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

[Mike Kearns]

I have started my reef-pi journey! Thank you to everyone contributing to making this work so well

Got the relay up and running for my power strip. Only mistakes I made were ordering a male/female db9 cable and 2 male panel mounts, plus ordering only male/female jumpers (thus the temporary twisted together cables in the pic. Can’t wait to get this and other equipment and sensors up and running! Thanks again!

 

[Ranjib]

I have started my reef-pi journey! Thank you to everyone contributing to making this work so well

Got the relay up and running for my power strip. Only mistakes I made were ordering a male/female db9 cable and 2 male panel mounts, plus ordering only male/female jumpers (thus the temporary twisted together cables in the pic. Can’t wait to get this and other equipment and sensors up and running! Thanks again!

Awesome. Keep us posted

 

[Ranjib]

One of the features in 3.0 is hysteresis. With this feature, users will be able to specify a tolerance threshold for their sensor based control system. This helps avoiding flapping (repeated equipment on/off) thus improving equipment longevity. In lack of this featur, reef-pi was not suitable for chiller and similar equipment.

Here is how it impact in real life,. First , the temperature graph of my pico tank (5.5G) powered by a 50W hydor heater. In absence of any control mechanism, the temperature swings almost 1.5-2.5 degrees.

And then if reef-pi is enabled, with a fixed threshold then the temperature is rapidly stabililized and less than 0.1 degree fluctuation happens (at 15s check frequency). This also cause repeated heater on/off .

Next is with 0.1 degree hysteresis,

 

[Schreiber]

I have started my reef-pi journey! Thank you to everyone contributing to making this work so well

Got the relay up and running for my power strip. Only mistakes I made were ordering a male/female db9 cable and 2 male panel mounts, plus ordering only male/female jumpers (thus the temporary twisted together cables in the pic. Can’t wait to get this and other equipment and sensors up and running! Thanks again!

I'm curious, what are you using the db9 connector for anyway? It looks like you're making your build run off the relays & typical outlets like I did, rather than using the expensive American DJ SR P8.

 

[Mike Kearns]

I'm curious, what are you using the db9 connector for anyway? It looks like you're making your build run off the relays & typical outlets like I did, rather than using the expensive American DJ SR P8.

It is for the control of the outlets, just like the DJ power strip but i did do the diy power strip. Now that I have built it, I will probably do something different on the next one. How did you do the control for yours?

 

[Schreiber]

It is for the control of the outlets, just like the DJ power strip but i did do the diy power strip. Now that I have built it, I will probably do something different on the next one.

Hmmm, I can't tell from your picture exactly how you have this wired or what relays you're using. But in my build, I don't use the db9 at all. Are you using a ULN2803A in your build? How are you triggering the relays & what are they rated to trigger on? (Most relay boards like that are either 5V or 12V.)

 

[Mike Kearns]

Hmmm, I can't tell from your picture exactly how you have this wired or what relays you're using. But in my build, I don't use the db9 at all. Are you using a ULN2803A in your build? How are you triggering the relays & what are they rated to trigger on? (Most relay boards like that are either 5V or 12V.)

I am not using a uln2803a. Based on a few other builds I found, i have the relays powered by a 5v wall wart. I have been reading and researching and learning, but sometimes things don't click until I actually do it lol. The pic I posted was just my cobbled together pieces to test the relays and learn setting up the pi as I had no experience with micro computing/programming before this. I am also learning how to use my 3D printer at the same time, I'm surprised my brain hasn't exploded.

If I may ask, how do you control your power strip?

Thanks!

 

[Schreiber]

I am not using a uln2803a. Based on a few other builds I found, i have the relays powered by a 5v wall wart. I have been reading and researching and learning, but sometimes things don't click until I actually do it lol. The pic I posted was just my cobbled together pieces to test the relays and learn setting up the pi as I had no experience with micro computing/programming before this. I am also learning how to use my 3D printer at the same time, I'm surprised my brain hasn't exploded.

If I may ask, how do you control your power strip?

Thanks!

You're using a separate wall wart to power the relays themselves, or the same one you're using to power the Pi?

On mine, I have a 5V power supply providing power to the Pi through Pin 2 & also to the 5V input of the relay boards. The channels on the relays are directly connected to GPIO pins & triggered that way.

What features do you plan on adding to your build down the road?

 

[Mike Kearns]

You're using a separate wall wart to power the relays themselves, or the same one you're using to power the Pi?

On mine, I have a 5V power supply providing power to the Pi through Pin 2 & also to the 5V input of the relay boards. The channels on the relays are directly connected to GPIO pins & triggered that way.

What features do you plan on adding to your build down the road?

Yes. It is a separate 5v power supply, just for the power strip. Have you had any issues with the pi 5v not powering the relays? I read it might not be able to power them all, or struggle with that, so that's why I went with the separate power supply. What cable are you using to connect your power strip to the pi? I guess the root of my struggles has been the fact that i wanted the pi case to be small so there is not enough room for everything i might want. Of course this is just 1.0 of my build. I have 6 aquariums (3 salt, 3 fresh) and hope to have them all at least monitored with pi's someday.

Features I plan to add include temperature control, ato (mostly reservoir level monitoring as I have stand alone ato's right now), maybe ph, dosing and pump control.

 

[Stephen2]

Has anyone use reef-pi and a diy led setup using the meanwell ldd drivers?

 

[Ranjib]

Has anyone use reef-pi and a diy led setup using the meanwell ldd drivers?

I am not using it personally , but I know somewhere in this thread folks mentioned about it. Ldd series if I recall correctly

 

[Ranjib]

I am not using it personally , but I know somewhere in this thread folks mentioned about it. Ldd series if I recall correctly

Details from pi forum: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=91441

 

[dmolavi]

@Ranjib what camera can be used with the camera module? I have some Wyze cams I could use...

 

[Des Westcott]

Hey. Just doing a reload of Reef-Pi for my new build

Dewd's Big Cube Reef-Pi build

Hi all. I have recently decided to upgrade my small nano (200l) to a new "cube" that I got at a phenomenal price Tank size is 800mm(W) x 800mm(L) by 1000mm (D). Water level at about 900mm deep. (31 x 31 x 39 inches) Yes, yes, I know all about the challenges around deep tanks, but I've...

www.reef2reef.com

And thought I would share a "frustration" or "suggestion" if you like. I'm thrilled with Reef-Pi and constantly amazed at what it is doing, so this isn't a criticism, just a viewpoint for your consideration. It's all around the UI actually, so nothing to do with the way Reef-Pi works.

I added 12 connectors (Relays 1-12) and then associated them with Equipment. Despite adding the connectors in order, reef-Pi sorted the numbers in an interesting way. This order carried through to the Equipment. Everything works like it should, but some of us might like things in order. I personally would like to be able to control the order that Equipment is displayed in the dashboard and even like to have a single row of Equipment at the top and smaller metric graphs below. It also gets annoying when Equipment names are too long and they start hiding adjacent names.

These are all minor gripes compared to the real work being done out there, but would be "Nice to Have" in the future.

Keep up the good work guys.

 

[Ranjib]

@Ranjib what camera can be used with the camera module? I have some Wyze cams I could use...

i used official pi camera while developing the reef-pi camera module.

 

[adityaduggal]

Hi Ranjib,
First of all I must thank you for a wonderful product in reef-pi. Though I have a Fresh water aquarium but I have been able to use your software to atleast start with some automation for my freshwater aquarium.

Now since I have said that I am using it on a Fresh water aquarium, I would like to know a few things which I think have not been asked:

1. Can I control 2 heaters with one temperature probe and how could I turn off the heaters once a specified temperature is reached. Like I want the heaters to turn on below 25 deg C but they should be switched OFF at 26 deg C, I cannot seem to figure out a way for the same.
2. I am using LED strip made custom light and there does not seem to be a way to save any profiles for PWM, I see that v3.0-beta might have them is it safe to install it on v2.5

Once again thanks for the great piece of code and is there a guideline for people like me to contribute on github, I might be able to chip in with my bit of contribution.

Well I changed my mind seeing so many new features in v3.0 and hence installed the v3.0 and guess what I think I have found a bug can anyone please let me know how to resolve this issue. Basically I am getting this when I click on Configuration ---> Connectors:

Something went wrong.
TypeError: Cannot read property 'name' of undefined
in t in div in div in div in t in Connect(t) in div in div in t in div in t in t in div in div in div in div in t in Connect(t) in t in a

 

[Michael Lane]

Hi Ranjib,
First of all I must thank you for a wonderful product in reef-pi. Though I have a Fresh water aquarium but I have been able to use your software to atleast start with some automation for my freshwater aquarium.

Now since I have said that I am using it on a Fresh water aquarium, I would like to know a few things which I think have not been asked:

1. Can I control 2 heaters with one temperature probe and how could I turn off the heaters once a specified temperature is reached. Like I want the heaters to turn on below 25 deg C but they should be switched OFF at 26 deg C, I cannot seem to figure out a way for the same.
2. I am using LED strip made custom light and there does not seem to be a way to save any profiles for PWM, I see that v3.0-beta might have them is it safe to install it on v2.5

Once again thanks for the great piece of code and is there a guideline for people like me to contribute on github, I might be able to chip in with my bit of contribution.

Well I changed my mind seeing so many new features in v3.0 and hence installed the v3.0 and guess what I think I have found a bug can anyone please let me know how to resolve this issue. Basically I am getting this when I click on Configuration ---> Connectors:

Something went wrong.
TypeError: Cannot read property 'name' of undefined
in t in div in div in div in t in Connect(t) in div in div in t in div in t in t in div in div in div in div in t in Connect(t) in t in a

Thanks for trying reef-pi. I'm glad to hear that it's useful for saltwater and freshwater tanks! I'm sure Ranjib will jump in, but here's my take on it.

1. You can control multiple heaters with a single temperature probe by adding multiple probes in the UI, but choosing the same sensor. You may need to stagger the check frequency when doing this. reef-pi v2 doesn't have hysteresis, so if you set the heater threshold to 25, the heater will turn on whenever the temperature is less than 25 and turn off as soon as it exceeds 25. reef-pi 3 is adding hysteresis, which will allow you to do as described.

2. We're still working through some significant changes in lighting (and anything PWM related). The API supports saving multiple profiles and switching between them, but it is not implemented in the UI yet. We're working to get as much of this in and tested before the final release.

I've really enjoyed helping with reef-pi, and it's been a pleasure working with the other devs. We have a set up guide at https://reef-pi.github.io/additional-documentation/development/. We also have a slack channel for dev conversation. I'd love to see more hands on the project if you would be interested.

The error you are seeing is probably a side effect of upgrading to 3.0. It introduces some significant changes and is not backward compatible with 2.0. Ranjib introduced some db commands, so you may be able to fix it, but it's probably easier to delete reef-pi.db and reconfigure.

 

[Ranjib]

Hi Ranjib,
First of all I must thank you for a wonderful product in reef-pi. Though I have a Fresh water aquarium but I have been able to use your software to atleast start with some automation for my freshwater aquarium.

Now since I have said that I am using it on a Fresh water aquarium, I would like to know a few things which I think have not been asked:

1. Can I control 2 heaters with one temperature probe and how could I turn off the heaters once a specified temperature is reached. Like I want the heaters to turn on below 25 deg C but they should be switched OFF at 26 deg C, I cannot seem to figure out a way for the same.
2. I am using LED strip made custom light and there does not seem to be a way to save any profiles for PWM, I see that v3.0-beta might have them is it safe to install it on v2.5

Once again thanks for the great piece of code and is there a guideline for people like me to contribute on github, I might be able to chip in with my bit of contribution.

Well I changed my mind seeing so many new features in v3.0 and hence installed the v3.0 and guess what I think I have found a bug can anyone please let me know how to resolve this issue. Basically I am getting this when I click on Configuration ---> Connectors:

Something went wrong.
TypeError: Cannot read property 'name' of undefined
in t in div in div in div in t in Connect(t) in div in div in t in div in t in t in div in div in div in div in t in Connect(t) in t in a

Hi aditya, first of all , welcome to reef2reef and thank you for trying out reef-pi

In 3.0 you can use a macro instead of an equipment as target for temperature control, and declare both equipment on/off as a single macro,

The second error is likely coming from a ui bug. Did you reset database before updating, if not this may happen. Please remove or backup 2.5 data base before installing 3.0. If it still persist , then it’s a bug and we’ll be happy to diagnose and fix it

 

[Bigtrout]

I backed up my database so I could experiment with 3.0 beta. Here are a few observations.

Equipment: all works
MACROS: all work
Temp sensors: they work and graph but the temperature thats listed above the graph in the heading is not populated. It just reads () although the box if u click on the graph is populated.
Temp controllers: all work
Ph probe: works

Lighting
Here is where the problem lies. It lets me create a pca9685 driver. I create the jacks as before on 3.0 alpha. When I go to create a light it errors when I click on save. The error complains about validation. And the values dont stick. The othet strange behavior is with a fresh install one of my lights goes on to approx 50 percent brightness and one goes off and thats before any drivers are even created.
This is on a reef pi zero. I backed up my database, purged the whole reef pi installation and database and installed 3.0 beta from scratch.

 

[Bigtrout]

I forgot to mention this:
BACKUP your reef pi database file!!!!

After I experimented with 3.0 beta. I purged that install and the new database. Then I installed reef pi 3.0 alpha again. Stopped reef pi service. Deleted the new install database and replaced it with the copy of my database i made before the 3.0 experiment. Restarted reef pi and voila! Everything back to the way it was before. Everything restored including my ph probe calibrations.

So to recreate you just need:
1. The version of reef pi that the database was created on

2. a copy of the reef pi database file reef-pi.db

3. Optional for now with 3.0 beta is a copy of your calibration.json file

Re creating an install works like a charm!!!