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

[Ranjib]

Afternoon all. I just found this thread and I'm looking to possibly give this a shot. Where would you guys recommend that I start? Are the links on the first post still valid?

Are you thinking of a scratch build, through the guides? or some pre fab board? what type of features you are planning to use? since reef-pi is just a project, there are various ways of building and using it. If you can share some more specifics we can help you better. If you are taking this as electronics hobby, definitely take the scratch build route , except for the power strip (use dli, adj or kasa instead). If you are very new to electronics and want something relatively quick and with less effort, robotank or any of the prefab boards (I'm not sure if brandon or theatrus have any in stock) is better.

Due to supply chain issues, I am also worried about the general availability of electronics parts (raspberry pi, ph boards etc), you may have to do little extra work to get through those..

start a build thread if you plan to invest more time, seek help and learn with us. similar to tank builds it helps us get the context. I love those :0) ,

godspeed

 

[Ranjib]

Anyone have a suggestion for a trustworthy buck converter (or any trustworthy way to convert from 12v 2a to 5v 3a)?

Right now I am using this buck converter, similar to what was used in the adafruit thread. Now that I am up and running and running my entire tank off of it I feel I need something a little more... robust as it is a single point of failure for my entire system (tank included) since the pi runs my heaters and pumps.

I have a 12v 2a power supply coming in that runs the darlington arrays/relays, relay powerstrip (the one from the adafruit thread), some indicator leds etc, then the buck converter that runs it down to 5v to run the pi. It is noticeably warm. However I am assuming that is normal since it has a heatsink on it.

I am just curious if people trust these Chinese generic buck converters to keep everything alive (and not burn the house down) or if there are other better options.

UBEC https://www.adafruit.com/product/1385 are good for 3A or less,
pololu has this https://www.pololu.com/product/2851
and any of the xl4015 ic based converter should be fine. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=XL4015&i=electronics .

The best common power supplies are made by meanwell, a taiwanese company. Cheaper components are generally bad, irrespective of their origin.

 

[GaryE]

Anyone have a suggestion for a trustworthy buck converter (or any trustworthy way to convert from 12v 2a to 5v 3a)?

Right now I am using this buck converter, similar to what was used in the adafruit thread. Now that I am up and running and running my entire tank off of it I feel I need something a little more... robust as it is a single point of failure for my entire system (tank included) since the pi runs my heaters and pumps.

I have a 12v 2a power supply coming in that runs the darlington arrays/relays, relay powerstrip (the one from the adafruit thread), some indicator leds etc, then the buck converter that runs it down to 5v to run the pi. It is noticeably warm. However I am assuming that is normal since it has a heatsink on it.

I am just curious if people trust these Chinese generic buck converters to keep everything alive (and not burn the house down) or if there are other better options.

Amazon product

I've been using these for about 2 years with no issues..

I like that they are easily adjustable and have a display to show the output voltage without needing a multimeter..

 

[theatrus]

UBEC https://www.adafruit.com/product/1385 are good for 3A or less,
pololu has this https://www.pololu.com/product/2851
and any of the xl4015 ic based converter should be fine. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=XL4015&i=electronics .

The best common power supplies are made by meanwell, a taiwanese company. Cheaper components are generally bad, irrespective of their origin.

"You get what you pay for" is real. Its hard to really screen what you're getting if shopping Amazon since the quality is so variable.

Outside of two AC->DC power supplies (one for 5V one for 12V, connect the grounds) you can also buy quality modules for DC/DC from Meanwell.

RSD-30G-5 MEAN WELL USA Inc. | Power Supplies - External/Internal (Off-Board) | DigiKey

Order today, ships today. RSD-30G-5 – Enclosed DC DC Converter 1 Output 5V 6A 36V Input from MEAN WELL USA Inc.. Pricing and Availability on millions of electronic components from Digi-Key Electronics.

www.digikey.com

If you're wondering why its so much more expensive, outside of the case and terminals, its actually going to survive running at full power over its full temperature range. The little converter boards absolutely don't get the same amount of testing and QA processes. Its also an isolated converter, which does mean you'll need to string the grounds back together. The isolation drives the cost up.

 

[im_jeremy5]

Hello all,

I have built my reef-pi from scratch on a pi0 with reef-pi 5.1. It has been a blast and I about have this thing dialed in. I am in the process of automating water changes and I have a few questions. Maybe a few bugs? Looking for a work around.

Problem: macro hangs when it is supposed to shut off an ato. Once this happens I have to reboot before I can manually turn on or off any atos.

My setup: I have a float in my salt reservoir (resfloat) to detect if there is enough saltwater made before it starts. I have a float near the bottom of my sump. (Wclowfloat) I have another float at the fill level (wchifloat) and then my normal ato float. The idea is to shut off the sump, drain to a point, fill it back up, turn the sump back on. Make the normal ato float control the salt water fill pump until everything levels back out, then return to normal operation.

I have a wc out pump (wcoutpump) wc in pump (wcinpump) and then the other standard equipment.

Below is a screenshot of my attempted macros. My plan was to have it check the reservoir before starting, so I have a macro that turns on an ato that checks the float in the reservoir, then turns it off seconds later, if the reservoir is full enough, it triggers the wc macro, if not it just shuts back off and does nothing. (I wish I could set this float up with an else/or argument to send me a message if its low and doesn't trigger the macro)

That macro works fine but once the auto wc macro is triggered it seems to hang when it is supposed to shut off the (actual) ATO. My skimmer shuts off, and my temp control shuts off, and thats it. I go to the ato page and it didn't shut off the ato and nothing else happens. And I am no longer able to manually turn on or off any atos until a reboot.

I have been able to reboot and manually trigger the auto wc macro and it worked, once. Other than that it always hangs on shutting of the ato and freezes my ato page.


Thank you for any help or suggestions.

 

[im_jeremy5]

Ok, I've tried a million ways, the problem is I can't get a macro to reliably control an ato. And it leads to the ato page freezing 99% of the time.

 

[bishoptf]

Ok, I've tried a million ways, the problem is I can't get a macro to reliably control an ato. And it leads to the ato page freezing 99% of the time.

Not sure this will help but @Des Westcott did a lot of poking around with macros in the past, this post may have some good information in it if you haven't seen it yet - https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/r...ler-based-on-raspberry-pi.289256/post-7104116

 

[hubcap]

Man, this thread is huge.
I really want to get into this because I have experience making toasters into reflow ovens and thats fairly easy with the right gear and training.
But, man.......Almost 900 pages?

It might have already been addressed, but, is all the code you guys and gals make on github (or something similar)
To be blunt, I dont even want to start down this road if Im going to code. Ill do everything else.
Coding makes me mental.

rock on reefers.

-cap

 

[bishoptf]

Man, this thread is huge.
I really want to get into this because I have experience making toasters into reflow ovens and thats fairly easy with the right gear and training.
But, man.......Almost 900 pages?

It might have already been addressed, but, is all the code you guys and gals make on github (or something similar)
To be blunt, I dont even want to start down this road if Im going to code. Ill do everything else.
Coding makes me mental.

rock on reefers.

-cap

It's all Opensource and on github, but @Ranjib and others have published the software you just have to make the hardware or purchase one of the pre-built units...pretty much plug and play.

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

An opensource reef tank controller based on Raspberry Pi - reef-pi/reef-pi

github.com

 

[Ranjib]

Man, this thread is huge.
I really want to get into this because I have experience making toasters into reflow ovens and thats fairly easy with the right gear and training.
But, man.......Almost 900 pages?

It might have already been addressed, but, is all the code you guys and gals make on github (or something similar)
To be blunt, I dont even want to start down this road if Im going to code. Ill do everything else.
Coding makes me mental.

rock on reefers.

-cap

As Tom mentioned , everything is GitHub . You can find the starting guides on the very first page of this thread. For sustained help, start a build thread and we can help you on the way

 

[bishoptf]

Lookie what showed up from Blueacro today, Big thanks to @theatrus...

These are the viparspectra adapter boards that @Michael Lane designed, @theatrus had some built and I have some being built and own there way. Will be a couple of days before I get to test one of them but looks pretty good to me. Really appreciate @theatrus putting the order in and sending me some to kick around.

If anyone is interested in these boards reach out to me or @theatrus, I am short on JST connectors at the moment and need to order some but give me a PM if you are interested.

See this thread for all the details - https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/controlling-viparspectra-lights.698216/

 

[Lslusar]

Hello . Raspberry pi difficult to buy in our country. And long delivery. But I can buy orange pi today. Is it possible to use this board instead of raspberry pi?

 

[GaryE]

Hello . Raspberry pi difficult to buy in our country. And long delivery. But I can buy orange pi today. Is it possible to use this board instead of raspberry pi?

I'm willing to buy an orange pi and try it out. Can always use another board for playing with..

 

[bishoptf]

Since we have a question about macro's I know in order to call them from a timer they need to be marked reversible but I never fully understood why that was the case. Can anyone enlighten me as to why that is the only way that it will work?

Thanks

 

[Ranjib]

Since we have a question about macro's I know in order to call them from a timer they need to be marked reversible but I never fully understood why that was the case. Can anyone enlighten me as to why that is the only way that it will work?

Thanks

A timer, requires any an reef-pi entity (like ato, temperature, equipment etc) to act like a digital output (i.e. on/off) that can take two state, "On" and "Off" . Macros emulate this by running sequentially as their specification in "On" state, and in reverse order in "Off" state. Thus a reversible macro can simulate On/Off mechanism, making it controllable via timers.

I don't know if this makes sense or not, but its this trick in software that allowed me to integrate timers and macros.

 

[Ranjib]

Hello . Raspberry pi difficult to buy in our country. And long delivery. But I can buy orange pi today. Is it possible to use this board instead of raspberry pi?

I dont know actually. It might work as it is, without any modification, assuming the GPIO pin map is same and arm architecture is same. If that's not the case we might have to make some software changes either by building it specifically for orange pi (if the arch is different) or by allowing an alternate pin map(if gpio pins are different). Hard to say without trying out, but i think it should not be a lot of work to get it working, and if we are lucky, either zero or 3 builds will work as it is.

 

[bishoptf]

A timer, requires any an reef-pi entity (like ato, temperature, equipment etc) to act like a digital output (i.e. on/off) that can take two state, "On" and "Off" . Macros emulate this by running sequentially as their specification in "On" state, and in reverse order in "Off" state. Thus a reversible macro can simulate On/Off mechanism, making it controllable via timers.

I don't know if this makes sense or not, but its this trick in software that allowed me to integrate timers and macros.

Thanks, yeah I will have to read it a few time and see if it sinks in, lol. It works when labeled as reversible and in this case its an easy macro but I can see where making a complex one more fun thinking in reverse order.

 

[Jason Judd]

I dont know actually. It might work as it is, without any modification, assuming the GPIO pin map is same and arm architecture is same. If that's not the case we might have to make some software changes either by building it specifically for orange pi (if the arch is different) or by allowing an alternate pin map(if gpio pins are different). Hard to say without trying out, but i think it should not be a lot of work to get it working, and if we are lucky, either zero or 3 builds will work as it is.

I'm in the same boat. I just burned out my raspberry pi and finding that there's no rpi to be found without price gouging. Does anyone know where I can pickup a rpi without needing to buy the 4 for $150? My old B+ cost me $35...

 

[GaryE]

I'm in the same boat. I just burned out my raspberry pi and finding that there's no rpi to be found without price gouging. Does anyone know where I can pickup a rpi without needing to buy the 4 for $150? My old B+ cost me $35...

I went a couple weeks ago to a few sites that sell them and put myself in on the "notify me" deals, I was able to stock up.. picked up 2 Zero 2 W's and two Pi4 2gb all in one week..

I also have an ancient Raspberry PI clone called a Roseapple Pi. I fired it up this AM and am getting it updated so I can test Reef-PI on it. Should be interesting.. It runs a debian release and I believe it to be pin compatible with the RPi GPIO..
We shall see..

 

[GaryE]

Did some updates on one of my controllers this week.

Old setup

after a lot of head scratching and burning myself with the soldering iron...

Much cleaner.. still can't get one of my temp sensors working though. I think I know why...