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

[raketemensch]

Heh, and it looks like I've used all my 3.3v things on the goby board for temp probes:

I'll come back to this tomorrow, I guess.

Thanks for all the help! I really appreciate it.

 

[Bigtrout]

Heh, and it looks like I've used all my 3.3v things on the goby board for temp probes:

I'll come back to this tomorrow, I guess.

Thanks for all the help! I really appreciate it.

Use an ato connector hook up like the pic i posted only use the 5v on the ato connector in place of the 3.3v

Note to self:
I really need to get a good drawing app so I can draw stuff out quick on my phone.

 

[Phildago]

You can connect the grounds from all power supplies together to provide a common groubd reference for all voltages in your build

Okay that's great to know. I was afraid to connect any 12v power to grounds connected to the board. I wasn't sure if they ran through anything vital, and if they that it might cause something to burn out.

 

[Bigtrout]

Okay that's great to know. I was afraid to connect any 12v power to grounds connected to the board. I wasn't sure if they ran through anything vital, and if they that it might cause something to burn out.

Yes all the grounds( the v- ) can all.be connected together as one common ground.
That way +5v from one power supply and +12v from another all work from the same 0v starting point.

Otherwise these voltages can "float" and may not work correctly across circuits connected to different power supplies.

 

[b4tn]

Lol, no. I have absolutely no idea how I wound up tagging the wrong persono_O I'm running on very little sleep this week dealing with the Kickstarter launch. Been getting about 3 hours of sleep less than usual each night.

You definitely won the drawing, @NeonRabbit221B . But hey, if @b4tn could use one too, it's on me. Sorry for the mix-up!

There was a drawing? Lol it’s kind of funny because I was telling my wife the other day that I never win anything. Which is funny because my last name is Fortune lol. So I have been entering everything lately and the only one I didn’t enter I won by mistake lol.
Congrats @NeonRabbit221B this board looks amazing. I plan on picking one of these up in the future to build a second reefpi for my new pico.

 

[Bigtrout]

I hope I dont sound "preachy" or come across weirdly helping with the electrical questions. In a previous job I taught electrical theory at an accredited trade school. I wish i could answer some of these questions on a whiteboard with some good colored markers to explain stuff better.

 

[Bigtrout]

There was a drawing? Lol it’s kind of funny because I was telling my wife the other day that I never win anything. Which is funny because my last name is Fortune lol. So I have been entering everything lately and the only one I didn’t enter I won by mistake lol.
Congrats @NeonRabbit221B this board looks amazing. I plan on picking one of these up in the future to build a second reefpi for my new pico.

The only drawings I ever win are ones where the prize is something I already have.

Enjoy the board! Do what I did...pay it forward. Use the new board and donate the old build to someone who needs it(unless you have 2 tanks of course.

I have a neighbor kid who saw my tank. Got very interested. He bugged his mom for a tank on his birthday and he got one. They dont have alot of money, so things I dont need and I know he needs on his aquarium keeping journey become my way of paying it forward. I replaced 3 canisters with a sump. I gave him a canister filter. The look in his eyes was worth waaaaay more than the 20 bucks i may have gotten on craigslist.

When I built my reef pi, I started my build on a protoboard and my wife bought me a @Michael Lane hat for Xmas. I finished my proto anyway and the kid has a working reef pi on 30 gallon tank. Hopefully he sticks with the hobby and it keeps him out of trouble.

It also helps get new additions past the spousal unit when I tell her im giving the old stuff to the neighbor boy...so WIN WIN!!!

 

[Des Westcott]

So I guess a 2-wire float switch won't work then, since it does not provide any voltage?

Screenshot of discussion with @Michael Lane about using float switches with his Hat board. I have wired mine up with just the two wires and they work fine.

 

[raketemensch]

Screenshot of discussion with @Michael Lane about using float switches with his Hat board. I have wired mine up with just the two wires and they work fine.

huh, so I wonder why I’m getting random values back? I’ve verified that it happens on both ATO ports.

 

[Bigtrout]

huh, so I wonder why I’m getting random values back? I’ve verified that it happens on both ATO ports.

Wouldnt hurt to experiment and see if pullup/pulldown resistors do the trick

 

[JHabig12]

Just want to say thanks to people that have contributed to these controllers and make this possible. I’m close to being done with my build. It has 8 controllable outlets, two temperature probes, and ato control. I have three dosing pumps on their way as well. Those will go below the outlets. I built the enclosure to house everything in one unit.

I did have one question though. Does anyone know a way to get two water level sensors to work together? Basically I would like to have one that turns the pump on to maintain the water level in the display tank, and a separate one that disables the pump if the reservoir runs empty. Each one works individually, but with both enabled they seem to fight each other. One is trying to turn the pump on and the other is trying to turn it off so it just cycles on and off rapidly. Does anyone know a workaround for this?

 

[b4tn]

Just want to say thanks to people that have contributed to these controllers and make this possible. I’m close to being done with my build. It has 8 controllable outlets, two temperature probes, and ato control. I have three dosing pumps on their way as well. Those will go below the outlets. I built the enclosure to house everything in one unit.

I did have one question though. Does anyone know a way to get two water level sensors to work together? Basically I would like to have one that turns the pump on to maintain the water level in the display tank, and a separate one that disables the pump if the reservoir runs empty. Each one works individually, but with both enabled they seem to fight each other. One is trying to turn the pump on and the other is trying to turn it off so it just cycles on and off rapidly. Does anyone know a workaround for this?

woah!! I love everything about that. So clean! What is the box? Which hat are you using?

 

[JHabig12]

Thanks! I definitely read through your build and it helped me with mine. The hat on top is a wykat board, the one underneath is an Adafruit motor controller board I'm using for the dosing pumps.

I made the box using some 80/20 aluminum for the sides and hdpe plastic for the rest.

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

Just want to say thanks to people that have contributed to these controllers and make this possible. I’m close to being done with my build. It has 8 controllable outlets, two temperature probes, and ato control. I have three dosing pumps on their way as well. Those will go below the outlets. I built the enclosure to house everything in one unit.

I did have one question though. Does anyone know a way to get two water level sensors to work together? Basically I would like to have one that turns the pump on to maintain the water level in the display tank, and a separate one that disables the pump if the reservoir runs empty. Each one works individually, but with both enabled they seem to fight each other. One is trying to turn the pump on and the other is trying to turn it off so it just cycles on and off rapidly. Does anyone know a workaround for this?

Very clean. I like it!

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Just want to say thanks to people that have contributed to these controllers and make this possible. I’m close to being done with my build. It has 8 controllable outlets, two temperature probes, and ato control. I have three dosing pumps on their way as well. Those will go below the outlets. I built the enclosure to house everything in one unit.

I did have one question though. Does anyone know a way to get two water level sensors to work together? Basically I would like to have one that turns the pump on to maintain the water level in the display tank, and a separate one that disables the pump if the reservoir runs empty. Each one works individually, but with both enabled they seem to fight each other. One is trying to turn the pump on and the other is trying to turn it off so it just cycles on and off rapidly. Does anyone know a workaround for this?

Slick looking build! Well done!

 

[Phildago]

Hey guys, just an update. Thanks for all the help.

Today I worked on my controller for a good part of the day and got all three of my jebao pumps hooked up to pwm controllers.

I have them running tonight, and tomorrow I'll start getting some better approximations for how to adjust them to properly meet my tanks requirements.

I also formated my SD card and started from scratch just in case there was any software glitches.

I'll keep updating on the progress, but so far, so good.

 

[Lmorales45]

I have not tested the camera subsystem in 3.0 release. I was hoping to remove it going forward. I have not used it recently (most of my use cases are offloaded to dedicated cameras). If possible, try alternatives.
That being said, we have not done anything actively to break the camera feature as well. My guess will be some small changes (like raspistill command line argument etc) is causing the issue. I can take a look and fix it if you are if you plan to use it. Without continuous use it becomes harder for me to keep the functionality well tested. For most other modules I'm able to personally test them since I am actively using them across my tanks.

Hi @Ranjib , I'm new to reef-pi. It looks amazing! Can't wait to build all the components. I was trying the official Raspberry camera and had the same problems described above and can't get it to work. I'm running version 3.1 on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2 Will this issue be fixed in a future release?

Thanks for all your efforts.

 

[raketemensch]

A rebuild of my OS worked for me as well -- I think I missed the SPI config last time, which would totally bork the single-pin relay control, I think.

So I've got 3 temp probes, a float switch ATO and 8 relay ports working, although I only have one outlet in the house right now to use with the relay, but that's enough for the ATO pump.

I'm almost done with a shell script that will handle all of the config we need in raspbian:

timesyncd
dtoverlay=pwm-2chan
dtparam=spi=off
sudo modprobe w1-gpio

I'm also wondering what it would take to pre-bake an img file in CI, but I haven't looked into it yet.

 

[raketemensch]

Hi @Ranjib , I'm new to reef-pi. It looks amazing! Can't wait to build all the components. I was trying the official Raspberry camera and had the same problems described above and can't get it to work. I'm running version 3.1 on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2 Will this issue be fixed in a future release?

Thanks for all your efforts.

It seems like it should be the opposite, but the pi camera is really expensive resource-wise. Most people just pick up wifi cameras, x10 has some good deals as do a few other dealers.

 

[Bigtrout]

It seems like it should be the opposite, but the pi camera is really expensive resource-wise. Most people just pick up wifi cameras, x10 has some good deals as do a few other dealers.

I got a wyze pan zoom. Home depot discounted them to 25 bux after xmas