Reef Pi Help

[LeadHead83]

Afternoon all

hope everyone keeping well considering. Looking for little bit of help with getting my Reef Pi planned and not wasting any money in the process. I've got my pi all setup and reef pi installed and trying plan my circuits and which is the easiest way to control what. Main bits I'm interested is monitoring and dosing and if can control few sockets at the end that's a bonus

What are the best driver to use?
What drivers are you using and for what?
Which driver is best for 4 dosing pumps? (was thinking i can use a PCA9685 to drive all four pumps two with hardware PWM and two with software PWM)

I'm looking at getting all the Atlas Ezo Probe Kits to add to my build I've seen PH probe is supported but no information on EC probe and RTD Temp how easy is it to setup drivers for these probes.

Not going overload this thread with to many questions but be grateful for some help so i don't make any mistake.

Look forward to contributing once my Reef PI up and running. I Dabble a little in app development and would like to have a stab a creating a smart phone app to work with the Reef PI.

 

[robsworld78]

Afternoon all

hope everyone keeping well considering. Looking for little bit of help with getting my Reef Pi planned and not wasting any money in the process. I've got my pi all setup and reef pi installed and trying plan my circuits and which is the easiest way to control what. Main bits I'm interested is monitoring and dosing and if can control few sockets at the end that's a bonus

What are the best driver to use?
What drivers are you using and for what?
Which driver is best for 4 dosing pumps? (was thinking i can use a PCA9685 to drive all four pumps two with hardware PWM and two with software PWM)

I'm looking at getting all the Atlas Ezo Probe Kits to add to my build I've seen PH probe is supported but no information on EC probe and RTD Temp how easy is it to setup drivers for these probes.

Not going overload this thread with to many questions but be grateful for some help so i don't make any mistake.

Look forward to contributing once my Reef PI up and running. I Dabble a little in app development and would like to have a stab a creating a smart phone app to work with the Reef PI.

Hi, I don't normally do this but thought I would mention it as you don't have money to waste, I hear you there. I have a board available in DIY format for less than what you'll pay for the Atlas pH circuit with isolated carrier board and it has an equivalent isolated pH circuit and everything else you need except the EC, google Robo-Tank and you'll find it.

You can use up to two Arduino $5 relay module and connect directly to outputs on controller so you can make the power bars cheap.

reef-pi doesn't support EC mainly due to cost of circuits from Atlas and no open source solution available. With that said reef-pi has a nifty driver that will read a text file on the Pi and import a single value per text file. For example EC puts out 4 parameters so you would have the Atlas script run on Pi but edit it to save each value to a separate text file, then inside reef-pi you use the file driver, add the file location, add an analog connector and then you can use it on the pH tab and have all those features available. If you set check frequency to 5 seconds it will read the file every 5 seconds. This allows all kinds of additions not fully supported. You would need to calibrate using Atlas script though.

 

[ReeferLou]

I am going down this path for a 4x dose pump solution:

L293D module mini 4-channel motor drive shield expansion stepper board 4 Arduino | eBay

(And stepping motors) and switching power transistors. To simplify use as two bridges each pair of channels is equipped with an enable input. This device is suitable for use in switching applications at frequencies up to 5 kHz.

www.ebay.com

Jebao Jecod Coral Cylinder Aquarium Automatic Titration Pump DP2 DP3 DP4 DP-3S | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Jebao Jecod Coral Cylinder Aquarium Automatic Titration Pump DP2 DP3 DP4 DP-3S at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[Weasel1960]

Following this build thread...thanks for starting.

 

[maxan]

I am going down this path for a 4x dose pump solution:

L293D module mini 4-channel motor drive shield expansion stepper board 4 Arduino | eBay

(And stepping motors) and switching power transistors. To simplify use as two bridges each pair of channels is equipped with an enable input. This device is suitable for use in switching applications at frequencies up to 5 kHz.

www.ebay.com

Jebao Jecod Coral Cylinder Aquarium Automatic Titration Pump DP2 DP3 DP4 DP-3S | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Jebao Jecod Coral Cylinder Aquarium Automatic Titration Pump DP2 DP3 DP4 DP-3S at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

Stupid question.. Doesn't the Jebao contain standard DC pumps that you control with a 4-channel DC-Switch?

 

[ReeferLou]

Stupid question.. Doesn't the Jebao contain standard DC pumps that you control with a 4-channel DC-Switch?

No question is stupid...I did not give all the details. The Jebao you want is the 4S or 3S, these are the slave models that have no "brains" (use reefpi for that). I used this tindie to help: https://www.tindie.com/products/ran...l&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=notify_signup

But yes these are standard 12V pumps that the reefpi can control using the the 2pwm (pin GPIO 0,1) and 2 regular outlets (GPIO 20, 21) . I like the L293D vs the 2803 as it is rated for higher current, can drive active hi or lo, and the board is inexpensive and has LED to test the outputs.