ScottBrew
Active Member
From this:
To this:
My ideas sometimes go sideways from the norm and I tend to not plan too much and just do it. This thread is hopefully to give someone some ideas toward their own reef-pi build. Feel free to ask any questions and use any ideas to further your project.
Still some tidying of the external wiring to do but has been up and running for a week now. First delivery from Amazon was October 15. I started the process after about a week of reading a considerable amount of the reef-pi build thread by Ranjib. I was looking at the Apex system but was unable to justify the cost, so I started Googling open source reef controllers and I ran into reef-pi. My initial goal was just to control all the lights and pumps but there is so much more that this can do. As I was planning, I decided that the secondary goal was cleaning up and eliminating the mass of lighting power bricks, timers and making an easy to use system that my family could use for feeding time when I wasn't home. I incorporated a 24vdc power supply to run the 3 LED strips, a 5vdc power supply to run the pi and relays and a power monitor to keep tabs on energy usage. I'll still have roughly half what the Apex system would cost in it but this is up-gradable and because I built it, I can fix it! Muy importante!!!
The housing for the control module is pine with finger joints at the corners sanded and 2 coats of PolyCrylic clear, a channel to contain the aluminum mounting plate and enough room for future expansion. The main aluminum plate has the power supplies mounted to the back and the pi and everything else mounted to the front. There are 3 temp sensor ports and 3 24vdc connectors for the lights run by the 4 channel relay. The single outlet on the bottom is mounted at roughly 45 degrees to allow me to shrink the depth of the housing and that connects 120vac to the power module. There is a fuse on the 120vac input to each power supply for safety. Still need to put a fan in the top of the box and build the Plexiglass covers. Near future plans are a PH monitor circuit and a dimming circuit for the lights. Probably the Mean Well LDD series DC/DC LED controllers
The power module is a Radio Shack project box with 8 outlets mounted to the lid and an 8 channel solid state relay. The outlet holes were cut out with a dremel, I wasn't impressed with the results and plan on re-doing that at some point. I have an old T5 aluminum light housing that I was scrapping that will make a better power module housing and I'll have a buddy with a machine shop cut out the holes this time. The power cords for both the input power to the control module and the one from control to power module are 14 ga UPS cords that were unused from a system install at work. Stripped the outer insulation from sections of the same cords to use as hook-up wiring in the modules. The cable to trigger the relays is a 10 conductor 18ga solid core sprinkler cable from Lowes. I won't do that again, I will use 2 CAT5 network cables and heat shrink the whole mess to a single cable. I expected that I could use network connectors at the control box end but found out that the individual wires are way too big to fit, so I soldered and heat shrinked 8 network wires to the end to allow me to connect it. The 5vdc power is connected directly to the power supply.
Overall, I am VERY impressed at the amount of effort Ranjib and crew have put into this project!!! I really can't say enough good things about them. It's been a fun build so far.
To this:
My ideas sometimes go sideways from the norm and I tend to not plan too much and just do it. This thread is hopefully to give someone some ideas toward their own reef-pi build. Feel free to ask any questions and use any ideas to further your project.
Still some tidying of the external wiring to do but has been up and running for a week now. First delivery from Amazon was October 15. I started the process after about a week of reading a considerable amount of the reef-pi build thread by Ranjib. I was looking at the Apex system but was unable to justify the cost, so I started Googling open source reef controllers and I ran into reef-pi. My initial goal was just to control all the lights and pumps but there is so much more that this can do. As I was planning, I decided that the secondary goal was cleaning up and eliminating the mass of lighting power bricks, timers and making an easy to use system that my family could use for feeding time when I wasn't home. I incorporated a 24vdc power supply to run the 3 LED strips, a 5vdc power supply to run the pi and relays and a power monitor to keep tabs on energy usage. I'll still have roughly half what the Apex system would cost in it but this is up-gradable and because I built it, I can fix it! Muy importante!!!
The housing for the control module is pine with finger joints at the corners sanded and 2 coats of PolyCrylic clear, a channel to contain the aluminum mounting plate and enough room for future expansion. The main aluminum plate has the power supplies mounted to the back and the pi and everything else mounted to the front. There are 3 temp sensor ports and 3 24vdc connectors for the lights run by the 4 channel relay. The single outlet on the bottom is mounted at roughly 45 degrees to allow me to shrink the depth of the housing and that connects 120vac to the power module. There is a fuse on the 120vac input to each power supply for safety. Still need to put a fan in the top of the box and build the Plexiglass covers. Near future plans are a PH monitor circuit and a dimming circuit for the lights. Probably the Mean Well LDD series DC/DC LED controllers
The power module is a Radio Shack project box with 8 outlets mounted to the lid and an 8 channel solid state relay. The outlet holes were cut out with a dremel, I wasn't impressed with the results and plan on re-doing that at some point. I have an old T5 aluminum light housing that I was scrapping that will make a better power module housing and I'll have a buddy with a machine shop cut out the holes this time. The power cords for both the input power to the control module and the one from control to power module are 14 ga UPS cords that were unused from a system install at work. Stripped the outer insulation from sections of the same cords to use as hook-up wiring in the modules. The cable to trigger the relays is a 10 conductor 18ga solid core sprinkler cable from Lowes. I won't do that again, I will use 2 CAT5 network cables and heat shrink the whole mess to a single cable. I expected that I could use network connectors at the control box end but found out that the individual wires are way too big to fit, so I soldered and heat shrinked 8 network wires to the end to allow me to connect it. The 5vdc power is connected directly to the power supply.
Overall, I am VERY impressed at the amount of effort Ranjib and crew have put into this project!!! I really can't say enough good things about them. It's been a fun build so far.
Last edited:
. This is awesome . Thanks for taking the time to write your build thread , I bet others would find it very useful as well 
