Reef-Pi with robo-tank

sse1990

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Has anyone been using Robo-Tank with the Reef-Pi as an option instead of multiple sources for all the parts to make each piece of reef-Pi work?

I would like to use as much of the reef-Pi capability as I can, and get as many of the parts in one place as possible.

What Other options would I have without spending more time/money by going to multiple sources?
 
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sse1990

sse1990

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Mine should be coming in a month or so...

I decided to just go ahead and order it (Just now). Once it arrives, I can assemble it and get it setup. Went with the deluxe version, with PH board and the 8-outlet board. I’ll probably look at the ATO setup next.
 

Enigma79

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I received mine and I am happy with the build quality. I went with the deluxe diy with ph and 1 ac power board. I have connected the temp sensors and they seem to be reading the temperature accurately.
 

AbjectMaelstroM

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Got mine last week, deluxe w/ power bar and ph.

If you're not getting a Db9 cable from him, make sure one you buy is straight through and not crossover. I had one laying around ended up being xover, which results in pinouts not matching and potential damage to the circuit (I blew a resistor). Kudos to Rob (I think that's his name?) we were emailing back and forth last night, multimeter and soldering iron in hand, and an hour lateetwe traced it to a dead resistor.

Also when playing with the case, be careful as some of the parts when shells are apart are a bit brittle. Indeed up printing another case as I was originally planning on Pi4 but now using Pi3B+, but when I printed my own case I increased infil to 30% using PlA+ and its much sturdier. I'm also going to play around fusion 360 see if I can incorporate Michael Lanes doser board into the case or worst case scenario, I make a small external case for the board and just mount it to the case.

So far, seems solid and I had no issue incorporating my optical sensors, temp sensor and @Michael Lane 's Viparspectra boards.

So awesome to see @Ranjib and @Michael Lane 's work bring forth so much to the reefing community and giving us a serious alternative to a commercial product.

Newly printed case using the STL provided by RoboTank, with infil adjusted, PLA+. I actually like the gray over the black that I had originally chose when I placed my order.

20200525_081703.jpg


20200525_081727.jpg
 

Enigma79

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Got mine last week, deluxe w/ power bar and ph.

If you're not getting a Db9 cable from him, make sure one you buy is straight through and not crossover. I had one laying around ended up being xover, which results in pinouts not matching and potential damage to the circuit (I blew a resistor). Kudos to Rob (I think that's his name?) we were emailing back and forth last night, multimeter and soldering iron in hand, and an hour lateetwe traced it to a dead resistor.

Also when playing with the case, be careful as some of the parts when shells are apart are a bit brittle. Indeed up printing another case as I was originally planning on Pi4 but now using Pi3B+, but when I printed my own case I increased infil to 30% using PlA+ and its much sturdier. I'm also going to play around fusion 360 see if I can incorporate Michael Lanes doser board into the case or worst case scenario, I make a small external case for the board and just mount it to the case.

So far, seems solid and I had no issue incorporating my optical sensors, temp sensor and @Michael Lane 's Viparspectra boards.

So awesome to see @Ranjib and @Michael Lane 's work bring forth so much to the reefing community and giving us a serious alternative to a commercial product.

Newly printed case using the STL provided by RoboTank, with infil adjusted, PLA+. I actually like the gray over the black that I had originally chose when I placed my order.

20200525_081703.jpg


20200525_081727.jpg

Thank you, Glad you mentioned the DB9 cable specification, I was just about to order it. I ordered it from monoprice - https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=448 and the USB cable for the optical sensor board.

Why do you need the additional doser board? I have not researched but I thought the deluxe kit can work dosing pumps.

I have spoken to Rob a few times, good guy and easy to work with. We were chatting about how we can set up a UPS mode. I want to connect the power bar to a ups, in case of power failure I want the system to turn on only the essential equipment at regular intervals. @Ranjib any suggestions?
 
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AbjectMaelstroM

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Thank you, Glad you mentioned the DB9 cable specification, I was just about to order it. I ordered it from monoprice - https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=448 and the USB cable for the optical sensor board.

Why do you need the additional doser board? I have not researched but I thought the deluxe kit can work dosing pumps.

I have spoken to Rob a few times, good guy and easy to work with. We were chatting about how we can set up a UPS mode. I want to connect the power bar to a ups, in case of power failure I want the system to turn on only the essential equipment at regular intervals. @Ranjib any suggestions?

Doser board isn't necessary, I just want it in there to use a 3-4 head jebao doser without modification.
 

Ranjib

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Thank you, Glad you mentioned the DB9 cable specification, I was just about to order it. I ordered it from monoprice - https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=448 and the USB cable for the optical sensor board.

Why do you need the additional doser board? I have not researched but I thought the deluxe kit can work dosing pumps.

I have spoken to Rob a few times, good guy and easy to work with. We were chatting about how we can set up a UPS mode. I want to connect the power bar to a ups, in case of power failure I want the system to turn on only the essential equipment at regular intervals. @Ranjib any suggestions?
I like the idea. I have done various benchmark on how long pi 3 or pi zero will run battery banks but no concrete features in terms of power outage scenario. What I would love to see is that we as a community discuss various ways to achieve this, and once we have a reasonable idea, I can then translate it into a set of features. There are just too many ways this problem can be approached and I want to have some idea about what a common approach will be. For Me it’s critical that features like this is thoroughly tested (which mean I need community members vetting it , other than me ) .
 

Ranjib

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Got mine last week, deluxe w/ power bar and ph.

If you're not getting a Db9 cable from him, make sure one you buy is straight through and not crossover. I had one laying around ended up being xover, which results in pinouts not matching and potential damage to the circuit (I blew a resistor). Kudos to Rob (I think that's his name?) we were emailing back and forth last night, multimeter and soldering iron in hand, and an hour lateetwe traced it to a dead resistor.

Also when playing with the case, be careful as some of the parts when shells are apart are a bit brittle. Indeed up printing another case as I was originally planning on Pi4 but now using Pi3B+, but when I printed my own case I increased infil to 30% using PlA+ and its much sturdier. I'm also going to play around fusion 360 see if I can incorporate Michael Lanes doser board into the case or worst case scenario, I make a small external case for the board and just mount it to the case.

So far, seems solid and I had no issue incorporating my optical sensors, temp sensor and @Michael Lane 's Viparspectra boards.

So awesome to see @Ranjib and @Michael Lane 's work bring forth so much to the reefing community and giving us a serious alternative to a commercial product.

Newly printed case using the STL provided by RoboTank, with infil adjusted, PLA+. I actually like the gray over the black that I had originally chose when I placed my order.

20200525_081703.jpg


20200525_081727.jpg
This is so sleek. I got mine few days back, and I am ecstatic about it.
 

Enigma79

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I like the idea. I have done various benchmark on how long pi 3 or pi zero will run battery banks but no concrete features in terms of power outage scenario. What I would love to see is that we as a community discuss various ways to achieve this, and once we have a reasonable idea, I can then translate it into a set of features. There are just too many ways this problem can be approached and I want to have some idea about what a common approach will be. For Me it’s critical that features like this is thoroughly tested (which mean I need community members vetting it , other than me ) .
P
I like the idea. I have done various benchmark on how long pi 3 or pi zero will run battery banks but no concrete features in terms of power outage scenario. What I would love to see is that we as a community discuss various ways to achieve this, and once we have a reasonable idea, I can then translate it into a set of features. There are just too many ways this problem can be approached and I want to have some idea about what a common approach will be. For Me it’s critical that features like this is thoroughly tested (which mean I need community members vetting it , other than me ) .

I will create a separate thread with this question. I had reefkeeper and I connected the reefkeeper controller and one on the power bars (4 outlets) to the batter backup outlet on my UPS with my essential equipment. The other equipment were connected to another power bar that was also connected to the UPS that was not on the battery backup. After the reefkeeper I upgraded to the Vertex Cerebra - I will leave it at that. We could do this with the reef-pi by connecting each relay to a different power source (Battery backup outlet/ regular power) and call it a day.

What I would like to see is the ability to allow the user to select if the outlet should operate in the event of a power failure, if yes then select one of the option - all the time/per schedule/time intervals. If the wifi router is also on UPS backup then send an email notification to alert of power failure.
 

robsworld78

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Wow so nice to see you all are happy and thanks for all your support, I really need to browse the forum more.

@AbjectMaelstroM your prints looks amazing, what printer and how long did it take? I'm looking at the Creality CR-10S Pro V2. I'll add the nut to the controller assembly manual so you can print a better one.

Right now I have the cases tuned to print as fast as possible with pretty good quality but yeah now I see what quality looks like. I think it's about 2.5 hours for full case.

I like the idea. I have done various benchmark on how long pi 3 or pi zero will run battery banks but no concrete features in terms of power outage scenario. What I would love to see is that we as a community discuss various ways to achieve this, and once we have a reasonable idea, I can then translate it into a set of features. There are just too many ways this problem can be approached and I want to have some idea about what a common approach will be. For Me it’s critical that features like this is thoroughly tested (which mean I need community members vetting it , other than me ) .

Someone quite a while gave me a good idea, plug a relay into an outlet and monitor it using any analog pin or input but this is all software dependent and would be a big job I'm guessing. My thought was to have an outage option tied to everything, something like only during outage, no outage or both. Then you could setup timers etc. for either scenario.

At some point I'm going to work on a hardware solution to at least turn outlets on/off.

@Enigma79 I think you could do the relay thing now for an alert if power goes out, set up an ATO just to send an alert after say 10 seconds. I think it might work too if you had an outlet you only wanted on if power is out.
 

AbjectMaelstroM

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Wow so nice to see you all are happy and thanks for all your support, I really need to browse the forum more.

@AbjectMaelstroM your prints looks amazing, what printer and how long did it take? I'm looking at the Creality CR-10S Pro V2. I'll add the nut to the controller assembly manual so you can print a better one.

Right now I have the cases tuned to print as fast as possible with pretty good quality but yeah now I see what quality looks like. I think it's about 2.5 hours for full case.

Yeah it definitely wasn't fast. Took about 7 hours on my Ender 3. You can probably get away with bumping the speed a bit and get it down to around 5 hrs. Not sure if it would be realistic if you're trying to crank these out on 1 printer. For how fast you're printing them, they come out pretty well, just have to be careful with some of the ribs when taking it apart. Once put together it's solid.
 

cnidus

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Got my robotank in and running basic stuff also. I went with two HS300’s as powerboards which give me power monitoring, are UL listed and I didn’t have to play with high voltage.

Plus I get to use the DB9 ports for other things in the future. (Rob and I were chatting about some breakout add on boards for that, but should be easy enough to wire up yourself as well if needed).

Rob has been really great with the support also and created a bunch of open source manuals, which I’ve been trying to contribute to as I find out nuances for my build.

personally I’m ecstatic with it and would definitely recommend highly.
8F77052D-EE0F-4BF5-88F1-48F6E9C4299A.jpeg
 

AbjectMaelstroM

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Got my robotank in and running basic stuff also. I went with two HS300’s as powerboards which give me power monitoring, are UL listed and I didn’t have to play with high voltage.

Plus I get to use the DB9 ports for other things in the future. (Rob and I were chatting about some breakout add on boards for that, but should be easy enough to wire up yourself as well if needed).

Rob has been really great with the support also and created a bunch of open source manuals, which I’ve been trying to contribute to as I find out nuances for my build.

personally I’m ecstatic with it and would definitely recommend highly.
8F77052D-EE0F-4BF5-88F1-48F6E9C4299A.jpeg

How did you end up mounting it?

I'm trying to mock up some 3d printed brakes for the controller and the power bar.

For now I modified the bottom of the case and added tabs with holes so I can screw it into my electronics cabinet but I was a solution where I can easily pull components out.
 

cnidus

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How did you end up mounting it?

I'm trying to mock up some 3d printed brakes for the controller and the power bar.

For now I modified the bottom of the case and added tabs with holes so I can screw it into my electronics cabinet but I was a solution where I can easily pull components out.
I just double sided taped it to the cabinet, in an accessible place, where I can get to the three screws to take off the case if need be
 

Ranjib

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I just double sided taped it to the cabinet, in an accessible place, where I can get to the three screws to take off the case if need be
I used velcro for long time till I got my 3D printer , after which I have mounting holes designed in ,y enclosures
 

cnidus

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I just double sided taped it to the cabinet, in an accessible place, where I can get to the three screws to take off the case if need be

I actually had to remove it yesterday as my SD-Card died. replaced that and upgraded to a pi3b while I was at it. Now starting config from scratch. So the plan worked :)
 

robsworld78

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Seeing as everyone here has Robo-Tank I thought I would ask what you thought about this update and if you see anything I might have missed or can be improved. This is the hardest part, showing something new after people just got theirs, sorry...

Most of the changes can be done to the board you have with minor mods, if you're interested I can explain.

1. Removed the 3x4 set of headers for the DS18B20 sensors as that was just crazy. They all connect to the same pin so easier to add extra sensors to the screw terminal connector, dohhh...

2. Removed the 2 header connectors for DC port 8 & 9, those ports no longer exist. Now there are 7 heavy duty DC ports and 1 low power DC port for feeder like the current board. So overall DC ports are a loss.

3. Replaced the 4 pin header for I2C devices to a 4 pin pluggable screw terminal connector, not sure why I didn't do that to begin with. The controller has no header pins now for anything.

4. Integrated pH circuit.

5. Repurposed DC port 8 pin to another DS18B20 one wire bus. This pin is connected to a DS18B20 on controller board so internal case temp can be monitored and added the line to the shielding of the DB9 as I wasn't using this. I'll also be adding a DS18B20 on the power bar so it can be monitored as well. I put these on a separate bus so cable length doesn't become a problem on the other ports. This does require the config.txt file on Pi to be modified. I've tested with 3 buses and it works fine.

6. Repurposed DC port 9 pin to another sensor port giving 6 in total.

7. Added backup float ports to the 7 DC ports, this is what DC port 3 has but these will only work with float switches. These are optional, if it isn't needed a jumper is put in the connector.

8. And finally I think this is the biggest change, I've always struggled with sensor ports because everything wants a different resistor and you have to mess with changing connector and extending cables. I'm liking the optical extension so I went with a system like that for each port.

I removed the header jumpers used to set up the 3 sensor ports on controller and replaced the 3 pin connectors and USB extension port with six 5 pin mini B sockets, one for each sensor. Then I made up some sensor adapters, these are about the size of a stamp, one for each sensor type, it has the matching socket for the sensor and a USB-A socket. Now a person can use any length USB-A male to 5 pin mini B to connect the sensor adapter and the sensor will plug right in. I also made a universal adapter that has the 3 pin connector and works the same as the ports do now but solder jumpers.


On the current board each sensor port has a voltage divider so 5v sensors can be used, I moved that to the adapter so now the sensor ports can be used for extra DS18B20 one wire buses so cable length should never be an issue and if I come across other sensors I have a better chance of adding them via an adapter and would be backwards compatible.

That's it, the board is physically the same size but the Pi is on the long edge of the board.

This is the what comes out the top of controller, the mini USB come out the top instead of side.

bottom.jpg


This is what you would see looking in the case.

top.jpg


This is the optical adapter, it's 22x29mm. There will also be one for non-contact and DS18B20s and hopefully I find more to add later, let me know if you see anything, needs to be digital or analog though.

optical_adapter.jpg


This is the universal adapter, same size but has the 3 pin pluggable screw terminal connector so it's how your parts are. It's good for float switches or other sensors that have no wires.

universal_adapter.jpg
 
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