Reef-Pi Controllers: New all-in-one with power bar, and the original Pico

[robottaway]

Thank you! My multi-meter is coming tomorrow/Tuesday and I just spent an hour yesterday re-soldering the ADJ to find it made no difference. These instructions are exactly what I need (as well as a video I found on testing relays).

 

[hockeyhead019]

Give me a ping - I have more boards coming up, from a small shortage of TRS connectors

PM sent! Looking forward to checking it out

 

[robottaway]

So I took measurements using @theatrus methods (thanks again) and found that output was actually bad at the board. I'll post up the measurements tonight and snap some photos of the black bits mentioned. Should I get shots of both sides? Maybe this is just a matter of fixing some solder joints on the Pico board?

 

[AquaRaider44]

Hello,

I have been following the Reef Pi for about six months now and would like to try it out. I am somewhat tech savvy with a few other Pis and Arduinos which work with my 3d-printer and other gadgets. I see your Reef-Pi Pico Controller which appears to still be in beta. I would like to know how to become a beta tester as well as the answers to a few questions. Does the DB18B20 "Stainless" Steel Temperature Sensor and ADJ SC-8 Relay Pack work out of the box or are additional parts (other than the Pi and DB9 cable) needed to make these work? Also, I have read that the PH will not work until 3.0 is this true or is there a way to make it work now? Is the PH sensor not working a result of software or something which will require additional parts to make work? I would also like to automate the dosing of 2 part eventually. Is this supported now? Also is https://blueacro.com/ the place to buy these?

Thank you,

- AquaRaider44

 

[hockeyhead019]

Hello,

I have been following the Reef Pi for about six months now and would like to try it out. I am somewhat tech savvy with a few other Pis and Arduinos which work with my 3d-printer and other gadgets. I see your Reef-Pi Pico Controller which appears to still be in beta. I would like to know how to become a beta tester as well as the answers to a few questions. Does the DB18B20 "Stainless" Steel Temperature Sensor and ADJ SC-8 Relay Pack work out of the box or are additional parts (other than the Pi and DB9 cable) needed to make these work? Also, I have read that the PH will not work until 3.0 is this true or is there a way to make it work now? Is the PH sensor not working a result of software or something which will require additional parts to make work? I would also like to automate the dosing of 2 part eventually. Is this supported now? Also is https://blueacro.com/ the place to buy these?

Thank you,

- AquaRaider44

I'll take a stab at a couple of these questions, anybody feel free to jump in and correct. I belive both the temp sensor and the ADJ power pack work out of the box. I would consult the master reef-pi thread or some of the other build threads in this section to confirm. pH is a feature coming in the software build of Reef-Pi 3.0. I'm not sure what the progress is on that, again I would consult the master thread run by @Ranjib. That link is the correct place to purchase from.

 

[AquaRaider44]

I'll take a stab at a couple of these questions, anybody feel free to jump in and correct. I belive both the temp sensor and the ADJ power pack work out of the box. I would consult the master reef-pi thread or some of the other build threads in this section to confirm. pH is a feature coming in the software build of Reef-Pi 3.0. I'm not sure what the progress is on that, again I would consult the master thread run by @Ranjib. That link is the correct place to purchase from.

Alright great thanks for your help. I would love to know a status on v3 because pH is a must for me and would be my main concern.

 

[hockeyhead019]

Alright great thanks for your help. I would love to know a status on v3 because pH is a must for me and would be my main concern.

I just read through the main build thread and the software developer is working with the board developer to figure out where the bug is occuring. It sounds like it might be a firmware issue on the pH board but that's just my interpretation of the thread. I would keep an eye on: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...troller-based-on-raspberry-pi.289256/page-536 for the latest updates on the project in general

 

[AquaRaider44]

I just read through the main build thread and the software developer is working with the board developer to figure out where the bug is occuring. It sounds like it might be a firmware issue on the pH board but that's just my interpretation of the thread. I would keep an eye on: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...troller-based-on-raspberry-pi.289256/page-536 for the latest updates on the project in general

A firmware issue would suck if it can't be reprogrammed by the user and a different board would be needed. I'll keep an eye on that.

 

[hockeyhead019]

A firmware issue would suck if it can't be reprogrammed by the user and a different board would be needed. I'll keep an eye on that.

Yes it would. But I believe the board builder already stated that he was holding shipment of the boards until it was figured out and had a plan in place to update/upgrade the boards already out there. In his defense, he has been open that anybody buying the boards is a beta tester for them

My honest advice is that if you're looking for something that will work out of the box to go with an off the shelf system (probably apex) but if you're looking to tinker and have some fun while getting a lot of functionality then this project is the way to go

 

[AquaRaider44]

Yes it would. But I believe the board builder already stated that he was holding shipment of the boards until it was figured out and had a plan in place to update/upgrade the boards already out there. In his defense, he has been open that anybody buying the boards is a beta tester for them

My honest advice is that if you're looking for something that will work out of the box to go with an off the shelf system (probably apex) but if you're looking to tinker and have some fun while getting a lot of functionality then this project is the way to go

I completely agree and is glad he is up front about it being beta. I definitely like this and can't afford the Apex lol.

 

[theatrus]

Hi!

Yes, I’m holding back shipment if you haven’t yet received a board. The good news is I have a working fix in place, the bad news it’s currently not user swappable (my mess up).

If you do have a board, I’ll be doing an email blast in a bit and getting everyone a new base board with fixed pH firmware, gratis including international (since I know some folks used a re-shipper). It may take a few weeks to process all of those shipments.

I’d like to shake this out and hammer it a bit more before resuming, so look for an update in 1-2 days.

 

[robottaway]

Here is results at pins of DB9, I have labeled in same order as others listed earlier in thread.

Power 4 - .985v on or off
Power 6 - 12.5V off, 9.24v on
Power 7 - 10.42V on or off

 

[robottaway]

Here is results at pins of DB9, I have labeled in same order as others listed earlier in thread.

Power 4 - .985v on or off
Power 6 - 12.5V off, 9.24v on
Power 7 - 10.42V on or off

Picture of the board:
https://imgur.com/TkEkA9O

 

[robottaway]

Yikes I posted and it asked me to sign in and it apparently posted 3 times! Sorry, hope one of you can clean that up.

 

[theatrus]

Yikes I posted and it asked me to sign in and it apparently posted 3 times! Sorry, hope one of you can clean that up.

That’s very much not right. Can you DM me your email? I’ll get a fixed board out to you.

 

[theatrus]

pH update:

I've run a fixed version of the firmware throughout last week at an aggressive read rate (100ms between samples) and no lockups or other issues were encountered. I'm going to do one last round of Reef-Pi driver validation, and then unblock new shipments and start the process of shipping replacements. I'll reach out before shipping anything in case someone needs to change address, etc.

The root cause? The Atmel libraries used in the pH microcontroller (and SMC microcontroller) do not automatically clear the "ERROR" flag if any form of I2C bus error occurs. At some point the Raspberry Pi emits an invalid I2C message, the pH asserts error, and then does nothing but spin the error interrupt handler behind the scenes. For extra insurance, I've also implemented a watchdog timer on both chips to perform a hard reset if they receive no valid I2c messages for awhile.

This also unblocks further developments, like the "Core" (Pico board attach over USB) and other addons once I chew through the backlog of swaps. Thank you for your patience everyone and thanks for helping being a beta tester

 

[theatrus]

pH update:

I've run a fixed version of the firmware throughout last week at an aggressive read rate (100ms between samples) and no lockups or other issues were encountered. I'm going to do one last round of Reef-Pi driver validation, and then unblock new shipments and start the process of shipping replacements. I'll reach out before shipping anything in case someone needs to change address, etc.

The root cause? The Atmel libraries used in the pH microcontroller (and SMC microcontroller) do not automatically clear the "ERROR" flag if any form of I2C bus error occurs. At some point the Raspberry Pi emits an invalid I2C message, the pH asserts error, and then does nothing but spin the error interrupt handler behind the scenes. For extra insurance, I've also implemented a watchdog timer on both chips to perform a hard reset if they receive no valid I2c messages for awhile.

This also unblocks further developments, like the "Core" (Pico board attach over USB) and other addons once I chew through the backlog of swaps. Thank you for your patience everyone and thanks for helping being a beta tester

 

[neohusky]

Great work on this so far.

Will you be offering additional revisions for testing any time soon?

 

[hockeyhead019]

@theatrus glad to hear you got to the root of the issue. Strange it would lock in an error loop like that but glad you hunted it down!

I'll keep an eye out for any corrospondence for you since I'll have to change my delivery address now lol

 

[chrisc123]

Thanks for doing a great job with these boards @theatrus - really happy with how much neater (and more reliable) this setup is compared to my old homebrew Particle photon/breadboard rats nest.

Just a quick with a few observations (from using a Rev. D):

* It might be worth mentioning that the config.txt dtoverlay lines remap GPIO pin numbers in the readme? Based on the circuit diagrams for the board I wasted a little bit of time trying to figure out why setting up reef-pi jack with pins 13 and 18 wasn't working before realising they'd been remapped to 0 and 1 in config.txt.

* I'm seeing a fairly significant number of incorrect DS18B20 readings (dozens per day when sampling each minute). I didn't see these previously when the same sensor was wired up to a particle photon. Being honest I've not done any investigation into this yet (doesn't bother me hugely as I've got nothing automated on temperature) but thought it might be worth mentioning in case others see the same. I'll try to get hold of a new sensor at some point and look into it a bit more.

* The Jebao dosing pump slave units (e.g. the DP-4S) are easy to integrate with the pico for a cheap and cheerful dosing setup. The Jebao units have a simple RJ11 connection on the back with 12V on pin1 and negative side for each of the heads on pins 2,3,4,5 so simple to wire up to the Pico's DB9 connector. Just simple on/off control rather than PWM but it's accurate enough for my requirements and actually fairly neat setup (only a single cable ends up running to the dosing unit).

Chris.

 

[Mikeneedsahobby]

Thanks for doing a great job with these boards @theatrus - really happy with how much neater (and more reliable) this setup is compared to my old homebrew Particle photon/breadboard rats nest.

Just a quick with a few observations (from using a Rev. D):

* I'm seeing a fairly significant number of incorrect DS18B20 readings (dozens per day when sampling each minute). I didn't see these previously when the same sensor was wired up to a particle photon. Being honest I've not done any investigation into this yet (doesn't bother me hugely as I've got nothing automated on temperature) but thought it might be worth mentioning in case others see the same. I'll try to get hold of a new sensor at some point and look into it a bit more.

Chris.

Check your ds18b20 wires and connectors closely. Several people have had issues and almost always root cause was a power or data line shorting to ground. Those are small wires. With a full circle of ground around it.

These base boards do make a pretty setup! Did you get the case that fits it as well?