Controlling A/C dosing pumps through "Jacks"

[JFReyes]

Hi all:

My dosing pumps are simple, single speed, A/C powered pumps from Bulk Reef Supply (see here). Right now I have them connected as Equipment through the Outlets connectors. However, I would prefer to see them separately under "Doser pumps" but the configuration doesn't allow Outlets there, only Jacks.

On the Jacks configuration I see that I can choose a Raspberry Pi driver instead of the usual Extra Ports driver. Therefore, if I were to reassign the RPi pin currently assigned under Outlets to a Jack using the Raspberry Pi driver (and consequently assign the A/C "Jack" to the Dosing pumps section), would this work? I don't want to do it blindly because it's A/C were talking about. Any help is appreciated.

Regards,

José

[Rob F]

Hi Jose, the way reef-pi is setup Jacks only work with PWM pins and yeah dosing pumps only see Jacks. Even though you see all the Pi pin numbers only 2 will work as they can be configured to be PWM.

As most of the Pi pins are only Low/High I used them for the power bars but the power bar can be switched using PWM pins. There's a couple ways you could do this.

If you aren't using any of the 8 LED channels you could connect the power bar to it using something like this. Plug the cable from power bar into it and then run wires to the green plugs for each of the 8 outlets. You would use one of the spare ground pins for ground.

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If you need the LED channels you could add one of these to the I2C port. This would give you 16 PWM channels so you would have 8 extra. You would connect to this the same as above. In reef-pi you would add an "extra ports 2" driver. In dosing pump settings you would leave speed set to 100% and other settings how you like.

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[JFReyes]

Hi Jose, the way reef-pi is setup Jacks only work with PWM pins and yeah dosing pumps only see Jacks. Even though you see all the Pi pin numbers only 2 will work as they can be configured to be PWM.

As most of the Pi pins are only Low/High I used them for the power bars but the power bar can be switched using PWM pins. There's a couple ways you could do this.

If you aren't using any of the 8 LED channels you could connect the power bar to it using something like this. Plug the cable from power bar into it and then run wires to the green plugs for each of the 8 outlets. You would use one of the spare ground pins for ground.

Affiliate link
https://amzn.to/3dK7r9W

If you need the LED channels you could add one of these to the I2C port. This would give you 16 PWM channels so you would have 8 extra. You would connect to this the same as above. In reef-pi you would add an "extra ports 2" driver. In dosing pump settings you would leave speed set to 100% and other settings how you like.

Affiliate link
https://amzn.to/2HcGtMB

Thanks for the prompt reply Rob. I'll look into this but it got me thinking: since I'm about to order a 2nd assembled PowerBar from you, is there some adaptation you could make to it to handle this issue? Of course I'll pay extra for your effort. I'm currently not using the LED channels but do have plans for the I2C port. Please let me know via email. Thanks!

[Rob F]

Unfortunately there's nothing I can do on the power bar side. In the end it would need to be connected through one of those methods.

Edit: You can connect multiple devices to the I2C port, just need to keep the cable short between controller and device.

[JFReyes]

Unfortunately there's nothing I can do on the power bar side. In the end it would need to be connected through one of those methods.

Edit: You can connect multiple devices to the I2C port, just need to keep the cable short between controller and device.

I understand, thanks. I believe I'll go for the first method and build a special cable to connect the new power bar to the PWM ports. Perhaps you should consider offering those cables as optional items because I believe I'm not the only one with A/C only dosers. Thanks for the help!

Regards,

José

[Rob F]

I understand, thanks. I believe I'll go for the first method and build a special cable to connect the new power bar to the PWM ports. Perhaps you should consider offering those cables as optional items because I believe I'm not the only one with A/C only dosers. Thanks for the help!

Regards,

José

I don't have any cables but I can get one and cut the end and add the screw terminal connectors, that's no problem.

[JFReyes]

Hi Rob:

Just received the new power bar and the custom control cable, thanks!. As I understand, I'll plug in the connectors to the PWM outputs and spare GND slot, but am unsure about the settings. Are the relays 5V or 10V? You previously mentioned using PWM but the ports can also output analog; which is it? Please let me know.

Thanks,

José

[Rob F]

Hi Jose, good to hear and you have the connections correct. The output type on LED channels shouldn't matter, you can leave as is. It just wants some voltage to switch the transistor in power bar. In reef-pi when add the dosing pumps leave the run speed at 100%.