we could expect each channel to draw? I'm sure it's less than what would require a heatsink (less than 800mA @ 35C ambient), but I wanted to make sure.

 

[Ranjib]

Quick question:

I'll be using an L7810 voltage regulator to bring the 12v to 10v for the lighting control circuit. I wanted to double check how much heat it's going to need to dissipate.

I can't imagine that the current draw will be much, but does anyone have an idea what we could expect each channel to draw? I'm sure it's less than what would require a heatsink (less than 800mA @ 35C ambient), but I wanted to make sure.

I don’t think u need a heat sink , the actual heat dissipation can be derived from current draw (from the light , e.g. kessil draws less than 100ma) and lm7810 thermal coefficient. I don’t have the exact number, but given lm7810 has thermal circuit breaker, you should be safe to at least try it out

 

[Ranjib]

I can add tooltip style texts to almost all ui elements . If you have suggestion , do let me know

 

[Somnifac]

I don’t think u need a heat sink , the actual heat dissipation can be derived from current draw (from the light , e.g. kessil draws less than 100ma) and lm7810 thermal coefficient. I don’t have the exact number, but given lm7810 has thermal circuit breaker, you should be safe to at least try it out

I figured you'd probably measured the draw with your lights, and since it's just a control signal, I assumed it wasn't a big draw and that they're probably going to be similar.

Like I said, it doesn't seem to get into heatsink territory until about an 800mA draw, with an ambient temp of about 35C. Handy site for those who want to verify such things: http://www.ef-uk.net/data/heatsinking_JS.htm

Addendum: Even figuring a 200mA draw (100mA per channel), the 7810 doesn't seem to need a heatsink well into ambient temps that I'd call "inadvisable" in an enclosure. I'll more than likely be integrating a fan into the enclosure for some airflow, so if I ever approached the limit, it would probably be because the stand and enclosure were actually on fire.

 

[Ranjib]

I figured you'd probably measured the draw with your lights, and since it's just a control signal, I assumed it wasn't a big draw and that they're probably going to be similar.

Like I said, it doesn't seem to get into heatsink territory until about an 800mA draw, with an ambient temp of about 35C. Handy site for those who want to verify such things: http://www.ef-uk.net/data/heatsinking_JS.htm

Addendum: Even figuring a 200mA draw (100mA per channel), the 7810 doesn't seem to need a heatsink well into ambient temps that I'd call "inadvisable" in an enclosure. I'll more than likely be integrating a fan into the enclosure for some airflow, so if I ever approached the limit, it would probably be because the stand and enclosure were actually on fire.

Exactly, this is the same reason we can get away with a normal npn transistor like 2n3904 instead of a tip120 or a power mosfet

 

[HM3105]

My vote is still for it displaying the actual power state of the outlet, and color code accordingly. If the outlet is feeding power to the device, it should read "On" and be coded green. If the outlet is not feeding power it should read "Off" and be coded red. It should take into account the NO/NC wiring of the relay itself, via the "Reverse" checkbox.

I *think* it is presently not operating this way on the equipment tab but is operating this way on the dashboard. On the equipment tab, if it says 'on' that means the relay is not charged and therefore the equipment is off. The dashboard would show this relay in red to indicate it's in the 'off' state.

 

[Somnifac]

I *think* it is presently not operating this way on the equipment tab but is operating this way on the dashboard. On the equipment tab, if it says 'on' that means the relay is not charged and therefore the equipment is off. The dashboard would show this relay in red to indicate it's in the 'off' state.

You're correct. It is showing the current energized state of the relay, regardless of it being wired NO or NC. I completely get that from an engineering standpoint, but from a usability standpoint reflecting what the outlet itself is doing would be more intuitive for the end user.

 

[Somnifac]

Component supply question:

Does anyone have a source for 3.5mm and RCA panel mount jacks that can accommodate a thicker mounting point? The standard panel mount jacks that I have, and can find, are intended for a fairly thin wall. The 12x12 junction box I'm building in is fairly thick, probably between 1/8" and 1/4" (I don't have it in front of me to measure). Most panel mount items I can find (especially 3.5mm jacks) seem to want 5mm or less thickness.

 

[MaccaPopEye]

Being flat out with a lot of other things atm my build STILL hasn't started :( however here is my 10c worth of input with the on/off buttons in the UI - change them to a slider. If there is a slider with one side that says "On" and one side that says "Off" then it gives users a visual as to which state the outlet is in. If the slider is over the "On" side then the outlet will be on, if the slider is over the "Off" side then the outlet will be off.

 

[Gareth elliott]

Component supply question:

Does anyone have a source for 3.5mm and RCA panel mount jacks that can accommodate a thicker mounting point? The standard panel mount jacks that I have, and can find, are intended for a fairly thin wall. The 12x12 junction box I'm building in is fairly thick, probably between 1/8" and 1/4" (I don't have it in front of me to measure). Most panel mount items I can find (especially 3.5mm jacks) seem to want 5mm or less thickness.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004JX64F...t=&hvlocphy=1022240&hvtargid=pla-309635877016

Something like this maybe?

 

[Ranjib]

I *think* it is presently not operating this way on the equipment tab but is operating this way on the dashboard. On the equipment tab, if it says 'on' that means the relay is not charged and therefore the equipment is off. The dashboard would show this relay in red to indicate it's in the 'off' state.

Exactly. And this is the expected behavior.