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

[MikeSpike]

Hardly any. Not familiar with that chip. Can I just use it in place of a relay. Curious what others who built their own controller have done? Have I just got unlucky?

 

[Ranjib]

Hardly any. Not familiar with that chip. Can I just use it in place of a relay. Curious what others who built their own controller have done? Have I just got unlucky?

I have used mechanical relays in the beginning almost 1.5 years. I found high failure rates from the beginning, not by usage but just faulty units from the beginning. I think a relatively reputed brand like sainsmart will help. Double check your wiring as well.
The ADJ power strips that we recommend in 2.0 are also known to be of shoddy quality. Among the 5 I ordered two of them has one relay shorted. So, two outlets are actually controlled by a single pin.

The single/dual/quad outlet options from adafruit are expensive but definitely quality alternatives. In 3.0 I am planning to recommend kasa hs300 powerstrips. But I still dont think these are as beefy as the other ones (including ADJ )

 

[Ryan115]

Hardly any. Not familiar with that chip. Can I just use it in place of a relay. Curious what others who built their own controller have done? Have I just got unlucky?

Not sure if you already addressed this, but do you have the grounds tied together on the system? Grounding issues can cause similar results.

 

[Urtoo]

@Ranjib I was looking at the Kasa last night! So glad you are adding them to 3.0. Speaking of which, when is 3 going to be released?
After I paint the basement this afternoon, I am going to wire in my lights with the PWM board from ML. I will take pictures to share in my build.

 

[Ranjib]

@Ranjib I was looking at the Kasa last night! So glad you are adding them to 3.0. Speaking of which, when is 3 going to be released?
After I paint the basement this afternoon, I am going to wire in my lights with the PWM board from ML. I will take pictures to share in my build.

Thanksgiving . I try to make the major releases around thanksgiving time. There’s no hard deadline , so if some major bugs or concerns comes out we can delay that. We are already I feature freeze mode , so no big new feature is being written right now . I am working on finishing up the small features from backlog (lunar profile for example ), sorting out bugs (we have many ), field testing in October . Michael and Vince is working on the new UI updates to support the new features . By last week of October or early November I’ll cut another 3.0 beta releases and focus on documentation (tutorial and api ) from then on. Till we hit thanksgiving /final release

 

[Urtoo]

I looked at the Kasa again, are you adding wireless Control to ReefPi? Flashing the power strip with Tasmota, or something else?

 

[Ranjib]

I looked at the Kasa again, are you adding wireless Control to ReefPi? Flashing the power strip with Tasmota, or something else?

Direct wireless control. Kasa HS300, HS103, HS110 are supported. Current monitoring will be exposed as analog input in reef-pi, users can treat it as ph probe and graph or do something with it if they want

 

[Urtoo]

Wait wait wait. You incorporated their monitoring per port into version 3?
Adding wireless will allow users to add multiple aquariums across the home or yard. That is huge

 

[Ranjib]

Wait wait wait. You incorporated their monitoring per port into version 3?
Adding wireless will allow users to add multiple aquariums across the home or yard. That is huge

:-) lets hope they are reliable enough. I have one controller running with it, full ato , light timer etc. here’s the build thread : https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/5-5g-budget-nano-reef-pi-open-design.648179/

 

[Urtoo]

When you say direct, do you mean that we do not need their native software app? Ordered the 300 just a moment ago.

 

[Ranjib]

When you say direct, do you mean that we do not need their native software app? Ordered the 300 just a moment ago.

Yes. They use auto key encryption, which I learned from the Nodejs based Kasa library. reef-pi is using exact same scheme to control these smart outlets. Your kasa app will work as it is. It’s just another thing that will control these devices. This also means you now have two places to control those outlets.

 

[AbjectMaelstroM]

Yes. They use auto key encryption, which I learned from the Nodejs based Kasa library. reef-pi is using exact same scheme to control these smart outlets. Your kasa app will work as it is. It’s just another thing that will control these devices. This also means you now have two places to control those outlets.

Saves me building another power controller. Can't wait!

 

[Ernie E]

Hey guys,

Does the ATO Disable on Alert not work for anyone else?

I have it set to disable if it's on for more than 5 seconds but that never occurs. Just stays on. I'm dry testing this all right now with a mechanical float switch and while it does switch on and off as the levels change in the tank, the "safety" never kicks in.

Also, this is on reef-pi 2.5

 

[Michael Lane]

It looks like the ATO code disables the ATO system, but does not seem to turn off the ATO equipment. I'm reviewing 3.0 code, but it seems like a bug to me.

 

[Ranjib]

Hey guys,

Does the ATO Disable on Alert not work for anyone else?

I have it set to disable if it's on for more than 5 seconds but that never occurs. Just stays on. I'm dry testing this all right now with a mechanical float switch and while it does switch on and off as the levels change in the tank, the "safety" never kicks in.

Also, this is on reef-pi 2.5

This is a bug :-( https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi/issues/829 , it only works at hourly or greater threshold. I was planning to fix it as part of 3.0 release. Unless you need this urgently.

 

[Ernie E]

This is a bug :-( https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi/issues/829 , it only works at hourly or greater threshold. I was planning to fix it as part of 3.0 release. Unless you need this urgently.

Would you recommend running two float switches? A higher failsafe switch that cuts off the circuit from the 1st float to reef-pi to add a safety net? My ATO pump is a bit... Oversized and will fill the tank within seconds so I'm trying to figure out the best way to prevent a catastrophe :)

Also I noticed that the check frequency on the ATO by default is 60 seconds. This means reef-pi checks the input pin every 60 seconds and the pump will run (for a minimum) for 60 seconds. Would it be possible to have reef-pi check the input status almost real-time once the ATO is signaled ON to prevent overages from oversized ATO pumps like mine? Lol.

I set it to 1 second for the reason above, don't know if that negatively affects anything. I didn't notice any increased CPU usage on the pi.

 

[Ranjib]

Would you recommend running two float switches? A higher failsafe switch that cuts off the circuit from the 1st float to reef-pi to add a safety net? My ATO pump is a bit... Oversized and will fill the tank within seconds so I'm trying to figure out the best way to prevent a catastrophe :)

Also I noticed that the check frequency on the ATO by default is 60 seconds. This means reef-pi checks the input pin every 60 seconds and the pump will run (for a minimum) for 60 seconds. Would it be possible to have reef-pi check the input status almost real-time once the ATO is signaled ON to prevent overages from oversized ATO pumps like mine? Lol.

I set it to 1 second for the reason above, don't know if that negatively affects anything. I didn't notice any increased CPU usage on the pi.

I think you can get away by running it at 3-5 second interval. I have never ran it at 1 second interval, but i dont think anything will break. Real time is not possible currently, we have to implement a different type of driver and I dont think the effort is worth the benefit right now.
I'll work on fixing the bug though... that needs to be fixed asap.

 

[Ernie E]

I think you can get away by running it at 3-5 second interval. I have never ran it at 1 second interval, but i dont think anything will break. Real time is not possible currently, we have to implement a different type of driver and I dont think the effort is worth the benefit right now.
I'll work on fixing the bug though... that needs to be fixed asap.

Thank you! I'm testing at 2 and 3 seconds today with the pump connected to see how she does.

One more question on the functionality of "disable on alert". Would this disable the ATO/equipment until the user resets it or would it disable it only for the check period set (60 seconds for example).

Maybe I should learn GO! Wonder how difficult it would be coming from a Python background.

 

[Spathodus]

Hello Ranjib.

First, thank you for creating such a useful application for all of us. I've been following this project for a while and just completed my lighting build. I DIY'd this as well, with 4 Meanwell LDD-1000L, running 4 channels to twenty-two 3w LEDS. the 4 channels are connected to a PCA 9685. I'm using a Raspberry pi zeroW.

My issue at the moment is that the LED's will flash brightly when they are shut off through the web UI. I believe this is a similar issue to losing the PWM signal from the raspberry pi/PCA 9685 resulting in the LED's just running at 100%, but I'm not sure. Do you think adding an adequately sized capacitor in parallel with each channel would abate this flashing issue?

Thank you very much!

 

[Ranjib]

Hello Ranjib.

First, thank you for creating such a useful application for all of us. I've been following this project for a while and just completed my lighting build. I DIY'd this as well, with 4 Meanwell LDD-1000L, running 4 channels to twenty-two 3w LEDS. the 4 channels are connected to a PCA 9685. I'm using a Raspberry pi zeroW.

My issue at the moment is that the LED's will flash brightly when they are shut off through the web UI. I believe this is a similar issue to losing the PWM signal from the raspberry pi/PCA 9685 resulting in the LED's just running at 100%, but I'm not sure. Do you think adding an adequately sized capacitor in parallel with each channel would abate this flashing issue?

Thank you very much!

Thank you so much for the kind words. It means everything to me and rest of the folks who makes this project possible.

I think this is a bug in the pca9695 driver where we are not sending special instruction for 0 duty_cycle. https://github.com/reef-pi/reef-pi/issues/794
I plan to fix it as part of 3.0 release. If possible use a timer to cut off the power during off cycle.