reef-pi :: An opensource reef tank controller based on Raspberry Pi.

[GaryE]

I can help with this one but no guru. You can remove the solder pads but not the resistors. The resistors are always connected directly to pins on pca9685 via the pads. The solder pads let 5v through and pull up the line changing the address. So the bottom traces going to solder pads from pca9685 would need to be re-routed to the resistors and then add 5v to whatever lines you want to change the address, the many combinations is why it has so many addresses.

Here's the schematic, you can see how it's wired.

https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/assets/assets/000/036/269/original/adafruit_products_schem.png?1475858980

I thought I read somewhere that if you weren't going to use the address pads, you could tie the address pins to ground for the default address. just can't leave the floating. Thats what I did on the first board I designed and it seemed to work just fine. I can't find where I read that now...

 

[robsworld78]

I thought I read somewhere that if you weren't going to use the address pads, you could tie the address pins to ground for the default address. just can't leave the floating. Thats what I did on the first board I designed and it seemed to work just fine. I can't find where I read that now...

You are correct, the resistor is only there so it can be pulled up or down. You can also run VCC directly to pin as well. I guess I like resistor there for possibly some protection but I don't know if it really does, maybe @theatrus knows, he's the guru around here.

 

[bishoptf]

What ato pump you are using ? I recommend a 12v peristaltic pump and 10s check frequency

I am using a usb water pump along with floats, never thought about using a dosing pump for top off, my usb pumps are pretty cheap at $10ea cheap enough to have a spare. I have it in a 5g bucket with multiple floats, One lights up and LED on my cabinet when the water level is low and another low level float shuts off the pump if water level gets to the bottom. I've gone to 5s check frequency and I'm just looking at minimizing the salinty swings, with a 5s check it's topping off about once an hour now.

What kind of peristaltic pump are you using?

Thanks

 

[Bigtrout]

Nice. Might be a good alternative if you don't have ML viparspectra boards; and especially so if you're changing up the layout.

IMO, the spectrum of the Wills is a little lacking, compared to Viparspectras (too much red, no violet, no blue, too heavy on warm white (3000K). But, should be easy enough to swap them out assuming they didn't go thr way of Mars Aqua and use the 3030 package LEDs instead of thr ol' egg type "epistar" diodes.

Might be a good spectrum for Freshwater planted....hmmm

 

[woejillis]

What ato pump you are using ? I recommend a 12v peristaltic pump and 10s check frequency

Is there an off-the-shelf motor controller you recommend?

Based on what I'm finding, this controller that I picked up from Amazon should work since it requires a PWM signal + additional signals for motor direction. I've followed the config tutorials for setting up the dosing function but can't get the pump to work.

Amazon Link

 

[Bigtrout]

I was waffling for days between this light and a Viparspecta. I have seen others hack that one and it seemed to be a bit more involved. I'm very happy this one didn't really require much. I think the hardest part will be making the cable to connect from the aviation connectors to the JST connectors.

I don't see this being more than a 1/2 hour job to complete. And that's for 2 lights. It'll probably take longer and be more a pain in the butt to build the mounts for these lights.

Which lights are these?

 

[Carlo Rios]

I was wondering. Has anyone had contact whit Mike Lane I would like to get a Viparspectra Adapter to finish my project I have a goby hat and dosing adapter and they work super great. The ok only thing missing is the Viparspectra Adapter. Please let me know if not I'm going to have to figure how to make my own.

 

[GaryE]

Which lights are these?

On page 850 of the thread I posted an Amazon link to it.

 

[GaryE]

I was wondering. Has anyone had contact whit Mike Lane I would like to get a Viparspectra Adapter to finish my project I have a goby hat and dosing adapter and they work super great. The ok only thing missing is the Viparspectra Adapter. Please let me know if not I'm going to have to figure how to make my own.

Not seen him here for months.

 

[bishoptf]

Which lights are these?

@Bigtrout I think they are the Wills brand that he is referring to - lights but not sure which specific one, @GaryE can clarify.

 

[sharkbait-uhaha]

stumbled upon this thread and man this is awesome!!!!

 

[bishoptf]

Not seen him here for months.

From what @Ranjib has said sounds like he is really busy currently, there is a Viparspectra thread that he was the original OP, has a lot of good information in it - r2r thread you may have seen it, there are other threads also...

 

[Ranjib]

From what @Ranjib has said sounds like he is really busy currently, there is a Viparspectra thread that he was the original OP, has a lot of good information in it - r2r thread you may have seen it, there are other threads also...

Last I had contact with him, he was occupied and health difficulties. I didn’t delve into details, I’ll ping him later this month , just to do a health check. I am sure he is fine, it’s just all these difficulties around us in this uncertain times, that all of us have to address,

 

[bishoptf]

Last I had contact with him, he was occupied and health difficulties. I didn’t delve into details, I’ll ping him later this month , just to do a health check. I am sure he is fine, it’s just all these difficulties around us in this uncertain times, that all of us have to address,

If you are able to tag up with him tell him I am sending well wishes his way and hope he gets better. I know how things can sneak up on you, I went from not having any issues to 2 heart surgeries in a year so you just never know whats around the corner.

Please let him know that we are wishing nothing but the best and hope he is on a path to recovery etc.

 

[bishoptf]

Looking good. I’ll share my dashboards for reference.
once we settle on a convention for the metrics, I think we will be able to ready made grafana dashboards (hosted in grafana.com) that users can just import straight from grafana ui, that way they don’t have to learn promql etc., or at least have some reference /example to look at

Yeah I think that would be good, I am still getting my head wrapped around things like max data points. When I go back 2 days to more it doesnt show all of the detail, increasing the number of data points solves the issue but I don't fully understand what should the right answer be. Can you eleaborate on how you have determined max data points for equipment, that is what I am playing with right now.

Thanks

 

[Carlo Rios]

If you are able to tag up with him tell him I am sending well wishes his way and hope he gets better. I know how things can sneak up on you, I went from not having any issues to 2 heart surgeries in a year so you just never know whats around the corner.

Please let him know that we are wishing nothing but the best and hope he is on a path to recovery etc.

I hope he a d his family is doing ok in these hard times. Without any of you we would'nt have Reef Pi. You guys are the beating heart of this project.

 

[Matevz Savarin]

Hi all one question about adafruit feeds. Ihave free acount with 10 feeds. Ok since I updated to 4.1 I get feeds about leds witch I dont need, I need feed about ph. So how can I delete led feeds and manually add ph feed? Anyone has a clue? Thank you! Or so I need to delete leds add ph and when feeds are shown add leds again to reefpi? Thats lot of work..

 

[Mwdsonny]

Ive been away for awhile. Wondering if @Ranjib ever got it where steppers could be used for dosing? want to build a doser, but want the precision that a stepper would deliever.

 

[ReeferLou]

Its not steady. its varying.. but the old values is making the chart y axis so large that the new calibrated values are not being visualized correctly. Bare with me, I'll list down the steps to use reef-pi db command to get rid of the old values,

1. Stop reef-pi (sudo systemctl stop reef-pi.service)
2. Use reef-pi db command to list the ph probes (sudo reef-pi db list phprobes). Obtain the probe id from here. For me it shows something like this

   {
   "1": {
   "id": "1",
   "name": "TestPH",
   "enable": true,
   "period": 2,
   "analog_input": "1",
   "control": false,
   "notify": {
   "enable": false,
   "min": 0,
   "max": 0
   },
   "upper_eq": "",
   "downer_eq": "",
   "min": 0,
   "max": 0,
   "hysteresis": 0,
   "is_macro": false
   }
   }

3. Notice my phprobe id is 1. Next use this id to obtain the ph readings values

   sudo reef-pi db show ph_readings 1 > readings.json

   . This should dump the readings in readings.json file, edit to and remove all the bogus values (you'll see values in the range of 1000s (way outside 0-14), delete those.
4. The reupload the file like this:

    cat readings.json | sudo reef-pi db update ph_readings 1

5. Start reef-pi again (sudo systemctl start reef-pi.service)

Thats it. your old data is gone now.. and the graph should automatically reset and show you the new values which should be in 5.5-10 range at worst, but with daily cycle.

For ease of editing i pass the reef-pi db output via jq command, it indents the json file , making it easy to read/edit.
To install jq command

sudo apt-get install jq

Then to use it execute the 3rd step like this:

sudo reef-pi db show ph_readings 1 | jq . | readings.json

Sorry for your trouble. Let me know if you try this and if it worked. Happy to helo you through this...

Just to clarify, to run the json thru jq and save to file command is:

jq '.' readings.json >  readings2.json

Everything else in the instructions worked fine to repair the graph.
Hint: search for "historical" to edit the historical data

 

[bishoptf]

Can anyone provide any details for getting ATO to display properly in grafana, I thought I had it working but it is not showing run time correctly. It shows when its run but always shows the same run time vs the actually run time.

Thanks...