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

[Ranjib]

Looking awesome Ranjib!

I've finally started on mine so I am sure I will have more and more questions as I make slow progress :)

Once I received the panel mount plugs I realised that I wouldn't have room for them with the components on the inside being raised up on stand offs. So I had to bulk up the lid of the enclosure to raise the plugs.

First screw 2 pieces of 12mm ply to the lid and then use a flush trim bit to smooth it out.

I have also marked out where the panel mount plugs are going to go. The top row is larger "universal" plugs as I have some equipment with US style plugs and the bottom two rows have enough room between them to fit "wall wart" style plugs so that both of the bottom two rows can have wall wart plugs if needed.

And finally I have started to lay out the components and put in stand off screws.

Originally I was planning on having a 4x socket power bar below the relays however it didn't fit so I will just have to teach myself another way to wire it all up safely.

I was also going to use a 4xUSB wall wart (the middle board on the right) to power the Pi and the relays, however I have now ordered a few LM2596 boards and plan to use those instead. If I power them with a single 15V, 2A supply how many LM2596 boards will I need to put in to handle the 2x relays, Pi 3, dimming for 3x Mars Aqua lights and ATO? Will one stepped down to 5v and one stepped down to 10v be able to handle it all?

In the pic the bread board is on the top but I will have it all up the other way so the bread board is on the bottom of the enclosure so nothing can fall out of it easily.



I'm excited mate! You have done such awesome work in such a short time already so I can't wait to see what else you have in store :)

Each of the lm2596 will give you upto 2.5->3A current. My AIO is using one lm2596 for ato, temperature sensor, pi and pca9685. Almost everything except relays. I am using the other lm2596 for kessil's 10V.

 

[Ranjib]

Looking awesome Ranjib!

I've finally started on mine so I am sure I will have more and more questions as I make slow progress :)

Once I received the panel mount plugs I realised that I wouldn't have room for them with the components on the inside being raised up on stand offs. So I had to bulk up the lid of the enclosure to raise the plugs.

First screw 2 pieces of 12mm ply to the lid and then use a flush trim bit to smooth it out.

I have also marked out where the panel mount plugs are going to go. The top row is larger "universal" plugs as I have some equipment with US style plugs and the bottom two rows have enough room between them to fit "wall wart" style plugs so that both of the bottom two rows can have wall wart plugs if needed.

And finally I have started to lay out the components and put in stand off screws.

Originally I was planning on having a 4x socket power bar below the relays however it didn't fit so I will just have to teach myself another way to wire it all up safely.

I was also going to use a 4xUSB wall wart (the middle board on the right) to power the Pi and the relays, however I have now ordered a few LM2596 boards and plan to use those instead. If I power them with a single 15V, 2A supply how many LM2596 boards will I need to put in to handle the 2x relays, Pi 3, dimming for 3x Mars Aqua lights and ATO? Will one stepped down to 5v and one stepped down to 10v be able to handle it all?

In the pic the bread board is on the top but I will have it all up the other way so the bread board is on the bottom of the enclosure so nothing can fall out of it easily.



I'm excited mate! You have done such awesome work in such a short time already so I can't wait to see what else you have in store :)

You want to avoid soldering ? Breadboard will be pretty loose. But they are awesome for hacking. My first couple of controllers were all breadboard based :-) .
I love the power outlet holes design. I have never able to use all the powerstrips to their full extent due to the wall warts. Great that you considered that in your design,

One thing I am contemplating about is to separate the 110V AC gears from rest of the controller and connect them via hdmi cable,

 

[Gareth elliott]

I am converting a 130g tank into a dart frog vivarium. I have been wanting to learn about Arduino and Raspberry Pi systems for a long time and this thread has given me a great idea to learn how to do things with the Pi. I am going to use what you have illustrated here and then modify it slightly to make a "Frog-Pi". While it is not a reef tank, many of the same parameters need to be tracked and controlled and I am sure that using Reef-Pi as a starting point will help me come up with a great controller for my Dart Frog environment. I will try to post what I am doing here as I go. Hopefully you guys won't mind my inevitable questions that I will have. Thanks for this thread and all of the contributions. It is such a great learning tool.

I keep a crested gecko, not as demanding as darts, but still require a watching of humidity and temp. I actually recently lost my auto-mister so will watch your build process too :)

 

[Ranjib]

Hello,
I have cut a new minor release 1.1 . It does not have any serious backend/logic code changes, but has lots of UI changes that will make things easier for the users (discovered while building my 1.0 AIO controller). Here is the list of changes.

• Allow updating led channel names via UI
  
• Allow updating per channel min and max threshold for lights
  
• Introduce start channel value for lights
  
• ATO chart missing when pump is not turned on (or water level is not below sensor level)
  
• ATO chart will show timestamp
• Show pin numbers in connectors (outlets and jacks), alongside if equipment is in use
  
• Dynamically resize charts in dashboard (still work in progress, this is an attempt to fix dashboard layout in mobile & pi touchscreen)

Release builds can be found in usual location:
https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi/releases/tag/1.1

happy holidays

 

[nele]

Yeah, I just noticed this from another thread in r2r.
The whole thing will cost 800$ with the touchscreen display, and 650$ without.
My current BoM is maxed at 400$, for three separate controllers together...Cant wait to see how 2018 goes for reef-pi. I have lined up things. I am already pretty stoked to see my 1.0 build in action

Once you put all things together there is a way to cut the costs with bulk ordering. Probably guys from from Vertex calculate this way. So once some HAT is ready it can be produced in xxx copies which could bring cost of total build down also reducing time to add up modules or components...

 

[Ranjib]

Once you put all things together there is a way to cut the costs with bulk ordering. Probably guys from from Vertex calculate this way. So once some HAT is ready it can be produced in xxx copies which could bring cost of total build down also reducing time to add up modules or components...

Yes. But that assumes someone is actually buying in bulk and distributing them, which will be hard for us, since no one is really selling reef-pi. I think we can probably team up and do some group buy, but that will involve lot of collaboration

 

[nele]

If you contact large PI resellers they would order some hats. That and reef community would mean triple number at least if not four figures in total. Don't forget that you have developed software behind which is a big plus as most hats are usually without developed SW for them.

 

[Ranjib]

If you contact large PI resellers they would order some hats. That and reef community would mean triple number at least if not four figures in total. Don't forget that you have developed software behind which is a big plus as most hats are usually without developed SW for them.

That will be cool.
One thing I am trying to understand what the actual board will cost. I am looking at oshpark for a double sided purple silkscreen pcb (love them) . I have to decide whether to use the ancillary boards or move their counter parts inside the main board , things like pca9685 or lm9526 will be generic enough to be used by almost everyone . But then the actual combinations are way too many and I have not done this before, could use some help here.

Oshpark charges 10$ per square inch , just the board , so if I need a 4x3 inch board, then my pcb itself is will cost 120$ components extra .. the ancillary boards are manufactured in much larger quantities and we won’t be able to beat the price of those boards in our main board , and moving them out of the main board will make the main board cheaper , while increase the wiring hassle/ form factor

What all these means for reef-pi being modular is a whole different angle. But I think as long as the software does not assume / enforc such setup, we ar kosher

 

[nele]

It is easier than you think. Design of the board should be "stackable" . So if you intend to use some other product (hat, breakout board etc) you just leave compatible connector on your board and that is it. You saw a picture from other thread where guy stacked Pi zero on other hat. That kind of design is normal for Pi. Some products are stacked on three to four levels and working together, saving overall space. Other option would be ribbon cable connectors packed tight on board allowing connection to each additional board or to connector on housing.

Regarding price I think that those prices are just for prototyping. Check allpcb.com You will find there price on 500 units, 4 x 3 inch, 2 layers for 1 USD per piece shipped to your address for free ( I don't know if they have purple mask :) ) . So pure pcb should not be expensive. Even with assembly should be under 10 USD per piece on 500 units, all together (depends on what will be on board of course).

 

[Flotto]

Hello,
I have cut a new minor release 1.1 . It does not have any serious backend/logic code changes, but has lots of UI changes that will make things easier for the users (discovered while building my 1.0 AIO controller). Here is the list of changes.

• Allow updating led channel names via UI
  
• Allow updating per channel min and max threshold for lights
  
• Introduce start channel value for lights
  
• ATO chart missing when pump is not turned on (or water level is not below sensor level)
  
• ATO chart will show timestamp
• Show pin numbers in connectors (outlets and jacks), alongside if equipment is in use
  
• Dynamically resize charts in dashboard (still work in progress, this is an attempt to fix dashboard layout in mobile & pi touchscreen)

Release builds can be found in usual location:
https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi/releases/tag/1.1

happy holidays

New Features are neat af.

But there's a Bug within the dashboarding. The Equipments chart is only the half in height.


Also I don't really like the new Lighting UI. Maybe you can push the new "Min-Max-Start" line underneath the checkboxes for "Auto" and "Reverse". And maybe it would be nice to introduce background color (e.g. light grey) for every 2nd set of LED Channel.

 

[Mandelstam]

Question/suggestion for light controller. Might be a minor little thing but just something that came to mind.
Would there be an idea to be able to lower and decrease the overall power to the lights without having to change the dimming cycle? The dimmers/sliders go up to 100% or maximum but then you could override the maximum with another percentage. So the sliders maximum could be changed to say 80%.
I just think it would be an easy way to dial in the intensity without having to change every little slider. Or adjusting light intensity slowly over time.

 

[Ranjib]

New Features are neat af.

But there's a Bug within the dashboarding. The Equipments chart is only the half in height.


Also I don't really like the new Lighting UI. Maybe you can push the new "Min-Max-Start" line underneath the checkboxes for "Auto" and "Reverse". And maybe it would be nice to introduce background color (e.g. light grey) for every 2nd set of LED Channel.

Thank you for testing 1.1.
I'll fix the bug for equipment chart.
I acknowledge the lighting UI is not at all nice, I wanted the ability to tune those parameters via UI first, since without them its not usable, i.e. you cant run kessil properly without specifying them. I'll work on making the UI better over the next couple of releases.

 

[Ranjib]

Question/suggestion for light controller. Might be a minor little thing but just something that came to mind.
Would there be an idea to be able to lower and decrease the overall power to the lights without having to change the dimming cycle? The dimmers/sliders go up to 100% or maximum but then you could override the maximum with another percentage. So the sliders maximum could be changed to say 80%.
I just think it would be an easy way to dial in the intensity without having to change every little slider. Or adjusting light intensity slowly over time.

I like the idea. So, may be a configurable % that is applied to all values... I can definitely reuse this for building the acclamation feature. Do you have any specific use case in mind?
Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Ranjib]

It is easier than you think. Design of the board should be "stackable" . So if you intend to use some other product (hat, breakout board etc) you just leave compatible connector on your board and that is it. You saw a picture from other thread where guy stacked Pi zero on other hat. That kind of design is normal for Pi. Some products are stacked on three to four levels and working together, saving overall space. Other option would be ribbon cable connectors packed tight on board allowing connection to each additional board or to connector on housing.

Regarding price I think that those prices are just for prototyping. Check allpcb.com You will find there price on 500 units, 4 x 3 inch, 2 layers for 1 USD per piece shipped to your address for free ( I don't know if they have purple mask :) ) . So pure pcb should not be expensive. Even with assembly should be under 10 USD per piece on 500 units, all together (depends on what will be on board of course).

:-) Very informative. You should act as an advisor for us, as we build the PCB for next major release.

 

[Mandelstam]

I like the idea. So, may be a configurable % that is applied to all values... I can definitely reuse this for building the acclamation feature. Do you have any specific use case in mind?
Thanks for the suggestion.

Well every time that you want to make a change in the intensity really and you want to make that slow over time. Just changing one value and upping the percentage by a slight amount every other day or so instead of having to change all the sliders.
But also I feel like setting the 24h cycle for the different channels is one thing, dialing in the right max value for them is another. So it would be nice to be able to set them separately. Like one master level for every channel (max value) and then sliders to control the dimming between 0-max.

 

[Ryan115]

It is easier than you think. Design of the board should be "stackable" . So if you intend to use some other product (hat, breakout board etc) you just leave compatible connector on your board and that is it. You saw a picture from other thread where guy stacked Pi zero on other hat. That kind of design is normal for Pi. Some products are stacked on three to four levels and working together, saving overall space. Other option would be ribbon cable connectors packed tight on board allowing connection to each additional board or to connector on housing.

Regarding price I think that those prices are just for prototyping. Check allpcb.com You will find there price on 500 units, 4 x 3 inch, 2 layers for 1 USD per piece shipped to your address for free ( I don't know if they have purple mask :) ) . So pure pcb should not be expensive. Even with assembly should be under 10 USD per piece on 500 units, all together (depends on what will be on board of course).

I have had good experiences in the past with ExpressPCB, though they also do not offer purple solder mask.
Their software is very easy to use for both PCB design and SCH design, also built into the software is the ability to quote the board instantly.
They have a special prototype price for 3.8"x2.5" boards for $61 for 3 boards($41 with no solder mask/silkscreen) plus shipping.

I agree about just making matching connectors for common boards.
I will be more than happy to help with the PCB design when we get to that point.

 

[Ranjib]

I have had good experiences in the past with ExpressPCB, though they also do not offer purple solder mask.
Their software is very easy to use for both PCB design and SCH design, also built into the software is the ability to quote the board instantly.
They have a special prototype price for 3.8"x2.5" boards for $61 for 3 boards($41 with no solder mask/silkscreen) plus shipping.

I agree about just making matching connectors for common boards.
I will be more than happy to help with the PCB design when we get to that point.

Thank you so much. What all you think is missing from reef-pi 's current state? I dont see whole lotta new things to add in the pcb, since ph electronics can be connected via connectors, similar to pca9685. Just the fritzing work ?

 

[Ranjib]

Well every time that you want to make a change in the intensity really and you want to make that slow over time. Just changing one value and upping the percentage by a slight amount every other day or so instead of having to change all the sliders.
But also I feel like setting the 24h cycle for the different channels is one thing, dialing in the right max value for them is another. So it would be nice to be able to set them separately. Like one master level for every channel (max value) and then sliders to control the dimming between 0-max.

hmm.. we already have the ability to specify min and max threshold per channel. I'll add the % changes per day feature in my todo list, it will be released as acclamation factor, where use will get to choose the number of days, and reef-pi will calculate the delta and increase it accordingly over the specified number of days.

 

[MaccaPopEye]

Each of the lm2596 will give you upto 2.5->3A current. My AIO is using one lm2596 for ato, temperature sensor, pi and pca9685. Almost everything except relays. I am using the other lm2596 for kessil's 10V.

Awesome thanks. I'll put in 3 then with space for a 4th just in case.

The relays I have are HK3FF-DC5V-SHG, the only data sheet I can find says that the "H" in SHG means the coil power is 0.36W, so this would mean that each relay needs 72mA. Each 8 relay board would need 576mA & both boards total will need ~1.2A, so 1 lm2596 should be enough for both of them but I will make sure there is enough space for an extra one just in case as I saw some people were having issues with higher than expected relay current draw.

Then I can have one at 10V for the lights and another at 5V for everything else.

What size power supply would I need to power the 3 buck converters (or possibly 4)? Do I figure out the total wattage that may possibly be required and get a power supply with a little bit more wattage (such as a 12V 5A one)?

You want to avoid soldering ? Breadboard will be pretty loose. But they are awesome for hacking. My first couple of controllers were all breadboard based :) .
I love the power outlet holes design. I have never able to use all the powerstrips to their full extent due to the wall warts. Great that you considered that in your design,

One thing I am contemplating about is to separate the 110V AC gears from rest of the controller and connect them via hdmi cable,

I have soldered a couple of times before and I am not too bad at it (for an absolute beginner :p), so I don't care about soldering but more about avoiding mistakes that can't be easily undone. This is the first electrical project I have done in years and even back then I only did a couple of very basic ones so I think using the bread board to start with is the best option.

And thanks, I originally went into this wanting to avoid having the power bars separate from the main controller and other plugs, I wanted it to be a truly compact "All In One" compared to how all of the commercial controllers are. However now that I have actually started I can see the reasons behind keeping everything separate and think it might be better to separate the high voltage stuff from the main controller too haha

For now I am going to push ahead with this design to make a compact 16 outlet AIO and learn as much as I can. If I can get it up and running then in 6-12 months (maybe when 2.0 is released :p) I might rebuild the controller without the bread board and with separate power boards!

 

[Somnifac]

It should be possible. reef-pi the software itself is not aware where the temperature probe is or what the actual cooling device is. Which means you can place the ds18b20 sensor on the light fixture and set appropriate temperature threshold (i am assuming it will be lot higher than 78F).. and declare the fan as cooling device. You have to wire the light fixtur's fan as through a relay, and declare corresponding outlet/equipment

Catching up on the thread. It would be awesome functionality in the future to allow us to tie PWM output of 1 (or more) pin(s) to a temp reading. For now, I'm going to declare a jack, and create a timer that ramps up and down throughout the day. This pin will control a PWM fan. Responsive to actual temperature in real time would be better, but this will at least give airflow in a settable and controllable manner.