Reef Pi Build

[Jonathan Troutt]

Merry Christmas R2R!

In between work and the holidays I kinda slowed down my build so not a lot was going on. This weekend I had most of the holiday stuff done and a 4 day weekend so I was able to make some nice progress on the new part of the build. I got a box built for the dosing pumps finished up, most of the wiring is done.
I got the new enclosure done stained and sealed with poly. All that's left of the enclosure is to figure out what I want to use to close up the front cover.

Awesome this looks great!!

 

[Diamond1]

Awesome this looks great!!

Thanks.
It's a lot closer to what I had originally envisioned and it has everything but a ph probe.
I now have enough outlets, temp probes and water level sensors to run both my tanks.

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Merry Christmas R2R!

In between work and the holidays I kinda slowed down my build so not a lot was going on. This weekend I had most of the holiday stuff done and a 4 day weekend so I was able to make some nice progress on the new part of the build. I got a box built for the dosing pumps finished up, most of the wiring is done.
I got the new enclosure done stained and sealed with poly. All that's left of the enclosure is to figure out what I want to use to close up the front cover.

Well done!

A few recap questions;
You're running 2 r pis, right? Which versions and any specific reasons why you chose them?
It looks like you glued your master-box completely shut on the bottom half where your outlets are located. Is this right and, if so, is there enough room to still stick your arm in in case an outlet goes bad?
I thought you were running additional power supplies. Where are they?
(Pardon me if you answered these questions along your build thread. I have a lousy memory and, especially so, watching all the threads I watch.)

Once again, great job on your build and thanks for sharing everything along the way!

 

[DirtDiggler2823]

It won't be perfect, but I can make this work with what I have.

 

[b4tn]

Very nice!! I got a 3D printer so I’m probably going to be working on a custom enclosure. But now I’m really considering doing something with wood. I really like the way that looks.

 

[Diamond1]

Well done!

A few recap questions;
You're running 2 r pis, right? Which versions and any specific reasons why you chose them?
It looks like you glued your master-box completely shut on the bottom half where your outlets are located. Is this right and, if so, is there enough room to still stick your arm in in case an outlet goes bad?
I thought you were running additional power supplies. Where are they?
(Pardon me if you answered these questions along your build thread. I have a lousy memory and, especially so, watching all the threads I watch.)

Once again, great job on your build and thanks for sharing everything along the way!

1 Both pis are pi 3s I use them so I can use the Rasbian GUI. I suck at Linux programing and the GUI makes life easier. I chose 2 so I could run my lights separate from the main pi to separate the pwm signals of the lights and dosing pumps and it was easier to figure out the circuitry.
2 The back of the box is open so I have access to all the wiring and relays. I'll be cutting a piece of black 1/16 pvc for the back that is removable in case I need to do any repairs in the bottom 1/2 of the box.
3 I just got the power supply and haven't wired it in yet. Still trying to figure out how I want to wire it to a power supply then separate the leads to power the relays and the main pi.

The meanwell power supply I'm going to use.

 

[Diamond1]

It won't be perfect, but I can make this work with what I have.

Nice start!

 

[Diamond1]

Very nice!! I got a 3D printer so I’m probably going to be working on a custom enclosure. But now I’m really considering doing something with wood. I really like the way that looks.

Good score on the 3d printer!

Thanks since it hangs on the side of the stand I wanted to match it as close as I could.

 

[That Crusso Kid]

1 Both pis are pi 3s I use them so I can use the Rasbian GUI. I suck at Linux programing and the GUI makes life easier. I chose 2 so I could run my lights separate from the main pi to separate the pwm signals of the lights and dosing pumps and it was easier to figure out the circuitry.
2 The back of the box is open so I have access to all the wiring and relays. I'll be cutting a piece of black 1/16 pvc for the back that is removable in case I need to do any repairs in the bottom 1/2 of the box.
3 I just got the power supply and haven't wired it in yet. Still trying to figure out how I want to wire it to a power supply then separate the leads to power the relays and the main pi.

The meanwell power supply I'm going to use.

I'm happy to report I knew the answers to each question! I just thought it might help anyone else who jumps in your thread.

 

[Diamond1]

I'm happy to report I knew the answers to each question! I just thought it might help anyone else who jumps in your thread.

Thank you for keeping me on track with my original intent of this build. :cool:
It has gotten a bit off track with all the changes I made. As soon as I get this up and running with both tanks I will be doing a complete breakdown of parts used and pricing for everything. Also I plan on giving an honest impression of my experiences with everything so far from jumper wires to soldering irons software and everything in between.

 

[Fishyj]

This is amazing! I have been so involved with figuring out mine, I didn't realize how far you have gotten. Great job!!

 

[Diamond1]

This is amazing! I have been so involved with figuring out mine, I didn't realize how far you have gotten. Great job!!

Thanks! Lokking forward to your progress.

 

[Ranjib]

Love it :)
Did I miss anything on this build? like any outstanding software/circuit issue?

 

[Diamond1]

Love it :)
Did I miss anything on this build? like any outstanding software/circuit issue?

No.
Even before I was done with building the first iteration of my reef-pi, I was considering how to make it better. This is the result of that. I wanted more flexibility in what I could do with it overall. More outlets, more sensors and probes and the ability to easily expand plus I wanted to run my second tank with some of the automation reef pi has to offer. At this point I have all of that covered, the only thing I need to add now is the ph probe.

 

[Diamond1]

Wanted to share this with anyone who is using an @wykat hat.

The circuitry for the dosing pump part of the build is different than what @Ranjib has in his dosing pump module. The official Adafruit guide uses 2 GPIO pins (18 & 19) to run the dosing pumps and wykat's pi hat uses 1 (18). This presents a problem with controlling the dosing pumps individually. If you just setup the dosing pumps using the dosing tab, both pumps run at the same time.

My solution was to use timers to run the dosing pumps at different times while turning one pump off and letting one stay on during dosing times. I can still run both pumps at different speeds, duration and direction by setting up different profiles in the main dosing pump tabs and then assigning those pump profiles to a phantom equipment slot and selecting different GPIO pins to activate the pumps.

There are 4 GPIO pins used in the wykat hat (13,14,15, and 16) that are used to control the direction the pumps run and can be assigned to outlets to turn the pumps off and on, which is different from the pins used in Ranjib's official build guide (5,20,22 and 27). You still need to create 4 outlets just like the official build guide and this allows you to change the pumps direction.
For example set 2 equipment slots for pump 1 using GPIO pins 13 and 14.
Selecting GPIO pin 13 for Pump 1A and assigning it to an equipment slot will cause the motor to run clockwise. Selecting pin 14 for Pump 1B and creating an equipment slot will cause the motor to run counter clockwise.
The same can be done for Pump 2 using GPIO pins 15 and 16.

After you decide which direction to run the pumps and calibrate the speed and duration you want to get the desired amount of solution you want to dose, you can set timers that will tell reef-pi which pump you want to run and what time you want to run it. You also need to set a timer so that the opposite pump is turned off during the time the pump you want to run is on.

Does this make sense?

Here's some screen shots of how I have things set up. For testing purposes I set 1 pump to run for 10 seconds at 60% speed 6 times an hour and the second pump to run for 25 seconds at 100% speed 5 times an hour. After the better part of a week they have worked flawlessly.
I also included part of the documentation from github that shows the overview of the motor direction table from wykat's documentation.

GPIO pin assignment for outlets.

Dosing pump Timers

wykat's direction and GPIO pin table.

 

[Ranjib]

Wanted to share this with anyone who is using an @wykat hat.

The circuitry for the dosing pump part of the build is different than what @Ranjib has in his dosing pump module. The official Adafruit guide uses 2 GPIO pins (18 & 19) to run the dosing pumps and wykat's pi hat uses 1 (18). This presents a problem with controlling the dosing pumps individually. If you just setup the dosing pumps using the dosing tab, both pumps run at the same time.

My solution was to use timers to run the dosing pumps at different times while turning one pump off and letting one stay on during dosing times. I can still run both pumps at different speeds, duration and direction by setting up different profiles in the main dosing pump tabs and then assigning those pump profiles to a phantom equipment slot and selecting different GPIO pins to activate the pumps.

There are 4 GPIO pins used in the wykat hat (13,14,15, and 16) that are used to control the direction the pumps run and can be assigned to outlets to turn the pumps off and on, which is different from the pins used in Ranjib's official build guide (5,20,22 and 27). You still need to create 4 outlets just like the official build guide and this allows you to change the pumps direction.
For example set 2 equipment slots for pump 1 using GPIO pins 13 and 14.
Selecting GPIO pin 13 for Pump 1A and assigning it to an equipment slot will cause the motor to run clockwise. Selecting pin 14 for Pump 1B and creating an equipment slot will cause the motor to run counter clockwise.
The same can be done for Pump 2 using GPIO pins 15 and 16.

After you decide which direction to run the pumps and calibrate the speed and duration you want to get the desired amount of solution you want to dose, you can set timers that will tell reef-pi which pump you want to run and what time you want to run it. You also need to set a timer so that the opposite pump is turned off during the time the pump you want to run is on.

Does this make sense?

Here's some screen shots of how I have things set up. For testing purposes I set 1 pump to run for 10 seconds at 60% speed 6 times an hour and the second pump to run for 25 seconds at 100% speed 5 times an hour. After the better part of a week they have worked flawlessly.
I also included part of the documentation from github that shows the overview of the motor direction table from wykat's documentation.

GPIO pin assignment for outlets.

Dosing pump Timers

wykat's direction and GPIO pin table.

Interesting, this is very useful for anyone else using this hat. I am yet to solder mine.
@wykat curious if you plan to add support for the second pwm channel

 

[Diamond1]

A brief overview of where I'm at.

I have everything buttoned up in the new enclosure and have been testing it for the last week with everything working as expected except for 1 temp probe, reef-pi stopped recognizing it. I still have 4 more probes so I will be trying to find another one that works.:mad:
I have lighting control set to run my OR T247. I have control over 2 channels (blues and whites) with the ability to ramp both channels up and down.
I have 2 dosing pumps that have been calibrated and work as expected. They are both $12 ebay peristaltic pumps but they both calibrated out to be identical in the amount of fluid they dose.
They dose 10ml of fluid at 60% speed and 10 seconds duration. This should make figuring out dosing very easy as every second = 1ml.
I have 16 outlets, 4 of which are wired to the NC side of the relays and 12 outlets are wired to NO.
2 temp probes.
2 optical ATO sensors.
I'm using 3 power supplies to run the whole thing.
One is a 12v dc 5 amp supply which runs one pi the dosing pumps and the 2 channel light relays.
An RS 15-5 Meanwell supply that is 5v 3amp that runs 2 8 channel relay boards and a 5v 2.5 amp supply that runs the main pi.

I should be able to easily run 2 tanks with this setup.
Everything will be up and running on the tanks in the next day or two after I figure out how I want to hang my lights and get my 14g cube moved.

I got the front cover finished. I used a piece of acrylic sanded on one side for a nice frosted glass effect and I can still see inside to make sure everything is powered up and working at a glance.
I'm planning do add a waterslide decal Reef-pi logo to the front of the acrylic.

 

[Bigtrout]

Nice build! Thats a great wood cabinet and a comprehensive build. Been looking at all these builds for ideas amd inspiration

 

[Ranjib]

Nice :-). Do you plan to mount a lcd screen or pi touch screen in this ?

 

[Diamond1]

Nice :). Do you plan to mount a lcd screen or pi touch screen in this ?

No touch screen but I do have a 9" android tablet with VNC on it that I thought about incorporating into my stand.
As of now I'm considering it done with the exception of a ph probe. I'm waiting for @Jonathan Troutt to let me know when the boards he's populating are ready to go.