Inamo
Active Member
I see Reef Kinetics is no longer on the forum, so I have no issues with making this public now.
Can skip down to the TLDR if you don't care about the backstory.
I tried for a long time to work with RK to help address concerns that quite a few of us had as well as give ideas on how to make their product even better. I truly wanted to see it succeed as really nothing is proprietary or dependent on RK other than the cloud and it uses a large list of off the shelf reagents.
I have also heard from a friend who was associated with them a long time ago, that they might be getting bought out. Which is even more concerning as support for the bot could be ultimately killed off.
I "hacked" into my bot quite a few years ago...by that meaning I pulled out the SD card, deleted the passwd file to clear out the RK password. Then I connected a monitor and keyboard into the PI and enabled SSH. I am by no means a coder. I can read and mostly understand what it is doing, but I can't write anything. So I could see what was going on and how it was talking to the AWS servers, in fact I discovered a security issue with their MQTT setup. You could connect (simultaneously) to the MQTT server with an explorer using your bots credentials. You could also see ever other bot that was online. You would also be able to send commands to any of them. So I let them know so they could fix it, which they did. Hindsight is 20/20, as if that was still available it would make my current endeavors so much easier.
TLDR (Sorry, still long)
I created a copy of the SD card and have been using Claude AI to help go through the code and make changes as needed. I have successfully got my Offline SD card to work, but it still needs a lot more work. I have captured a lot of the complete test sequences already. I have a basic Web UI to start tests and debug the tests as I work through them. The biggest task I still need to do is to get the color interpretation that RK programed for all the tests, but it is all in the AWS Cloud. So, in order to do this, I need completed test logs that shows the RGB colors reported to the cloud and the PPM/dKH/etc. that is given to the test. From that I can determine which "drop" was used and the RGB value from it. Then from there I should have a test that should work but might need some tweaking for accuracy.
Bottom line, this will be impossible to complete unless I buy every test kit already available to use on the bot. So, if there is anyone who uses the Bot and would like to collaborate and/or provide snippets from their logs it would be greatly appreciated.
Once I can get as many tests working as I can then I will work on the UI and features. Finally, when I can get it to a working state that I am comfortable with I will release it for all to use, tweak, build on, or whatever. Some of the planned features I will add:
- Ability to "calibrate" test results. Be able to adjust/set the reading higher or lower
- APIs to export data and to receive commands to run tests (I.E. Home Assistant Integration)
- User designed themes
- Graph will be editable
- Schedule stir frequency and duration as desired for any reagent
- Ability to receive/import UI and test updates.
Some things already implemented
- Test Cards can already be dragged and reordered, number of columns can be adjusted.
- The bottles on the test cards will show and estimated level.
- Test estimated run times are based off of previous runs.
- Bot (cloud) says some test will take 3 hours, when in reality it is 45 minutes)
- Adjust thresholds (user defined high/low range) for graph plotting (notifications in the future)
- Calibrations for the RO and Tank water chambers now have the option for the default fill/empty (5x) or just 1x for lines already primed.
Long term plans that I don't think I can do with the bot in the current state because of the Arduino code/sequences which I cannot see nor edit.
- Re-code the Arduino so test sequences can be adjusted and tweaked
- Once a titration test reaches its endpoint, it will stop and return any unused reagent instead of wasting.
- Adjust stepper motor speeds (to see if faster movements are feasible)
- Add new or fix tests (i.e. ABC reagents)
- Doser integration with safeguards (verify results before adjusting dosage, user acknowledgement, etc.)
So if anyone can help in anyway, please let me know. Thank you!
Can skip down to the TLDR if you don't care about the backstory.
I tried for a long time to work with RK to help address concerns that quite a few of us had as well as give ideas on how to make their product even better. I truly wanted to see it succeed as really nothing is proprietary or dependent on RK other than the cloud and it uses a large list of off the shelf reagents.
I have also heard from a friend who was associated with them a long time ago, that they might be getting bought out. Which is even more concerning as support for the bot could be ultimately killed off.
I "hacked" into my bot quite a few years ago...by that meaning I pulled out the SD card, deleted the passwd file to clear out the RK password. Then I connected a monitor and keyboard into the PI and enabled SSH. I am by no means a coder. I can read and mostly understand what it is doing, but I can't write anything. So I could see what was going on and how it was talking to the AWS servers, in fact I discovered a security issue with their MQTT setup. You could connect (simultaneously) to the MQTT server with an explorer using your bots credentials. You could also see ever other bot that was online. You would also be able to send commands to any of them. So I let them know so they could fix it, which they did. Hindsight is 20/20, as if that was still available it would make my current endeavors so much easier.
TLDR (Sorry, still long)
I created a copy of the SD card and have been using Claude AI to help go through the code and make changes as needed. I have successfully got my Offline SD card to work, but it still needs a lot more work. I have captured a lot of the complete test sequences already. I have a basic Web UI to start tests and debug the tests as I work through them. The biggest task I still need to do is to get the color interpretation that RK programed for all the tests, but it is all in the AWS Cloud. So, in order to do this, I need completed test logs that shows the RGB colors reported to the cloud and the PPM/dKH/etc. that is given to the test. From that I can determine which "drop" was used and the RGB value from it. Then from there I should have a test that should work but might need some tweaking for accuracy.
Bottom line, this will be impossible to complete unless I buy every test kit already available to use on the bot. So, if there is anyone who uses the Bot and would like to collaborate and/or provide snippets from their logs it would be greatly appreciated.
Once I can get as many tests working as I can then I will work on the UI and features. Finally, when I can get it to a working state that I am comfortable with I will release it for all to use, tweak, build on, or whatever. Some of the planned features I will add:
- Ability to "calibrate" test results. Be able to adjust/set the reading higher or lower
- APIs to export data and to receive commands to run tests (I.E. Home Assistant Integration)
- User designed themes
- Graph will be editable
- Schedule stir frequency and duration as desired for any reagent
- Ability to receive/import UI and test updates.
Some things already implemented
- Test Cards can already be dragged and reordered, number of columns can be adjusted.
- The bottles on the test cards will show and estimated level.
- Test estimated run times are based off of previous runs.
- Bot (cloud) says some test will take 3 hours, when in reality it is 45 minutes)
- Adjust thresholds (user defined high/low range) for graph plotting (notifications in the future)
- Calibrations for the RO and Tank water chambers now have the option for the default fill/empty (5x) or just 1x for lines already primed.
Long term plans that I don't think I can do with the bot in the current state because of the Arduino code/sequences which I cannot see nor edit.
- Re-code the Arduino so test sequences can be adjusted and tweaked
- Once a titration test reaches its endpoint, it will stop and return any unused reagent instead of wasting.
- Adjust stepper motor speeds (to see if faster movements are feasible)
- Add new or fix tests (i.e. ABC reagents)
- Doser integration with safeguards (verify results before adjusting dosage, user acknowledgement, etc.)
So if anyone can help in anyway, please let me know. Thank you!
