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

[Ranjib]

Perfectly! As expected when a dolt isn't organizing things.... my shame and embarrassment will sting for a while from this one.

Perhaps an "idiot check" summary page would help folks like me? Being able to see what module is controlling the outlets, inlets and jacks might have helped without having to look through every module. This shouldn't be necessary because I shouldn't have made this mistake, but I am afraid there are others like me. I have zero idea if this would take 15 minutes of programming or much much longer. Please ignore if it would be an inconvenience.

I'll keep this in mind. It can get very complicated, as connectors are associated with equipment or modules. and equipment /module can be associated with multiple timers, macros etc..

 

[rushbattle]

yeah.. with macro theres a high risk of messing things up as well. I am still thinking what user experience improvements we can do to avoid this as much as possible. This whole thing will get complicated once we have macro spanning across reef-pi's

I find the macros easier myself. It's like a story: this thing does an action, then another thing does an action, we wait for a few minutes, then another thing does an action. It's like watching a short movie. Now that I have been thoroughly embarrassed I might even be better at the more straight forward issues....

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Perfectly! As expected when a dolt isn't organizing things.... my shame and embarrassment will sting for a while from this one.

Perhaps an "idiot check" summary page would help folks like me? Being able to see what module is controlling the outlets, inlets and jacks might have helped without having to look through every module. This shouldn't be necessary because I shouldn't have made this mistake, but I am afraid there are others like me. I have zero idea if this would take 15 minutes of programming or much much longer. Please ignore if it would be an inconvenience.

I like the idea of an "idiot check" summary. However, I believe this is avoidable by people starting their own threads when building out their systems because, while most systems will be alike, each system is tailored for each individual user. A very cool aspect of doing a project like reef pi is that there is so much help available from other previous builders who are more than willing to assist! A true community of people who want to see other people succeed and I love it!

 

[stefanm]

Got my pi 3 a+ today, have just downloaded the Software, I'll attempt a headless install, maybe later tonight if I can get home or tomorrow afternoon I have a coyplc of hours free.

 

[Ranjib]

I like the idea of an "idiot check" summary. However, I believe this is avoidable by people starting their own threads when building out their systems because, while most systems will be alike, each system is tailored for each individual user. A very cool aspect of doing a project like reef pi is that there is so much help available from other previous builders who are more than willing to assist! A true community of people who want to see other people succeed and I love it!

+100. Community is key when it comes to help each other, share and learn
I look out for common pitfalls across threads. I have received some positive feedback for the guides and I know that’s because it is backed by past two years of learning here across different threads and few failed attempts , that goes way beyond my own builds . These are invaluable

 

[That Crusso Kid]

+100. Community is key when it comes to help each other, share and learn
I look out for common pitfalls across threads. I have received some positive feedback for the guides and I know that’s because it is backed by past two years of learning here across different threads and few failed attempts , that goes way beyond my own builds . These are invaluable

Giving you a big high 5!

 

[Ryan115]

@Ranjib I have been testing out this pump as a replacement for my aqualifter, and running it straight off of the motor driver hat. So far I have been happy with it, as it is quiet and moves quite a bit of water, even at 5v.
I would like to implement it as my ATO pump in reef-pi, but I dont believe there is anyway to set one of the PCA9685 pins as an outlet, or to set ATO control on a jack instead. Is this possible, or is it something that is already planned in a future release?
This also got me thinking that this could be an easy way of adding more "GPIO" pins. If you can essentially set PCA9685 pins as high/low it could allow people to use many of the other channels that are currently unused just from lighting.
On the hat I am using, some of the PCA9685 pins are tied straight to the PWM and INPUT pins on the TB6612s.

 

[stefanm]

Guys, does it matter which version of raspbian to install?

I downloaded the raspbian stretch with desktop and recommended software.

I was watching a youtube guide and the user downloaded raspbian stretch lite, as I'm going headless should I download that or doesn't it make any difference?

 

[Ryan115]

On the 3 A+ it shouldn't really matter. If you were running on a Pi zero you would need the lite version.
Running regular raspbian you can VNC into the unit should you ever need to access the system directly.

 

[Ranjib]

Guys, does it matter which version of raspbian to install?

I downloaded the raspbian stretch with desktop and recommended software.

I was watching a youtube guide and the user downloaded raspbian stretch lite, as I'm going headless should I download that or doesn't it make any difference?

if you are not familiar with linux terminal, then desktop version is the way to go. It takes little more sd card space (700MB extra) and significant CPU to run the desktop. You can always disable the GUI and run it in headless later, once you configure everything to reclaim the CPU usage. If you are on pi zero, headless is the way to go. I run everything headless, irrespective of Pi 3 or Pi zero, but I am comfortable with linux/terminals etc.

 

[rushbattle]

if you are not familiar with linux terminal, then desktop version is the way to go. It takes little more sd card space (700MB extra) and significant CPU to run the desktop. You can always disable the GUI and run it in headless later, once you configure everything to reclaim the CPU usage. If you are on pi zero, headless is the way to go. I run everything headless, irrespective of Pi 3 or Pi zero, but I am comfortable with linux/terminals etc.

I am only vaguely familiar with Linux through terminal only, and I thought headless raspbian install was pretty easy. Even getting wireless going with the pi zero wasn’t super challenging. Just took a bit of time.

 

[stefanm]

if you are not familiar with linux terminal, then desktop version is the way to go. It takes little more sd card space (700MB extra) and significant CPU to run the desktop. You can always disable the GUI and run it in headless later, once you configure everything to reclaim the CPU usage. If you are on pi zero, headless is the way to go. I run everything headless, irrespective of Pi 3 or Pi zero, but I am comfortable with linux/terminals etc.

No worries, I'll get comfy, so far I've installed raspbian and made an Ubuntu boot drive, it's past 2 am now so I'll get back on it in the morning.

 

[Ranjib]

@Ranjib I have been testing out this pump as a replacement for my aqualifter, and running it straight off of the motor driver hat. So far I have been happy with it, as it is quiet and moves quite a bit of water, even at 5v.
I would like to implement it as my ATO pump in reef-pi, but I dont believe there is anyway to set one of the PCA9685 pins as an outlet, or to set ATO control on a jack instead. Is this possible, or is it something that is already planned in a future release?
This also got me thinking that this could be an easy way of adding more "GPIO" pins. If you can essentially set PCA9685 pins as high/low it could allow people to use many of the other channels that are currently unused just from lighting.
On the hat I am using, some of the PCA9685 pins are tied straight to the PWM and INPUT pins on the TB6612s.

There is no reason why PCA9685 can not be used as on/off digital output. It cant be a GPIO equivalent since it can never be an input (like reading ato sensor). Currently reef-pi does not allow this, but we are changing that as part of the hardware abstraction layer work that I and @theatrus is doing.

 

[bishoptf]

Well I managed to melt a few holes in my breadboard, lol my new breadboard. Looks like i also fried one of my fets, at $3ea I'd like to avoid that. Playing with the lighting controls I think I have things wired correctly wiring it per this https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/2693 and not sure what was not correct but when my jumper wire started to melt against the fet heatsink I pulled the power. I hope I didn't do any further damage to the pi etc.

I connected things back up but in a way with alligator clips to where I could touch the jack terminal to get a voltage reading, it appears to be playing nice now I have no idea since i thought it was connected the same way. One problem I have now is that the rpi pwm doesnt seem to actually be pwm. I have it hooked up to a meter and it just reads like its normal voltage it doesn't cycle the voltage like I was expecting it to but this may be normal, since I am in uncharted territory for me. My other issue is when on the lighting control, on the fixed setting, when I increase it to one, it starts out at 9.75V, thats way to high for 1, if I increase it to 50 it's close to 12v, although nothing is melting now so at least thats a step forward. ;)

Looking for what I need to do differently, I did notice that if I changed the option from active high to active low that it was 12v no matter the sliding scale. Anyone have any suggestions let me know, was hoping I could get this to work for my lights.

Picture of my melted breadboard, what its not supposed to look like :)

 

[Ranjib]

Well I managed to melt a few holes in my breadboard, lol my new breadboard. Looks like i also fried one of my fets, at $3ea I'd like to avoid that. Playing with the lighting controls I think I have things wired correctly wiring it per this https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/2693 and not sure what was not correct but when my jumper wire started to melt against the fet heatsink I pulled the power. I hope I didn't do any further damage to the pi etc.

I connected things back up but in a way with alligator clips to where I could touch the jack terminal to get a voltage reading, it appears to be playing nice now I have no idea since i thought it was connected the same way. One problem I have now is that the rpi pwm doesnt seem to actually be pwm. I have it hooked up to a meter and it just reads like its normal voltage it doesn't cycle the voltage like I was expecting it to but this may be normal, since I am in uncharted territory for me. My other issue is when on the lighting control, on the fixed setting, when I increase it to one, it starts out at 9.75V, thats way to high for 1, if I increase it to 50 it's close to 12v, although nothing is melting now so at least thats a step forward. ;)

Looking for what I need to do differently, I did notice that if I changed the option from active high to active low that it was 12v no matter the sliding scale. Anyone have any suggestions let me know, was hoping I could get this to work for my lights.

Picture of my melted breadboard, what its not supposed to look like :)

breadboard jumpers/pins are rated for less than 2A (1A to be safe) current draw. That can be one issue. The permaproto boards have little higher capacity, but its always recommended to solder solid core 22AWG jumper wires on places where high current draw is expected

 

[bishoptf]

breadboard jumpers/pins are rated for less than 2A (1A to be safe) current draw. That can be one issue. The permaproto boards have little higher capacity, but its always recommended to solder solid core 22AWG jumper wires on places where high current draw is expected

Understand, my breadboard says 3a but something was not correct since it was doing more than that. It basically smoked the fet, it appears to be stuck at 12v all the time. It should not have any current draw, all I have hooked up to the jack is my meter to look at the voltages. I wanted to see the voltages and how things worked before hooking up a light. Any suggestions on what I am doing wrong with the PWM settings since the range appears to be between 9.75 and 12v. Doesn't appear to be pulsing either...

I guess I am trying to figure out where to go from here, do I need to figure out the existing frequency for the existing dimmer so then I can duplicate, where should I go from here. Looking like its more difficult than I first thought, bummer. If anyone has any ideas let me know.

Thanks :)

 

[bishoptf]

Duplicate

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Well I managed to melt a few holes in my breadboard, lol my new breadboard. Looks like i also fried one of my fets, at $3ea I'd like to avoid that. Playing with the lighting controls I think I have things wired correctly wiring it per this https://learn.adafruit.com/assets/2693 and not sure what was not correct but when my jumper wire started to melt against the fet heatsink I pulled the power. I hope I didn't do any further damage to the pi etc.

I connected things back up but in a way with alligator clips to where I could touch the jack terminal to get a voltage reading, it appears to be playing nice now I have no idea since i thought it was connected the same way. One problem I have now is that the rpi pwm doesnt seem to actually be pwm. I have it hooked up to a meter and it just reads like its normal voltage it doesn't cycle the voltage like I was expecting it to but this may be normal, since I am in uncharted territory for me. My other issue is when on the lighting control, on the fixed setting, when I increase it to one, it starts out at 9.75V, thats way to high for 1, if I increase it to 50 it's close to 12v, although nothing is melting now so at least thats a step forward. ;)

Looking for what I need to do differently, I did notice that if I changed the option from active high to active low that it was 12v no matter the sliding scale. Anyone have any suggestions let me know, was hoping I could get this to work for my lights.

Picture of my melted breadboard, what its not supposed to look like :)

If it were me, I wouldn't say I melted the BB. I would say I made some radical modifications!
Happens to the best of us.
Hey - did you happen to check out @Diamond1 build? He worked his OR 247 into it. Maybe he can give you some input with your lights.

 

[Bigtrout]

breadboard jumpers/pins are rated for less than 2A (1A to be safe) current draw. That can be one issue. The permaproto boards have little higher capacity, but its always recommended to solder solid core 22AWG jumper wires on places where high current draw is expected

Can u post your circuit, if you dont drive a fet correctly and it works in the linear region(not fully on or off) they can get pretty hot. Are you trying to drive a large fet directly from a pwm pin?

Since you are new to electronics, may I make a suggestion?

Get a premade mosfet power module that can be driven from 3.3 or 5.5 logic level.
Post back with your specifics and I can make a suggestion. You need to know whether you are switching your light on the positive side or the negative side. I have to drive my light on the high side and a opto isolated p channel mosfet board is only 4 dollars and will do 1khz pwm frequency and can hook right to the pwm pin of the rpi or the pca.

 

[Ranjib]

Can u post your circuit, if you dont drive a fet correctly and it works in the linear region(not fully on or off) they can get pretty hot. Are you trying to drive a large fet directly from a pwm pin?

Since you are new to electronics, may I make a suggestion?

Get a premade mosfet power module that can be driven from 3.3 or 5.5 logic level.
Post back with your specifics and I can make a suggestion. You need to know whether you are switching your light on the positive side or the negative side. I have to drive my light on the high side and a opto isolated p channel mosfet board is only 4 dollars and will do 1khz pwm frequency and can hook right to the pwm pin of the rpi or the pca.

I use the exact same circuit as I described in the lighting controller guide. Its based on n channel logic level power mosfet, and its driving a 12W , 12V led strip, a moonlight, which is use sporadically.