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

bishoptf · Mar 4, 2022

Tom Bishop said:
Has anyone ever seen or experienced this, I have a semi new rpi zero 2 w that I bought over Christmas and moved it to my main testing rig and have noticed something that not sure what the issue is. Normally if I pull power and re-apply power they come right up, I am noticing with this unit it doesnt always want to boot, in other words I apply power and do not get the led to light up. Even if I shutdown power properly, remove and then apply it doesn't always come back on. If I let it sit and/or try several times it will eventually come back up, just never seen this behavior before and not sure what it could be. Tried different power feeds but I really do not think it's that, I think it may be related to the micro sd card, I know it won't boot if it doesnt see a card and boot images going to try a different card and see if it behaves differently.

Looks like it was just a dodgy sd card, I tend to have a bin full of them and re-use them and every now and then they come back and bite me. Swapped card and it's acting normal now...

Ranjib · Mar 4, 2022

GaryE said:
I'm with you Tom, I thought 65 devices on my network was a lot...

I have more than a dozen reef-pi running on tanks, as house temperature monitors, as model railroad controller , for seed starting rack , garden stuff etc. then there are half a dozen Wyze camera, around a dozen of Shelly in wall outlets , while bunch of kasa products , laptops, desktop, octoprint and the list goes on and on ..

. I need to move to ubiquity .. google mesh does not work well beyond 150-200 devices

Ranjib · Mar 4, 2022

theatrus said:
Same. And I even have multiple VLANs, multiple APs and multiple wireless networks to seggregate all the devices so its not just one huge multicast mess.

But all of my light switches are dumb, I imagine that adds up fast.

I need something like that.. soon

bishoptf · Mar 5, 2022

Ranjib said:
I have more than a dozen reef-pi running on tanks, as house temperature monitors, as model railroad controller , for seed starting rack , garden stuff etc. then there are half a dozen Wyze camera, around a dozen of Shelly in wall outlets , while bunch of kasa products , laptops, desktop, octoprint and the list goes on and on .. . I need to move to ubiquity .. google mesh does not work well beyond 150-200 devices

Eh ubiquity is not that great, use it at several locations that I support, the hardware is not too bad but the software leaves a lot to be desired. Controller makes managing things easy but not sure you will find that the mesh is any better, most likely you will find its worse, YMMV. To get the real stuff is not cheap, Ruckus, Aruba etc etc...

Ranjib · Mar 5, 2022

Saltwateraquarium.com did a video coverage on reef-pi, anchor is one of my favorite, Mark Callahan

GaryE · Mar 5, 2022

Tom Bishop said:
Eh ubiquity is not that great, use it at several locations that I support, the hardware is not too bad but the software leaves a lot to be desired. Controller makes managing things easy but not sure you will find that the mesh is any better, most likely you will find its worse, YMMV. To get the real stuff is not cheap, Ruckus, Aruba etc etc...

I switched recently to a mikrotik router at home. I've been very happy with its performance. I've been using TP-Link Deco for WiFi and am not exactly thrilled with it. May move to mikrotik on that as well.

bishoptf · Mar 6, 2022

Ranjib said:
Saltwateraquarium.com did a video coverage on reef-pi, anchor is one of my favorite, Mark Callahan

That was really nice video @Ranjib. One thing I would have pointed out to the interviewer is that with some of the newer board builds you do not need as much electronic knowledge as you once did, always helps but heck some of these plug and play units are pretty easy.

Ranjib · Mar 6, 2022

Tom Bishop said:
That was really nice video @Ranjib. One thing I would have pointed out to the interviewer is that with some of the newer board builds you do not need as much electronic knowledge as you once did, always helps but heck some of these plug and play units are pretty easy.

Yes , we have come a long long way :-0). I really need to update / work on docs . That was a consistent feedback.
I was thinking what if we start build guides here, now that we have dedicated forums section. We can maintain the guides here with community backed edits

bishoptf · Mar 6, 2022

I am going to post this here and see what I am missing, I am trying to clone a rpi image and pretty sure this has worked before, but when I create the image the /rootfs partition is not recognized. I am using DD and not doing it from the rpi booted, but for whatever reason the /boot partition is fine but the /rootfs is not. Just using plain ole dd if=/dev/sda of=/pathtoImage.img

Not sure why its not working..anyone has any thoughts let me know..

GaryE · Mar 7, 2022

I've never had much luck with cloned images via dd..

Anymore, I just keep a folder of stuff to copy over and install fresh, if it's only doing reef-pi..

bishoptf · Mar 7, 2022

GaryE said:
I've never had much luck with cloned images via dd..

Anymore, I just keep a folder of stuff to copy over and install fresh, if it's only doing reef-pi..

Yeah it's not working for cloning an rpi image, no idea since it should be a bit for bit copy...really kind of odd but the ext4 partition is unrecognized. Clonezilla works but it does it using partclone I believe. Kind of stubborn but not sure why it's not working, really odd...

sector9 · Mar 7, 2022

I am now back up and running reef-pi again! Lots of new development since the last time I ran it. I have been using reef-pi since June 2017 (I think beta builds back then) but I moved cross country in 2020 and sold off my old tank. I just set up a new frag tank, booted back up reef-pi, and upgraded to the latest version! Nice the see the project is still going strong. I now have a pretty complete Neptune Apex system and some Focustronic devices but I love tinkering and reef-pi is awesome for that

Schreiber · Mar 7, 2022

Tom Bishop said:
I am going to post this here and see what I am missing, I am trying to clone a rpi image and pretty sure this has worked before, but when I create the image the /rootfs partition is not recognized. I am using DD and not doing it from the rpi booted, but for whatever reason the /boot partition is fine but the /rootfs is not. Just using plain ole dd if=/dev/sda of=/pathtoImage.img

Not sure why its not working..anyone has any thoughts let me know..

I've always used Win32 Disk Imager. It works great, never had a single problem with it.

Schreiber · Mar 7, 2022

Tried setting up remote access through VNC this weekend & ran into an issue with it.

Getting the error "Unable to connect via -IP Address- disconnected by proxy"

Anyone ever seen that before, or know what it may mean? Google has been no help.

I'm signed into VNC on the PI with the same account as I am on the phone. The Reef-Pi build shows up on the VNC app's devices screen on the phone, so it's definitely connected & available. I'm at a loss as to what could be causing the issue.

bishoptf · Mar 7, 2022

Schreiber said:
I've always used Win32 Disk Imager. It works great, never had a single problem with it.

Yeah i have an aversion to windoze, only use it when am getting paid to do so, lol (running linux ). Clonezilla works also, just at a loss as to why DD which is a sector based copy is not working...I will keep poking around and if I find something will post back.

bishoptf · Mar 7, 2022

Schreiber said:
Tried setting up remote access through VNC this weekend & ran into an issue with it.

Getting the error "Unable to connect via -IP Address- disconnected by proxy"

Anyone ever seen that before, or know what it may mean? Google has been no help.

I'm signed into VNC on the PI with the same account as I am on the phone. The Reef-Pi build shows up on the VNC app's devices screen on the phone, so it's definitely connected & available. I'm at a loss as to what could be causing the issue.

I think I would be looking at tailscale as someone mentioned up above earlier in the post - https://tailscale.com/ much better alternative, IMHO.

Schreiber · Mar 7, 2022

Tom Bishop said:
I think I would be looking at tailscale as someone mentioned up above earlier in the post - https://tailscale.com/ much better alternative, IMHO.

Ohhhhhh, thanks for that!! I'll definitely check that out.

bishoptf · Mar 7, 2022

Schreiber said:
Ohhhhhh, thanks for that!! I'll definitely check that out.

Yeah I think you will find that its much better and more secure to boot.

Ranjib · Mar 7, 2022

bs=4

Tom Bishop said:
I am going to post this here and see what I am missing, I am trying to clone a rpi image and pretty sure this has worked before, but when I create the image the /rootfs partition is not recognized. I am using DD and not doing it from the rpi booted, but for whatever reason the /boot partition is fine but the /rootfs is not. Just using plain ole dd if=/dev/sda of=/pathtoImage.img

Not sure why its not working..anyone has any thoughts let me know..

have you tried bs=4mb ? how are you restroring the image? using dd? it should work

Ranjib · Mar 7, 2022

sector9 said:
I am now back up and running reef-pi again! Lots of new development since the last time I ran it. I have been using reef-pi since June 2017 (I think beta builds back then) but I moved cross country in 2020 and sold off my old tank. I just set up a new frag tank, booted back up reef-pi, and upgraded to the latest version! Nice the see the project is still going strong. I now have a pretty complete Neptune Apex system and some Focustronic devices but I love tinkering and reef-pi is awesome for that

awesome. keep us posted. you know with new features comes new bugs