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

[theatrus]

This is a persistent theme, and I'm cooking up something to help folks at least for secure web access back to their ReefPi from anywhere. I'll have more to share soon, as a free community service.

I'm a bit into Tom's camp from a remote access PoV (I have a good mesh of Wireguard tunnels up at all times between devices, makes roaming a dream), but its not something I'd expect from folks to understand how to setup, nor is it in their set of risk factors. Port forwarding can work, but it adds some other risk factors, and isn't workable for everyone (non-pseudo-static IPs, ISPs with less inbound allowance, etc). As Tom said, the right way is something like the venerable ngrok tunneling setup, just secure by default and no need for the silly free plan caps. More details soon.

Note that "using VNC" usually means you should either be using Reef-Pi on the web interface directly, _or_ just using SSH (for admin stuff). If you're using VNC to look at the web interface or opening the terminal, that's just silly ;)

 

[bishoptf]

This is a persistent theme, and I'm cooking up something to help folks at least for secure web access back to their ReefPi from anywhere. I'll have more to share soon, as a free community service.

I'm a bit into Tom's camp from a remote access PoV (I have a good mesh of Wireguard tunnels up at all times between devices, makes roaming a dream), but its not something I'd expect from folks to understand how to setup, nor is it in their set of risk factors. Port forwarding can work, but it adds some other risk factors, and isn't workable for everyone (non-pseudo-static IPs, ISPs with less inbound allowance, etc). As Tom said, the right way is something like the venerable ngrok tunneling setup, just secure by default and no need for the silly free plan caps. More details soon.

Note that "using VNC" usually means you should either be using Reef-Pi on the web interface directly, _or_ just using SSH (for admin stuff). If you're using VNC to look at the web interface or opening the terminal, that's just silly ;)

Why I like the vpn option I'm not port forwarding anything, openvpn is my only open port. ;)

Let me know if you want someone to poke around at what you come up with, I know some folks..lol. This is my neck of the woods and I can actually help, lol. :)

BTW I'd like to talk to you about your analog driver board, I have a nicrew light that can work with 0-10v analog control but was trying to use a @Michael Lane mars aqua board and could never get it to work, would like to see if I could adapt one of your boards to do it.

 

[osterac]

Hi,
I have a Raspberry pi 2 I am trying to use for reef pi with a pond. I already have a thermometer working but I am trying to get pH working too. I bought The atlas pH circuit and the atlas carrier board (and a probe of course) but then realized the guide for this doesn't use the carrier board. I want to use the carrier board in my build because it would make everything much tidier but I haven't been able to get it working.
I get this error:
ph subsystem: Failed read probe:pH probeError:write /dev/i2c-1: remote I/O error
I have a pH ezo driver set up with an address of 99.
I have an analog input for that driver on port 0.
In the pH tab I have a probe set up pointing to that analog input.
on the carrier board I have it wired like this.
rx->sda1 i2c
tx->scl1 i2c
gnd->gnd
off->n/c
vcc->5v
Any tips?
thanks

 

[GaryE]

This is a persistent theme, and I'm cooking up something to help folks at least for secure web access back to their ReefPi from anywhere. I'll have more to share soon, as a free community service.

I'm a bit into Tom's camp from a remote access PoV (I have a good mesh of Wireguard tunnels up at all times between devices, makes roaming a dream), but its not something I'd expect from folks to understand how to setup, nor is it in their set of risk factors. Port forwarding can work, but it adds some other risk factors, and isn't workable for everyone (non-pseudo-static IPs, ISPs with less inbound allowance, etc). As Tom said, the right way is something like the venerable ngrok tunneling setup, just secure by default and no need for the silly free plan caps. More details soon.

Note that "using VNC" usually means you should either be using Reef-Pi on the web interface directly, _or_ just using SSH (for admin stuff). If you're using VNC to look at the web interface or opening the terminal, that's just silly ;)

I also use wireguard.. I do have a few things open to the internet, but wireguard on my phone makes it feel like I'm at home while at work.. ;)

 

[iLMaRiO]

Guys, do you know where to find a salt-water compatible temperature probe ? I don't want to use the steel probes, as I know that there are the same DS18B20 with plastic cover.

 

[theatrus]

Guys, do you know where to find a salt-water compatible temperature probe ? I don't want to use the steel probes, as I know that there are the same DS18B20 with plastic cover.

I made an alternative option awhile back, definitely not as cheap as the import variety. There are other alternatives such as dipping and coating the cheaper probes in PlastiDip or silicones.

 

[iLMaRiO]

I made an alternative option awhile back, definitely not as cheap as the import variety. There are other alternatives such as dipping and coating the cheaper probes in PlastiDip or silicones.

Very interesting, but i'm in europe, shipping costs and custom would kill me

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

Very interesting, but i'm in europe, shipping costs and custom would kill me

1) buy two of the cheap probes. Periodically check the probe your using for corrosion. If you get some or your temps get wonky then replace. Likely you never will have to.

2) buy the cheap probe. Pot the probe and an inch of wire in epoxy. I used a piece of pvc pipe as the mold for the epoxy.

3) by one of the double crimp silicone wire probes. Do nothing but use it and get better temperature accuracy (hopefully). I have no idea where to get it in Europe but it looks like this. https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-DS18b2...2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

4) buy one from theatrus and know you are getting an accurate probe with long lasting corrosion protection.

 

[bishoptf]

1) buy two of the cheap probes. Periodically check the probe your using for corrosion. If you get some or your temps get wonky then replace. Likely you never will have to.

2) buy the cheap probe. Pot the probe and an inch of wire in epoxy. I used a piece of pvc pipe as the mold for the epoxy.

3) by one of the double crimp silicone wire probes. Do nothing but use it and get better temperature accuracy (hopefully). I have no idea where to get it in Europe but it looks like this. https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-DS18b2...2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

4) buy one from theatrus and know you are getting an accurate probe with long lasting corrosion protection.

I went for the low tech solution, I just slathered on a bunch of silicone caulking on the probes. They appear to read temp just fine at least good enough for me and so far almost 2 years in usage no rusting, YMMV. :)

 

[theatrus]

Adapted some firmware from the DualDoser to quickly make the uPWM USB adapter.

Four channels of PWM, with both adaptable frequency and on-time - in this case it’s about 10kHz PWM, with room to go higher. I’ve always been grumpy using a PCA9685 and it’s low maximum frequency which can cause banding in images, so made something flexible. It also has nearly twice the base clock of the PCA9685 (48MHz vs 25MHz), so even at the same bit depth it’s twice as fast. There is a little more to explore with the TCC peripheral on the SAMD11 including dithering mode, which can help power supplies to the LEDs.

I made a silly little demo just by attaching some LEDs to it (there is a 1k resistor on each pin), and had the Pi with a small Python test program fade the LEDs in and out (same rate different offset). It was doing 100Hz updates without a sweat, will push it faster.

Firmware is here:

GitHub - blueacro/ba-firmware-upwm: uPWM Micro PWM USB Adapter

uPWM Micro PWM USB Adapter. Contribute to blueacro/ba-firmware-upwm development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Edit: Just for grins, I can _update_ at about 5.8kHz (load a new PWM value to use). Thats a bit nonsensical, but its possible.

 

[ColoredRock]

Do you guys mind sharing your query on equipment status... im a bone head.. and missing something.

Will trade aptisia

 

[Ranjib]

This is a persistent theme, and I'm cooking up something to help folks at least for secure web access back to their ReefPi from anywhere. I'll have more to share soon, as a free community service.

I'm a bit into Tom's camp from a remote access PoV (I have a good mesh of Wireguard tunnels up at all times between devices, makes roaming a dream), but its not something I'd expect from folks to understand how to setup, nor is it in their set of risk factors. Port forwarding can work, but it adds some other risk factors, and isn't workable for everyone (non-pseudo-static IPs, ISPs with less inbound allowance, etc). As Tom said, the right way is something like the venerable ngrok tunneling setup, just secure by default and no need for the silly free plan caps. More details soon.

Note that "using VNC" usually means you should either be using Reef-Pi on the web interface directly, _or_ just using SSH (for admin stuff). If you're using VNC to look at the web interface or opening the terminal, that's just silly ;)

we need a cloud based control plane. that is the only long term sustainable thing i see. but then that will open up a can of work :)

i have this one my mind (a minimal cloud based command & control service), but its even less priority than contolling multiple reef-pi from a single place.. so unlikely to happen any time soon..

 

[Ranjib]

Will trade aptisia

you can just enter the name of the metric in your query section. the specific metric name you can see in 'http://reef0-pi-IP/x/metrics'

example:

you dont need the {job="pico1-app"} part, i need it because i have 10+ reef-pi configured with my prometheus/grafana server.
generally the equipment state are emitted as "equipment_name_state" format

 

[bishoptf]

I did a quick search but hoping someone can chime in and let me know the easy way in grafana to show state. Similar to what is on the dashboard for equipment, in this case its for an ATO light and the state from prometheus is either 0 or 1. I just want to have a panel that reports the state either full or empty etc, when my led light comes on I know I need to refill my ATO bucket but would like an email alert to be triggered also. Poking around grafana and just haven;t found the option that I wanted and thought someone may already have something set up similar.

Only tuesday and it's been a looong week, lol. :)

 

[ColoredRock]

you can just enter the name of the metric in your query section. the specific metric name you can see in 'http://reef0-pi-IP/x/metrics'

example:

you dont need the {job="pico1-app"} part, i need it because i have 10+ reef-pi configured with my prometheus/grafana server.
generally the equipment state are emitted as "equipment_name_state" format

Bone Head on my part.. thanks for this.. Binary for the win.. dam the ones and zeros.

 

[GaryE]

I do that on several of my graphs.. The query is the same as a line chart, but on the right side panel, I set mine to "stat" for the graph type, on Value Options set SHOW to Calculate, Calculation to "Last Value". Then on Thresholds I set 1 = Green, 0 = Red and Value Mappings I set 1 = On and 0 = Off

 

[bishoptf]

I do that on several of my graphs.. The query is the same as a line chart, but on the right side panel, I set mine to "stat" for the graph type, on Value Options set SHOW to Calculate, Calculation to "Last Value". Then on Thresholds I set 1 = Green, 0 = Red and Value Mappings I set 1 = On and 0 = Off

Yeah I had looked at that and a discrete plugin that gives me visually what I want but for whatever reason Grafana does NOT support Alerts for stat panels and I want an alert, that is one of the main things that I am after. For whatever reason I cannot get the alert working from reef-pi and thought i would just do it in grafana. So I can either have it look nice via stat etc but no alert or go with a time series or graph panel. There is a 4 year old thread where folks have been asking for it, must have been difficult code wise to do, not sure why but I could see how folks would like to be able to have an alert for something that is either up or down.

 

[GaryE]

Yeah I had looked at that and a discrete plugin that gives me visually what I want but for whatever reason Grafana does NOT support Alerts for stat panels and I want an alert, that is one of the main things that I am after. For whatever reason I cannot get the alert working from reef-pi and thought i would just do it in grafana. So I can either have it look nice via stat etc but no alert or go with a time series or graph panel. There is a 4 year old thread where folks have been asking for it, must have been difficult code wise to do, not sure why but I could see how folks would like to be able to have an alert for something that is either up or down.

There has to be a way to do an alert on that.. I've never messed with alerts. I used to have my security cams send me alerts when there was motion detection and after a while my ISP decided I was spamming, so they blocked me from sending emails thru their servers.. So now I'm unable to send alerts unless its thru Gmail and I'd rather not use that.

I have an Equipment panel on my graph for my fans / heaters / chillers.. But I also have a time series graph and can send alerts from that separate graph..

 

[bishoptf]

There has to be a way to do an alert on that.. I've never messed with alerts. I used to have my security cams send me alerts when there was motion detection and after a while my ISP decided I was spamming, so they blocked me from sending emails thru their servers.. So now I'm unable to send alerts unless its thru Gmail and I'd rather not use that.

I have an Equipment panel on my graph for my fans / heaters / chillers.. But I also have a time series graph and can send alerts from that separate graph..

Yeah I rarely look at the graph more to make sure ATO is behaving so I will just make it a time series and alert that way, I dont really need to see that ATO is low on the graph, just need to get an email.

 

[friskaburger]

Hey all, I recently upgraded to 5.1 and now I can't seem to change my ranges or colors of my graphs, does anyone know where it went? Screenshot showing where it used to be but now I don't see the option to change color or range.