09-01-2022, 02:05 AM (This post was last modified: 09-01-2022, 03:11 AM by Craig.)
Hi Rob, been using Robo-Tank now for the last 6 months or so, just rewired and tidying up, I added a float switch on my ATO reservoir the idea being that when its empty it will stop the pump being triggered to stop pump running endlessly if the tank is empty
So I set up two rules for ATO as follows
IF sump level is not touching AND reservoir is touching then turn pump on IF sump level is touching OR reservoir is not touching then turn pump off
This resulted in my pump turning on but emptying my whole ATO reservoir(not a major as I didn't fill it right up as a precaution)
I can't seem to get the rules working with 2 sensors either won't turn on or won't turn off
Any clues
By the way hope you get your mojo back I like ROBO-TANK and would hate to see it fade away. Lets all hope that the Pi shortage sorts it self out.
Cheers
Craig
(09-01-2022, 02:05 AM)Craig Wrote: Hi Rob, been using Robo-Tank now for the last 6 months or so, just rewired and tidying up, I added a float switch on my ATO reservoir the idea being that when its empty it will stop the pump being triggered to stop pump running endlessly if the tank is empty
So I set up two rules for ATO as follows
IF sump level is not touching AND reservoir is touching then turn pump on IF sump level is touching OR reservoir is not touching then turn pump off
This resulted in my pump turning on but emptying my whole ATO reservoir(not a major as I didn't fill it right up as a precaution)
I can't seem to get the rules working with 2 sensors either won't turn on or won't turn off
Any clues
By the way hope you get your mojo back I like ROBO-TANK and would hate to see it fade away. Lets all hope that the Pi shortage sorts it self out.
Cheers
Craig
Ignore, got it working I think it had something to do with delays being different, set them all for 1 second and is working fine
Oh and a quick word of support, I love you're hardware and have been spreading the love on NZ reefing forums(whether you get any business ornate but I' trying). Your software I prefer over Reef-Pi cleaner and haven't had many issues(no deal breakers anyway) I had issues with Reef-Pi too. I think we should all appreciate the effort Rob has put in, I have purchased 2 RoboTank controllers and love them. Rob replaced a faulty power board(at much expense as I am in NZ so freight$$$$ no questions asked for me and spent a lot of his time helping on his free software, Yes it has had bugs but wee all went in eyes open as he never said it was a finished polished product. Yes this software is based around his hardware but thats his Business model and His hardware isn't locked to his software and reef-pi is also able to be used or you can develop your own I started but realised how much work is involved and happy with Robo-Tank and if this doesnt work out for Rob we still have the best controller/interface between Reef-Pi and Raspberry Pi available.
I. have looked at other options and the only thing that comes close is a PLC with HMI and Ladder programming but talking $$$ once you start getting into analog and digital inputs, 12v and 240v outputs, wifi expansion and networking and HMI interface.
I really hope you carry on Rob and love the work and outstanding customer service you provide. I get the impression that being hounded isn't exactly motivationg you but dont let it get to you.
I really hope supply issues ease and your Business model works out
Thanks Mate you're a legend
The following 1 user Likes Craig's post:1 user Likes Craig's post • Rob F
Hi Craig, good to hear you were able to get it working, I'll have to look at those delays.
Thanks for the kind words and glad you're enjoying things. I agree without my app reef-pi is a great piece of software and Ranjib has done an excellent job, it's very kind of him to make that contribution, I think I know how he feels when someone gives him a hard time. :) It's ok though and doesn't stick, just frustrating some times, also some things written can come off a little different than intended. I'm definitely carrying on and when I think of the app I want to jump right in but yeah it's a lot of hours with very little return right now and sadly that doesn't work in my life. Summer also doesn't help, even if everything was on track I'm sure I would be doing less on the app. Sadly we only have another month of tee-shirt weather if we're lucky, single digit night temps coming next week. :( Once the cold gets here I'm sure I'll be back at it as I try and hibernate these days.
I am concerned about the Pi's though as there's no encouraging news out there on them at all. It's pretty clear they can only dribble them out at best and those are bought up immediately so how will it ever end with so many other components backlogged. For quite some time I was having trouble getting a few other components but that seems to be solved now but only because I found a large supplier in China, Win Source. Right now and since I found this company I can order 50,000+ of the components that I can't order from North American distributors, they don't expect these components till mid 2023 and beyond, interesting... Actually I can't order today, went to their website and a large red banner up top saying government just closed them down for 2 days due to covid, as long as that keeps happening it won't improve and if anything goes down in Taiwan who knows what happens then. Either way I'll be here waiting.
Time for an update and sorry for my absence on the app. I haven't done anything with it yet, just trying to figure out a path forward. As I mentioned I worry about the Pi availability, things still haven't gotten any better and the future doesn't sound promising. There's something about the Pi 4 making it easier to manufacture so most Pi's being released are those, sadly the Pi Zero is most difficult. Of course the Pi 4 works for this however it's not ideal as it costs quite a bit and puts out a lot of heat so a cooling fan is required which also drives up the cost. Either way, what they are able to manufacture is well below the demand so it will literally be years till they are plentiful again and that's them saying that.
Rather than sitting on my hands, the last few weeks I've been messing around with an ESP32 to get a grip on it's capabilities and have been impressed. I have it running with an SD card for logs, images and frontend files for the webpage and the backend code is on the ESP32 flash. This is the one I'm playing with.
Webserver and backend is up in running in 1-2 seconds after a reboot vs 30-60 seconds on a Pi.
Still using a websocket to communicate with webpage and ESP32 so everything is done in real time
Running over the air updates which means a sketch can be uploaded over wifi from the webpage, no Arduino IDE needed.
No operating system so a lot less can go wrong
Lots of existing code can be reused
No inventory shortage
Same price as a Pi Zero 2 W
The bad.
Not compatible with current controller.
Users lose option of using reef-pi or this. (I just had a good thought, the controller could have a placeholder for a Pi and ESP32 however my app would only be ESP32)
Webpage doesn't load as fast as Pi but currently I'm only using SPI for SD card, ESP32 has SDMMC connection but I haven't been able to get it working, SDMMC might fix this.
Less resources than a Pi
At this point I'm strongly considering the ESP32 however there's a slight chance things work out with the Pi. About 6 weeks ago I found an email address business@raspberrypi.com, they set it up for people like myself who are dependent on them. I didn't think I would hear back but low and behold after 4 weeks they replied asking a few more details, then they sent me a form to fill out and sure enough someone with a real email address contacted me the other day, she said they might be able to send me 20 Pi Zero 2 W's near the end of December and they are currently working on their production plan for the 2nd half of 2023 and would include 10 per month for me. It sounds like if approved I would get regular supply directly but that's still 8 months away and I'm sure no guarantee. Based on sales in the past when times were good that could still leave me short and ideally I want to increase sales.
So yeah that's where things are at, it's looking more likely I move to the ESP32 for the app and will have the controller support both Pi and ESP32 but not certain on this yet. Would love to hear some of your thoughts.
Just build v4 of your controller for RPi and ESP32 and get it over with.
If they want the app they have to go for ESP32 and if they don’t they can go either way.
Reef-pi has a broader community, so giving that option should increase sales.
Especially when you can offer RPi’s with the controller you should be able to sell the controllers pre-programmed with reef-pi, cheap and ready to go out of the box with a community available for support instead of just you.
I think you are right, just get it over with. Even if I stick with the Pi it would make the controller more flexible if someone wanted to work on their own project using an ESP32. I've thought about preprogramming the Pi's but decided against it due to the time it takes and I think it's best users go through the process so if something goes wrong and they need to start over it'll be easier to deal with as they already did it. That learning curve could be more stressful if it's already running the tank.
It's sad that raspberry is an unavailable product and when it is, it costs 5 times as much as before. I don't know what principle Neptune Apex works on, but apparently it doesn't use Rasperry. It would not be possible to copy something from it and create your own board. Because what I'm looking at has too many functions and additional cards to control anything, it's a shame that it's too expensive a toy for an aquarium. I will keep my fingers crossed if something can be resolved, because I read that raspberry should return to the market next year, but of course at a different price
Yeah it's sad about the Pi's, the last thing I want to do is change everything but seems I have no choice, been waiting for so long already. Would be nice if they can sort things out for next year but the demand for them is so great it won't be easy. I don't know about Apex but I'm guessing they basically embedded there own version of a Pi.
Open up a (second hand) apex and find out ;)
But what could possibly go wrong that you need to reprogram the whole thing?
Dosing and probe calibration still needs to be done when the controller is installed, same goes for naming the outlets and setting up light intensity.
In that aspect you wouldn’t be any different from APEX or profilux
That would likely do it but wouldn't help me any. I've always been interested in looking inside the Apex power bar though to see what they use for monitoring power consumption. Some people do have difficulties getting everything up and running and go the fresh install route. If I preprogram it could take 30-60 minutes for each which I don't want to do. :) Even with that a person still needs to edit a file on the SD card to add their user and password for wifi and then need to search for the IP address assigned. One day I hope to figure out how to manage that in a friendly manner.
Forgot about the WiFi credentials on the reef-pi, you need to load that in the image otherwise it doesn’t connect and you can’t find it on your network.
I’ve got it hardwired because WiFi isn’t good enough where the reef-pi sits
I can't add the wifi credentials if I don't know them, this is the part that's specific to your network. That's the downside of wifi going through a router, I think if the Pi was setup as an access point then I could define it in the code and people could change later. At some point I'm going to look into pros and cons of setting up as an access point.
Thanks those are definite options however not what I really want to push as there's not a lot of info on them and they require special variant of Linux, the Pi version doesn't work on them and I've read multiple issues related. They also don't work with reef-pi however I think they would ok for my app as it works on the normal version Linux. A while back I looked into alternatives, there's quite a few out there but all with the same issue, here's another someone sent me the other day. I also think if they were that great there would be no stock either as people would be buying them up to substitute the Pi but that doesn't seem to be happening.
Yeah that's if I'm lucky, at least for the Pi Zero 2, fingers crossed they'll still send me some late next month. I think the app will work on it as is, probably just need to recompile. People can use those alternatives if they want but I'm not going to push them due to lack of updates and other possible reliability issues. The Pi has proven to be very reliable which is key, if these other alternatives were that great there would be none of them either or highly inflated prices.
If possible, could an RS485 bus be created on the raspberry pi? I've seen many examples where only 3-5pins are connected to 8 relays, which could save a lot of pins for other sensors
Anything is possible unfortunately not today. This is something I've thought about quite a bit as I need some kind of bus system so the system can expand, using the pca9685 for extra ports isn't ideal and only one can be added for it to stay stable. I like the CAN bus most but RS485 is definitely an option, maybe in the latter half of next year I can get a game plan and actually do it.
Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope you all have a good holiday. I was hoping to have a gift in the form of an update but chances are I won't get it released until the new year. It's almost finished but still need to do some final testing and fix an issue I just found.
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