Robo tank or leviathan?

[tyro]

I have a small project in the planning stages. It will be a pico tank with a sump. Something similar to the dymax iq9 . Equipment I am wanting to automate with reef pi would be lights, ato, homemade roller mat with a level sensor and stepper motor, and a dc 12v pump maybe even 2 to use as wavemaker, maybe a skimmer pump.

I'd like to know which of the two robo tank or the leviathan board would be easier. With powering and controlling especially the dc pumps. I was leaning towards the leviathan but after looking more at the robo tank I see some potential there.

 

[Sral]

You can read a bit in this thread. His requirements were a bit different, but my comparison still holds some information for you as well.

Basically: Leviathan is cheaper, but more hands on and less expandable. As soon as you require switchable AC outlets the price difference to RoboTank shrinks quite a bit. If you want pH measurement, the price difference is pretty much gone.

That's where your DC pumps come in:
dosing and ATO pumps are typically on- off and can run on very little power, so you can run them pretty much directly with Leviathan. Simply connect them to the doser sockets. If you need more than 2 I'm not quite sure how to handle that. You might be able to use the Relay connections, but that's not visible from the documentation, you would need a proper circuit diagram to judge that.
As soon as you want wavemakers I'm not quite so sure how you would handle those, as I have no experience with them. You would need to switch them on and off, or ramp them up and down quite regularly, right ? So it's not necessarily a good idea for AC relays, transistors might be able to handle that, but are on-off as well. You could run that using a third party wave-pump controller that you feed a PWM signal from the "light" ports, that would be fine.

I'm not completely sure, but my feeling is that you will be able to run your pumps much easier with a Robo-Tank. You can run quite a number of DC pumps etc. with the correct extension on Robo-Tank. The initial price is a bit higher, but it will save you time in the long run, since it's easier to set up and introduce new capabilities if you want them in the future.

@robsworld78 do you have any experience with Wavemakers ?

 

[tyro]

Thanks that is right along with my impressions. I think I might do some hands on testing with reef pi and go from there. Wavemakers aren't an issue it'll be a 9 gal or smaller not many wavemakers weak enough for that. My thoughts there were 2 dc 12v return pumps alternating with rfg nozzles. I think it'll be a fun project. I like the idea of leviathan being hands on. Once I know exactly what equipment I'll be able to decide better I think. I will check out that thread and appreciate your thoughts very much.

 

[robsworld78]

You can read a bit in this thread. His requirements were a bit different, but my comparison still holds some information for you as well.

Basically: Leviathan is cheaper, but more hands on and less expandable. As soon as you require switchable AC outlets the price difference to RoboTank shrinks quite a bit. If you want pH measurement, the price difference is pretty much gone.

That's where your DC pumps come in:
dosing and ATO pumps are typically on- off and can run on very little power, so you can run them pretty much directly with Leviathan. Simply connect them to the doser sockets. If you need more than 2 I'm not quite sure how to handle that. You might be able to use the Relay connections, but that's not visible from the documentation, you would need a proper circuit diagram to judge that.
As soon as you want wavemakers I'm not quite so sure how you would handle those, as I have no experience with them. You would need to switch them on and off, or ramp them up and down quite regularly, right ? So it's not necessarily a good idea for AC relays, transistors might be able to handle that, but are on-off as well. You could run that using a third party wave-pump controller that you feed a PWM signal from the "light" ports, that would be fine.

I'm not completely sure, but my feeling is that you will be able to run your pumps much easier with a Robo-Tank. You can run quite a number of DC pumps etc. with the correct extension on Robo-Tank. The initial price is a bit higher, but it will save you time in the long run, since it's easier to set up and introduce new capabilities if you want them in the future.

@robsworld78 do you have any experience with Wavemakers ?

I know of a couple people who use the Jebao wavemakers that have a 0-10v input, those can be controlled however it's only very basic by using the light modes as you mentioned. The DC ports on the controller are driven by PWM so they can be adjusted via software to simulate a wavemaker but again what you can do with them is limited within reef-pi unless you use a light mode. For dosing pumps you can slow them down by changing the speed setting. LED strip lights dim pretty good but the low is about 6v so you can't dim all the way.

 

[Sral]

Thanks that is right along with my impressions. I think I might do some hands on testing with reef pi and go from there. Wavemakers aren't an issue it'll be a 9 gal or smaller not many wavemakers weak enough for that. My thoughts there were 2 dc 12v return pumps alternating with rfg nozzles. I think it'll be a fun project. I like the idea of leviathan being hands on. Once I know exactly what equipment I'll be able to decide better I think. I will check out that thread and appreciate your thoughts very much.

You’re very welcome
please do share your Setup, equipment and plans to run it. I’m always curious to learn about these things.

Regarding the switching with relays I was less concerned about power, but more about relay lifetime if you switch them every 5s or so.

The „problem“ I see with Leviathan is that I can’t find a nice circuit diagram. Judging from the picture in the manual the Relay Outlets are directly connected to the PI‘s GPIO pins … which would, if it‘s true, give you options to work with.

Personally I think you can run the 12V DC return pumps with either an integrated signal input, like the jebaos sometimes have, or with transistors (either bipolar or MOSFETs, personally I like MOSFETs) either from the GPIO as on/off or from the PWM light pins. PWM would give you the option to dim the power if desired, or introduce a ramp if thats programmed into ReefPI at some point in the future.

Important thing will of course be the power requirement for those pumps, e,g. If you can run them of the same power supply and if the board can handle the required currents at 12V, or if you need a separate power supply or board to feed them.