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

[apocalipse]

Hello!
I installed reef-pi.
Looking in the files of the github, I noticed that there were translation files. I would like to put in French reef-pi. How to do?
Thank you in advance for the help you will give me!
sorry for my english, it's a google translation!

 

[Michael Lane]

At present in my tank ..... when the power came back after failure, my main motor will start first after the 30 seconds my skimmers will start. when my skimmer starts at the time of the main pump ... my skimmer starts to over glow due to water level ... at present to make the 30s delay I'm using time delay relay. ... is there any way I can do this with reef pi. I'm having a separate relay for main motor and skimmer

You could set up a float switch and only turn on the skimmer when the float switch is in the appropriate position. This would be just like setting up an ATO, but turning on the skimmer instead of the top off pump.

 

[Michael Lane]

Hello!
I installed reef-pi.
Looking in the files of the github, I noticed that there were translation files. I would like to put in French reef-pi. How to do?
Thank you in advance for the help you will give me!
sorry for my english, it's a google translation!

Translations are a new feature in reef-pi v3. Here is documentation for adding translations. Some of the french translation is already complete, but there are still some gaps.

 

[Ranjib]

At present in my tank ..... when the power came back after failure, my main motor will start first after the 30 seconds my skimmers will start. when my skimmer starts at the time of the main pump ... my skimmer starts to over glow due to water level ... at present to make the 30s delay I'm using time delay relay. ... is there any way I can do this with reef pi. I'm having a separate relay for main motor and skimmer

Let me think about this, i think its a good feature to have. May be some thing along the line of introducing a fixed delay time for all outlets upon startup.

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

For some reason I stopped getting notifications on this thread. @Ranjib , I've been experiencing some extreme resource utilization with the BaseBoard pH test build. Any progress on a stable build, or any information on settings I can change to relieve the system stress. Once the memory utilization gets to 60%+, rebooting via the UI is impossible.

 

[Stephen2]

The number of analog pins are fixed for individual driver. Ph boards have only one pin per driver while Kasa plugs can have one or 6 analog pin (hs110 vs hd300)

And the pico board?

 

[Stephen2]

Can a usb camera be used on the reef-pi/raspberry?

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

Can a usb camera be used on the reef-pi/raspberry?

Yes, but it might absorb a ton of computing resources.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

You would be better off with a dedicated Webcam. Something like this Wyze cam. It's cheap, easy to setup, simple interface via smartphone.

Amazon product

 

[Stephen2]

Im just looking for a camera that can take a pic 3 times a day. Not active monitoring.
But the raspberry pi camera cable is to short and i would like to use a usb camera instead

 

[Ranjib]

Im just looking for a camera that can take a pic 3 times a day. Not active monitoring.
But the raspberry pi camera cable is to short and i would like to use a usb camera instead

Irrespective of how you want to use it, the pi based solution will cost more and has the risk of interfering with controller function compared to commodity grade webcams such as Wyze.

 

[Des Westcott]

Hey all. Been a bit absent from this thread for a while. Shut my small cube (that was running on Reef-Pi) down and moved all livestock to my frag system while I set up my upgraded tank. New tank is 780 x 780 x 1000mm deep (31" x 31" x 39"deep) and is going to run completely on Reef-Pi.

So I have a few questions I want to ask as I go about my Reef-Pi wishlist. Should I ask here or on a separate build thread?

The main one I am getting my head around is applicable to this thread I think : I have a 15" ELO touchscreen that I plan to mount right next to the tank. Yes, I know PC access and phone etc, etc, but I often found in the past that when i was fiddling around the tank and wanted to check something or turn something on or off or whatever, my phone was elsewhere or it's a mission to get out of my pocket. So I want this dedicated screen right next to the tank. I'm currently running it as a test on my old Reef-Pi without any equipment connected to it just to test functionality and I'm happy with performance. But as soon as i connect another device to Reef-Pi (PC, phone etc), Reef-Pi gets very laggy on the touchscreen. Reef-Pi is installed on a Pi3B+ at present. Would upgrading to a Pi4 with 4GB Ram improve this? Or should I just stick with the Pi3.

I'll be starting a main build thread soon.

 

[Ranjib]

Hey all. Been a bit absent from this thread for a while. Shut my small cube (that was running on Reef-Pi) down and moved all livestock to my frag system while I set up my upgraded tank. New tank is 780 x 780 x 1000mm deep (31" x 31" x 39"deep) and is going to run completely on Reef-Pi.

So I have a few questions I want to ask as I go about my Reef-Pi wishlist. Should I ask here or on a separate build thread?

The main one I am getting my head around is applicable to this thread I think : I have a 15" ELO touchscreen that I plan to mount right next to the tank. Yes, I know PC access and phone etc, etc, but I often found in the past that when i was fiddling around the tank and wanted to check something or turn something on or off or whatever, my phone was elsewhere or it's a mission to get out of my pocket. So I want this dedicated screen right next to the tank. I'm currently running it as a test on my old Reef-Pi without any equipment connected to it just to test functionality and I'm happy with performance. But as soon as i connect another device to Reef-Pi (PC, phone etc), Reef-Pi gets very laggy on the touchscreen. Reef-Pi is installed on a Pi3B+ at present. Would upgrading to a Pi4 with 4GB Ram improve this? Or should I just stick with the Pi3.

I'll be starting a main build thread soon.

Pi 4 should definitely help a bit on the graphics performance side. Are you running a full desktop Or just chromium in kiosk mode? You can also use a dedicated pi for the display if nothing else works much

 

[Des Westcott]

Pi 4 should definitely help a bit on the graphics performance side. Are you running a full desktop Or just chromium in kiosk mode? You can also use a dedicated pi for the display if nothing else works much

I'm running the full desktop. ie - standard Raspbian installation with Reef-Pi. I'll look into Kiosk mode and running Chromium though. Can you pointy me to a good tutorial on Kiosk Mode? I'll start Googling anyway.

Don't get me wrong, Reef-Pi runs just fine when only running the touch screen, it only slows down when I access from two or more points. In real life, I don't see a reason to be running both, so don't think it's going to be a real issue.

 

[Des Westcott]

Found and read this tutorial

Raspberry Pi Kiosk using Chromium

Set up a fixed kiosk using the Raspberry Pi.

pimylifeup.com

Going to give that a bash later. Thanks Ranjib.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Yeah mine was bogging down as well (3B). I ended up just using my old galaxy tablet that still runs great and turn it into a dedicated ReefPi terminal. Just going to have it next to my tank on a stand. My pi has a static ip from my router and simply auto log in on restart so all I have to do in open Chrome (shortcut to my Pi IP) on the tablet and we're off to the races. I considered leaving it on all the time so I could always see the dashboard, but I found I didn't use it frequently. Worst case scenario I would jump in on remote desktop if I was away from the house.

So far working well in testing.

 

[Ranjib]

If you are familiar with linux, then you can track down what are the exact things that are bogging down cpu/memory and nuke them selectively. I do this as my paid job :-/ which is why I am little bit aware of this process. For my personal use though, I'll always do the reverse and instead of reducing a full-blown desktop into a kiosk, I'll prefer to extend a barebone text based installation to support just my one chromium tab. Typically this means
- installing a lightweight window manager (lightdm etc)
- install chromium
- configure the systems to autostart chromium in incognito + kiosk (full screen) mode
- configure systemd boot target to launch just those bits, post network initialization
This is an awesome setup if you dont have any network connectivity, its completely offline yet functional controller. Much less security and reliability headaches . I ran several builds like this till i moved to google wifi + grafana/prometheus setup. Because may other things at home gets impacted when the wifi is bad, so i had to improve the control plane. And after doing that, the kiosk mode use case is going down. I think it will be reduced to only the layout/diorama use cases , thing where im hacking reef-pi to use with model rairoad /toys/terrariums etc. Mostly my son's assets :-)

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Those of you using optical water level sensors, which specific sensor are you using (link)?

I picked up a pair of these Chinese optical sensors, however, it doesn't appear that the wiring matches that of thr guide. I've tried plugging them in to the HAT as well as taking apart the connector and wiring it up to the pi directly. Same result, after the ATO posing timer counts down, the switch turns of no matter if it's submerged or not.

Was going to grab one listed in @Ranjib 's guides. Anyone using anything different?

 

[Ranjib]

Those of you using optical water level sensors, which specific sensor are you using (link)?

I picked up a pair of these Chinese optical sensors, however, it doesn't appear that the wiring matches that of thr guide. I've tried plugging them in to the HAT as well as taking apart the connector and wiring it up to the pi directly. Same result, after the ATO posing timer counts down, the switch turns of no matter if it's submerged or not.

Was going to grab one listed in @Ranjib 's guides. Anyone using anything different?

The sensor look very similar to the one that I use, except it does not have the breakout board. The breakout board

But its very simple to do this on PCB/breadboard, and I think you dont even need all the components, here is the schematic of that board

If I was you I would remove all the caps/resistors and go simplest possible circuit and see if it works. In this case pin 1 & 2 goes to GND, pin 3 goes to 3.3v (or 5V??) and finally pin 4 goes to GPIO (whatever you are choosing)

 

[burningbaal]

Darn. I just checked, and most of the items from the list is gone. Not sure if this is due to missing items. Give me some time to consolidate this list again. I have to check first if the links in the individual guides (they are direct amazon links of specific parts) are still intact. If they are, we have to just consolidate them.

Might I suggest putting a series of links in the first post in this thread (edit that post)? the links could still die, but if they have a detailed description, we'd at least know what you're talking about. Even better if you could put that in the markdown file in the repo. only just discovered this thread; I was thinking about developing my own controller on the pi (I'm a C# dev by profession), and stumbled onto this, yay! When I get this on a pi, I may tinker on a fork and see if there's anything I can do to contribute.
I'd love to see this list broken up in a few bits. maybe the 'base' can be the pi itself + basic probes (temp, salinity, ORP, pH) sensors/solenoids for ATO. 'Plus' can add a series of on/off 110v outlets and some 0-10VDC digipots. 'Premium' can add other probes (ORP, maybe even some of the pinpoint (NO2, Ca, etc probes), electronic valves, pressure sensors, flow monitors, etc. Just as a nice way to break up the list (and ya, I'm expecting not all of these are supported).

Talking about 3d printing , I have racked up a decent stock of reef-pi enclosures now :) . In the coming days I plan to improve upon this simple design to make it aesthetically more pleasant and more functional

Next to a set

You willing to sell these? I'm hoping to pick up a pi 4 kit to start this and would like a nice box