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

[b4tn]

Use some other gpio pin instead of 18 if possible (its used for pwm/light control).
Specify the GPIO pin number in the ato ui

Getting excited. Thanks for everyone and all the great posts and tech advice!

This is next tomorrow. I’m using a mechanical float switch. I have seen a couple diagrams. This one with two resistors.... I have seen one with a 10k “pull down” resistor from the GPIO input to ground and the other end of the switch to 5 volts..... and I also have heard one person using one end of the switch direct to the GPIO input and the other to 3.3v.

Which is recommended and why?

 

[Ranjib]

Getting excited. Thanks for everyone and all the great posts and tech advice!

This is next tomorrow. I’m using a mechanical float switch. I have seen a couple diagrams. This one with two resistors.... I have seen one with a 10k “pull down” resistor from the GPIO input to ground and the other end of the switch to 5 volts..... and I also have heard one person using one end of the switch direct to the GPIO input and the other to 3.3v.

Which is recommended and why?

The first one with two resistor is safest, the second one with one pull up resistor is safer and one without any resistor is least safe. All of them should work.
The resistor are there’s to protect the gpio pins from sudden reverse current or something link that. I won’t say I understand this fully, but to give an analogy with water and gating valaves, resistor acts like a safety gate . The firsts circuit protects both the power pin as well as the gpio , the second one only protects the gpio
I am sure someone with better electronics understanding will be able to explain this little bit more clearly. This same concept applies to the kessil control circuit as well , we put 1k and 10k resistor in similar fashion

 

[LionHeart2017]

Lights in pieces, not got any of reef-pi going yet, I keep finding more diy jobs getting the better of me

 

[LionHeart2017]

Lights in pieces, not got any of reef-pi going yet, I keep finding more diy jobs getting the better of me

Pic

 

[Ranjib]

And.... disregard. You really have to turn this thing a lot!

I knew your lm2596 modules are not bad when you shared that they are reading 11.4/11.6 V, this is very similar to my experience. They need quite a few turn, I think the amazon product page mentions the same

 

[Ranjib]

Pic

Exciting :-) . Keep us posted

 

[sector9]

Power controller done.

I used gang boxes for the electrical outlets (one 2-gang and another 3-gang). There are 10 outlets but two are wired in parallel. There is a 5V switching power supply in there as well to power the relay using the optoisolator section of the board. I designed and 3D printed the enclosure. I have attached the STL files (the forums will only allow the upload of certain file types so it has .pdf extension, delete the PDF extension to use). I would recommend enlarging the headphone and DC jacks if you use these. However, I doubt any users will directly use these-- they are provided more for reference

The control input needs 9 wires (1 from each GPIO pin and 1 from 5V power from the pi)— since the Ethernet cable only has 8 wires, I added a headphone jack for the 9th wire. I wired the relay board using this schematic posted by dlloyd so the Rpi has proper isolation https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=102978.msg3102701#msg3102701

A couple more items I used from Lowe's for the AC wiring:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-Quick-Wire-Connectors/999953938
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-...versal-Appliance-Cord-Extension-Cord/50142346

The whole thing is screwed together using M3 screws and that's about it. Happy to have this project done, will move on to making a main reef-pi brain enclosure now

 

[Diamond1]

Power controller done.

I used gang boxes for the electrical outlets (one 2-gang and another 3-gang). There are 10 outlets but two are wired in parallel. There is a 5V switching power supply in there as well to power the relay using the optoisolator section of the board. I designed and 3D printed the enclosure. I have attached the STL files (the forums will only allow the upload of certain file types so it has .pdf extension, delete the PDF extension to use). I would recommend enlarging the headphone and DC jacks if you use these. However, I doubt any users will directly use these-- they are provided more for reference

The control input needs 9 wires (1 from each GPIO pin and 1 from 5V power from the pi)— since the Ethernet cable only has 8 wires, I added a headphone jack for the 9th wire. I wired the relay board using this schematic posted by dlloyd so the Rpi has proper isolation https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=102978.msg3102701#msg3102701

A couple more items I used from Lowe's for the AC wiring:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-Quick-Wire-Connectors/999953938
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-...versal-Appliance-Cord-Extension-Cord/50142346

The whole thing is screwed together using M3 screws and that's about it. Happy to have this project done, will move on to making a main reef-pi brain enclosure now

That's a very clean looking setup. what are the outside dimensions of the box? I want to build my box along those same lines but out of wood.

 

[b4tn]

That looks awesome! I really need to get myself a 3D printer!

 

[b4tn]

Is reefpi compatable with TCA9548A i2c multiplexer? I planned on using the i2c inputs for PH but was thinking it would tie up the 2 i2c pins. I was thinking it would be nice to have an lcd display or be able to interface with other components but still have reefpi talk to the ph circuit

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

Power controller done.

I used gang boxes for the electrical outlets (one 2-gang and another 3-gang). There are 10 outlets but two are wired in parallel. There is a 5V switching power supply in there as well to power the relay using the optoisolator section of the board. I designed and 3D printed the enclosure. I have attached the STL files (the forums will only allow the upload of certain file types so it has .pdf extension, delete the PDF extension to use). I would recommend enlarging the headphone and DC jacks if you use these. However, I doubt any users will directly use these-- they are provided more for reference

The control input needs 9 wires (1 from each GPIO pin and 1 from 5V power from the pi)— since the Ethernet cable only has 8 wires, I added a headphone jack for the 9th wire. I wired the relay board using this schematic posted by dlloyd so the Rpi has proper isolation https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=102978.msg3102701#msg3102701

A couple more items I used from Lowe's for the AC wiring:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-Quick-Wire-Connectors/999953938
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-...versal-Appliance-Cord-Extension-Cord/50142346

The whole thing is screwed together using M3 screws and that's about it. Happy to have this project done, will move on to making a main reef-pi brain enclosure now

Things like this make me want to get a 3D printer, and then I never do. Man that is nice looking!

 

[Ranjib]

Is reefpi compatable with TCA9548A i2c multiplexer? I planned on using the i2c inputs for PH but was thinking it would tie up the 2 i2c pins. I was thinking it would be nice to have an lcd display or be able to interface with other components but still have reefpi talk to the ph circuit

reef-pi does not support any i2c multiplexer yet. I am not clear why you need it, unless you have i2c address conflict , you can connect multiple ic in same i2c bus and things should work just fine as long as the individual ICs have different addresses. Pca9685 for example allow configuring it’s address as well

 

[Ranjib]

Power controller done.

I used gang boxes for the electrical outlets (one 2-gang and another 3-gang). There are 10 outlets but two are wired in parallel. There is a 5V switching power supply in there as well to power the relay using the optoisolator section of the board. I designed and 3D printed the enclosure. I have attached the STL files (the forums will only allow the upload of certain file types so it has .pdf extension, delete the PDF extension to use). I would recommend enlarging the headphone and DC jacks if you use these. However, I doubt any users will directly use these-- they are provided more for reference

The control input needs 9 wires (1 from each GPIO pin and 1 from 5V power from the pi)— since the Ethernet cable only has 8 wires, I added a headphone jack for the 9th wire. I wired the relay board using this schematic posted by dlloyd so the Rpi has proper isolation https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=102978.msg3102701#msg3102701

A couple more items I used from Lowe's for the AC wiring:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-Quick-Wire-Connectors/999953938
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-...versal-Appliance-Cord-Extension-Cord/50142346

The whole thing is screwed together using M3 screws and that's about it. Happy to have this project done, will move on to making a main reef-pi brain enclosure now

Looks amazing :-).
This reminds me of @MaccaPopEye ’s build

 

[Ranjib]

This is perhaps the prettiest reef-pi circuit yet :-) . Kessil controller circuit (3 lights ) for the adafruit guide

 

[Diamond1]

This is perhaps the prettiest reef-pi circuit yet :) . Kessil controller circuit (3 lights ) for the adafruit guide

That is really nice!

 

[LionHeart2017]

This is perhaps the prettiest reef-pi circuit yet :-) . Kessil controller circuit (3 lights ) for the adafruit guide

That's really smart, I'll be using them type boards in my build(eventually), do you know if anyone cracked controlling mars aqua 165w reef leds, I want to control them if I can ever find the correct way to do them.

 

[Diamond1]

Couple of quick NOOB questions. I'm getting ready to download reef pi. My pi came with Noobs not rasbian, will I be okay running just Noobs to get reef pi set up? If so is there an advantage to running Rasbian?
Also since 2.0 isn't out yet in it's final release, would I be better off just running 1.5 till 2.0 is finished then update then?

 

[Ranjib]

Couple of quick NOOB questions. I'm getting ready to download reef pi. My pi came with Noobs not rasbian, will I be okay running just Noobs to get reef pi set up? If so is there an advantage to running Rasbian?
Also since 2.0 isn't out yet in it's final release, would I be better off just running 1.5 till 2.0 is finished then update then?

Noobs should work just fine. Dont go with 1.5 series download, get the 2.0.0-rc1 at least. rc builds (release candidates) are fairly stable. 1.5x builds will requires resetting the database in future upgrades

 

[Diamond1]

Okay thanks.

 

[b4tn]

reef-pi does not support any i2c multiplexer yet. I am not clear why you need it, unless you have i2c address conflict , you can connect multiple ic in same i2c bus and things should work just fine as long as the individual ICs have different addresses. Pca9685 for example allow configuring it’s address as well

Ok, I didn’t know you could connect multiple devices to the i2c bus. I’m learning. The idea for now would be to connect the PH circuit and also an I2C enabled LCD. I’m just brain storming and need to read up on it a bit but was thinking to make an LCD display that shows temp, ph, time, or whatever.