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Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 8:34 am
by ewaldsreef
Is it possible right now to add a second RA as a slave (wireless). Obviously You could setup a separate one but then you would have to deal with multiple portal logins. A seperate Slave module would be cool to monitor and control multiple tanks.

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 8:47 am
by rimai
No :(

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 10:29 am
by ewaldsreef
Is it possible in the future? ;-)

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 10:30 am
by rimai
Not with the current hardware, but in future products.

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 8:41 am
by fishflipper
if your tanks are in the same room or if you have the availability to run a single piece of cat 5 cable to where your other tank(s) are you can do it. as long as you can run cat 5 cable to a tank you should be able to run multiple tanks.

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 10:24 am
by Smotz
fishflipper wrote:if your tanks are in the same room or if you have the availability to run a single piece of cat 5 cable to where your other tank(s) are you can do it. as long as you can run cat 5 cable to a tank you should be able to run multiple tanks.

How does this help?

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 10:30 am
by fishflipper
You can run a cat 5 cable from where your controller is to your second tank. Use a usb to ethernet adapter at both ends and connect a expansion module with a relay box at the remote tank end. I can send links and more description if you would like.

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Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 3:31 pm
by fishflipper
Does this make sense to you? I have not done it yet but will do it when I move my 90 gallon fresh to a 45 hex and change the 90 to a reef.

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Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2015 4:51 am
by Smotz
fishflipper wrote:You can run a cat 5 cable from where your controller is to your second tank. Use a usb to ethernet adapter at both ends and connect a expansion module with a relay box at the remote tank end. I can send links and more description if you would like.

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I would LOVE to know more about this process

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2015 5:18 pm
by saf1
So basically what you are doing is extending the expansion box via the cable. Then within your code just identify which box belongs to what tank and off you go. Wonder how far the signal would go with regards to length of cable. If house was hardwired you could use an existing network jack and patch panel to re-route to another room without laying cable.

Never thought of doing it this way but I see the concept and how it would work.

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:57 pm
by fishflipper
saf1 wrote:So basically what you are doing is extending the expansion box via the cable. Then within your code just identify which box belongs to what tank and off you go. Wonder how far the signal would go with regards to length of cable. If house was hardwired you could use an existing network jack and patch panel to re-route to another room without laying cable.

Never thought of doing it this way but I see the concept and how it would work.
Yes, exactly. I have not done this yet but I am switching tanks around and adding another one over the course of the next few months. I will be setting up two tanks using this method. The only distance limitations would be that of the cat 5 cable which is about 350 feet. Once I have this in place I will let you guys know how it works. I will start out monitoring one reef tank and one freshwater tank.


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Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2015 2:58 pm
by Smotz
This is fantastic! I wish I knew this earlier.
I need to re-route via the patch panel but it is SOOOOO doable.

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2015 4:47 pm
by fishflipper
Let me know if you get it set up before me and how it's working.

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Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 7:45 am
by ewaldsreef
So this would allow you to control another tank but not monitor it. I am interested to see how this turns out.

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 8:29 am
by fishflipper
You can still monitor it using more expansion modules like salinity and ph.

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Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 10:59 am
by Sacohen
You can only have 1 salinity probe per RA unit.
I've wanted to add a 2nd one to monitor the salinity in my mixing station.

What about using the RANet wireless relay for controlling another tank?

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 11:28 am
by fishflipper
Only one salinity probe? I didn't know that. I was hoping to have another one in my mixing barrel also. My second tank will be fresh water so I won't need the salinity probe in there.

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Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 11:40 am
by Sacohen
Yeah. According to Roberto it's a limitation of the hardware If I remember correctly.

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 12:28 pm
by ewaldsreef
So you could run an ethernet cable to an expansion hub to add an additiona relay box, ph and orp etc. Then run a seperate cabe to add an additional temp probe. May have to play with this. Currently I have run wires to my basement to monitor my frag tanks and that works well.

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 12:32 pm
by fishflipper
Maybe Robert can chime in and let us know if this is a limitation of the hardware for adding a salinity probe. Adding another probe would make it perfect.

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Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 12:50 pm
by Sacohen
lnevo had talked about setting up 2 RA head units to control his mixing station a while back.
He was going to use an optocoupler, but I think when the RANet came out he abandoned that idea.

http://forum.reefangel.com/viewtopic.ph ... it=Optical

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 1:44 pm
by rimai
Yes, only one salinity module.

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 5:16 pm
by fishflipper
rimai wrote:Yes, only one salinity module.
Is it a limitation of the hardware?

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Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 7:19 pm
by rimai
Yes.

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 10:36 am
by ewaldsreef
Fishflipper, it is my understanding (and I am new at most of this) that you cannot extend usb cables that far. Does converting it to ethernet cable provide a stronger signal due to the quality of the wire? I have a ton of cat5e laying around. This would be very usful for a number of aquariums I service that have sumps located in the basements.

Re: Additional Tank Add On

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 10:48 am
by Sacohen
Due to its design, USB cable has a normal maximum length of about 5 meters (16.4 feet).
Cat 5e or Cat6 has a max distance of about 100 meters or 300 feet.