Reef Pi Noob - Robo Tank Build

[xiholdtruex]

So as the title states I am a noob to the raspberry pi. This will be my first time dabbling into the pi at all. Have been researching the reef pi with @mario4933 for around year now and wanting to get started. We were looking for the funds and pricing out parts and builds when we found Robo tank being powered by reef pi. So I decided it was the best closest to plug and play with a raspberry pi I could find. Only some basic soldering and code changes. So I am going to document my journey on this adventure.

So first thing I did was place a order to robo tank for the Deluxe + robot tank with ph + and ac power bar. Order should be here in about 3 weeks due to some parts sourcing which is to be expected with the current events. Rob over at robo tank has had some great communication and updating along the way. not sure of his name on here but any admin feel free to tag him on here.

So I began ordering parts to complete the build while I wait and setup Reef pi on the raspeberry pi.
Ordered the temp probes, ph probe, ac power supply , sd card with noobs loaded and the raspberry pi 3.

Being that I am new to it decided to go the preloaded route as not to get too complicated. I also decided to go with the pi 3 because it was the best middle of the road. The pins are already on it and it does not seem to get overly hot like the Pi 4 and the price was right.

Received the Pi3 yesterday and sd card, I decided to try my hand with a friend at setting it up. Plugged everything in and was surprised at how easy the basic setup was with the preloaded noobs. now after setup and updating I started to do the small modification to the boot file and config. somehow or another this took me and a friend 2 hours lol and some how I need to go back and enable the i2c and one wire protocol . because I must have scrolled over it.

I ended the night at that it was 1 am and the wife wanted to drop kick me @LazuliChi

Now I have a few question hopefully I can get cleared up when activating the one wire protocol does it also activate the i2c feature?

Still trying to familiarize myself with the pi and reef pi program in general before the robo tank comes in.

Thanks in advance

 

[Rogued_Reefer]

Hey brother I’m following this for sure! I’m going to tag @Ranjib maybe he knows the handle of the robo-tank guy. I know he was participating in the reef pi project but can’t remember his handle.

Good luck with the build

 

[Ranjib]

. This is a whole new era for reef-pi, with folks building controllers with pre fab components. Following along . @robsworld78

 

[xiholdtruex]

Day 2 of Reef pi config ! went back over @Ranjib guide on setting up the pi for use with reef pi, sure enough I had not turned on the 1 wire protocol , i2c and had not disabled the spi. Performed these actions and continued on the guide.

Started ordering a few parts to see if I can test the functions of the reef pi with as per the guide.

Then went to configure the email alert. First I acquired Adafruit username and Aio key and imputed it.
Next I imputed my email and a app password , updated , reloaded reef pi and the aio key and email password were gone.
I am not sure if this is normal so I imputted it again and tried to send a test message and kept getting a error code. Tried with my normal email password and kept getting the same error code. I am not sure if I am doing something incorrectly. So read through the error codes and kept getting the same thing so I am at a loss on todays adventure. for setting up alerts. any input would be appreciated.

Also am a little confused on how to access the reef pi from other computers in the network. imputed the ip address present on reef pi settings address on my other pcs and kept getting a error also so am not sure If I am doing something wrong there either.

Thanks in advance

 

[xiholdtruex]

Day 2 at night I decided to go back and tinker some more after reading for a few more hours.

Was finally able to figure out the email alert.

In the email alert screen in the from box you needed to have a email address of your choosing.
Then in the to you want to have the email address where you want to receive the emails alerts at.
In the password box you put the password to the email address in the to box. Mine where the same email so I was emailing myself.

Then you hit the update key and go to admin and reload the reef pi.

After you reload when you go back to the telemetry tab the password will be empty but in actuallity it is there just blank as a security feature Is what I found out from a post on the reef pi thread from @robsworld78 which went into more detail of how to get this to work.

after this you should be able to send a test message and it should work. Mine worked fine when I followed this.

Felt ambitious so wanted to set up the remote access to the system. Installed vnc viewer and vnc server on my pc, android phone and the Pi3.

Added the pi3 per the instruction on the remote access guide for the reef pi and was able to get it to work on my pc and my phone.

after this I decided to call it a night, have the bread board, led, resistor and jumper wires coming in this week to tinker some more with the pi

 

[Ranjib]

Day 2 of Reef pi config ! went back over @Ranjib guide on setting up the pi for use with reef pi, sure enough I had not turned on the 1 wire protocol , i2c and had not disabled the spi. Performed these actions and continued on the guide.

Started ordering a few parts to see if I can test the functions of the reef pi with as per the guide.

Then went to configure the email alert. First I acquired Adafruit username and Aio key and imputed it.
Next I imputed my email and a app password , updated , reloaded reef pi and the aio key and email password were gone.
I am not sure if this is normal so I imputted it again and tried to send a test message and kept getting a error code. Tried with my normal email password and kept getting the same error code. I am not sure if I am doing something incorrectly. So read through the error codes and kept getting the same thing so I am at a loss on todays adventure. for setting up alerts. any input would be appreciated.

Also am a little confused on how to access the reef pi from other computers in the network. imputed the ip address present on reef pi settings address on my other pcs and kept getting a error also so am not sure If I am doing something wrong there either.

Thanks in advance

I once you set password (for reef-pi or adafruit.io) , reef-pi ui will not show it again in the ui. This is for security reason. It does not mean it’s gone. On retrospect I think this is a bad ux that confuses people. We’ll revisit this behavior.

Are you using application password with gmail? Follow the guide and create an app password if you have not. You won’t be able to use your normal gmail password , google does not allow that

I see your reef-pi ip is 10.0.0.18 , which mean any computer or mobile in the same network should be able to access it from address http://10.0.0.18

 

[Ranjib]

Day 2 at night I decided to go back and tinker some more after reading for a few more hours.

Was finally able to figure out the email alert.

In the email alert screen in the from box you needed to have a email address of your choosing.
Then in the to you want to have the email address where you want to receive the emails alerts at.
In the password box you put the password to the email address in the to box. Mine where the same email so I was emailing myself.

Then you hit the update key and go to admin and reload the reef pi.

After you reload when you go back to the telemetry tab the password will be empty but in actuallity it is there just blank as a security feature Is what I found out from a post on the reef pi thread from @robsworld78 which went into more detail of how to get this to work.

after this you should be able to send a test message and it should work. Mine worked fine when I followed this.

Felt ambitious so wanted to set up the remote access to the system. Installed vnc viewer and vnc server on my pc, android phone and the Pi3.

Added the pi3 per the instruction on the remote access guide for the reef pi and was able to get it to work on my pc and my phone.

after this I decided to call it a night, have the bread board, led, resistor and jumper wires coming in this week to tinker some more with the pi

Exciting time ahead

 

[robsworld78]

Very cool, I love it. After a little research I found you, had me wondering for a while lol...

Sounds like your doing well and good job with your first pi, you'll be setup in no time. Here's the manual to configure reef-pi for the controller. Follow it from the beginning and hopefully it goes well. Let me know if something doesn't make sense.

Robo-Tank Setup Deluxe Controller for reef-pi Manual.docx

Setup Deluxe Controller for reef-pi Manual May 26, 2020 – Version 1.0 Safety Reminder READ & FOLLOW ALL SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS DANGER Never handle electrical equipment with wet hands special care should be taken since water is employed in the use of aquarium equipment Do not attemp...

docs.google.com

I have some others including what you've already done that'll I'll be sending out in a couple days but that's the one you need.

Looking forward to seeing how it goes and don't be scared to criticize so I can improve it.

. This is a whole new era for reef-pi, with folks building controllers with pre fab components. Following along . @robsworld78

A lot of people want an alternative to Apex, lots of DIYers but more who aren't. Between everyone selling boards it's well in the hundreds out there and lots of interest. You and everyone involved are doing an amazing job.

 

[robsworld78]

Oh one thing I was thinking about, maybe after you setup reef-pi and add the drivers, connectors etc. make an image file of your SD card so you have a backup. I'll have to test that and see if it works but I think it should.

 

[Jonify]

Watcha planning to use your Pi for?

 

[xiholdtruex]

Very cool, I love it. After a little research I found you, had me wondering for a while lol...

Sounds like your doing well and good job with your first pi, you'll be setup in no time. Here's the manual to configure reef-pi for the controller. Follow it from the beginning and hopefully it goes well. Let me know if something doesn't make sense.

Robo-Tank Setup Deluxe Controller for reef-pi Manual.docx

Setup Deluxe Controller for reef-pi Manual May 26, 2020 – Version 1.0 Safety Reminder READ & FOLLOW ALL SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS DANGER Never handle electrical equipment with wet hands special care should be taken since water is employed in the use of aquarium equipment Do not attemp...

docs.google.com

I have some others including what you've already done that'll I'll be sending out in a couple days but that's the one you need.

Looking forward to seeing how it goes and don't be scared to criticize so I can improve it.



A lot of people want an alternative to Apex, lots of DIYers but more who aren't. Between everyone selling boards it's well in the hundreds out there and lots of interest. You and everyone involved are doing an amazing job.

Thank you , looking forward to putting everything to work we have 3 of us down here getting it and setting it up together

I tried to open the file but it asked me to request permission from owner so you may get a message there.

Was planning to have a back up sd card or ssd but never though about copying the image will definetly need to try it when I get another sd card.

What sold me on the reef pi is its versatility. I can use practically any piece I want with it and not have to buy a doser or light and it is very expandable. You can have as little or as much as you would like on it.

 

[xiholdtruex]

Watcha planning to use your Pi for?

I am going to use it to monitor, temperature, ph, control lights with pwm , wave makers, dosing pump, heater ,monitor water level eventually adapt my ato to its system and setup a auto water change system. Its is going on my bio cube 29 but I will this year be upgrading to a 120g and it will go on that also

 

[robsworld78]

Thank you , looking forward to putting everything to work we have 3 of us down here getting it and setting it up together

I tried to open the file but it asked me to request permission from owner so you may get a message there.

Was planning to have a back up sd card or ssd but never though about copying the image will definetly need to try it when I get another sd card.

What sold me on the reef pi is its versatility. I can use practically any piece I want with it and not have to buy a doser or light and it is very expandable. You can have as little or as much as you would like on it.

That's awesome, I'm excited for you all. Those pH related parts will be here this week so hoping 2 weeks or so as I still have quite a few plug and plays to go which take some time.

Were you not able to view the manual without the permissions? If I open it in a browser where I'm not logged into a Google account it works. I did receive the request and accepted so hopefully all is good.

It sounds like for this case an image is better than copying files. I'm going to look around for some easy programs to use.

I agree the design of reef-pi is great, having the connectors to assign a pin how you like is very handy. Of course I have labels on ports but you can basically make anything do anything because of reef-pi. If you need more sensors but only use one power bar you can use the other DB9, add a couple resistors and have more sensor ports.

Looks like you'll be controlling a lot. I have a customer who has something like 30 tanks so slowly working on getting it all on one system with reef-pi.

 

[xiholdtruex]

So I felt ambitious again and was trying to add some drivers to reef pi and it kept erroring out, Does the raspberry pi have to have the hardware connected in order for it to install the drivers in reef pi? @robsworld78 @Ranjib

 

[xiholdtruex]

 

[Ranjib]

What was the specific driver you wanted to add ?

 

[xiholdtruex]

What was the specific driver you wanted to add ?

PCA9685

Was putting 64/ frequency 800 as per robo tank manual

 

[robsworld78]

PCA9685

Was putting 64/ frequency 800 as per robo tank manual

I think the PCA9685 does a hand shake when driver is added so I guess my answer was wrong when I said you can setup, I remember this happening to me once.

EDIT: Maybe I'm wrong, I have 3.4 installed and was able to add using an address not connected.

EDIT2: Something else came up so I went back to 3.3.1 and tried adding PCA9685, got same error so hand shake is gone in 3.4. If you update to 3.4 make sure you add the pH-ezo driver first.

 

[xiholdtruex]

I think the PCA9685 does a hand shake when driver is added so I guess my answer was wrong when I said you can setup, I remember this happening to me once.

EDIT: Maybe I'm wrong, I have 3.4 installed and was able to add using an address not connected.

EDIT2: Something else came up so I went back to 3.3.1 and tried adding PCA9685, got same error so hand shake is gone in 3.4. If you update to 3.4 make sure you add the pH-ezo driver first.

I think my best bet is to wait to have the controller plugged up with the robo tank before thinking I am doing things wrong lol I tend to have moments of ambition haha

 

[robsworld78]

I think my best bet is to wait to have the controller plugged up with the robo tank before thinking I am doing things wrong lol I tend to have moments of ambition haha

It shouldn't be too much longer, thanks for your patience.