Should I buy?

[CaptiveCoral]

I found a local person who has a RA with powers trip and auto top off float switch. The unit is about 3 or 4 years old but apparently only used for 1 year before being put into storage. The seller wants $75. I will include a couple pics. Let me know what your 2 cents are.

Thanks!






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[cosmith71]

Is it a standard Reef Angel, or Reef Angel Plus? If it's the standard RA, it's obsolete. It would be another $75 to upgrade it.

You also might want to find out if it's analog or PWM.

--Colin

[cosmith71]

Also, does it have any temp probes or a pH probe?

[binder]

if it does contain that stuff and you do need to upgrade, that is cheaper than the retail price. if you did the upgrade on it, it would essentially be a brand new head unit with a used relay box and parts. not terribly bad... so it could be half the price of a brand new one.
besides a new temp probe is only $10 and a ph probe is $25 (if they are not included). yeah it would be more money but still less than a brand new one.

i personally have a relay box running that is several years old and it works great. I don't even worry about it. plus Roberto's support is awesome if there was a problem with it.

ultimately it's your call but it doesn't sound bad. I would find out about if it's analog or pwm. that would be the only downside if you needed whatever it was not. and if you don't, then you should be fine.

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[CaptiveCoral]

So I went ahead and pulled the trigger on it. Thanks for the feedback everyone.


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[CaptiveCoral]

So the person I was buying it from did not know or could not remember what model it was or what dimming it was.



Does this tell me?


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[cosmith71]

Nope. You'll probably need to open it up and post a picture of the control board.

On the relay box, if there is a sticker on the bottom that says "analog" then it's analog, else it's PWM.

[CaptiveCoral]

How about this?




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[CaptiveCoral]

Good news, I have been emailing Roberto and he informed me that it is probably a Reef Angel w/ Optiboot.

That being said all I want to do at this time is with the unit is monitor Temp and PH. I want to set a safety shut off for the heater for 83 degrees.

I don't even "need" any feeding or water changing modes.

I would like to possibly monitor Salinity if possible.

The only "complex thing I would like to add is an ATO program. I have two float switches that a wired in line so I think the program would be set up for 1 float switch. In other words the second float switch would be a manual redundent switch.

Let me know if anyone has any questions.

Thanks!

[lnevo]

The key is that you'll need an older version of the libraries so that you have enough memory, but shouldn't be an issue for what you want to do.

[cosmith71]

Yeah, definitely a standard board.

You can set up the float switches in the Wizard. That's just a single ATO setup. I ran something similar for a long time.

[CaptiveCoral]

Ok, so thanks to everyone and Roberto I have it all set up! (For now).

Funny story. The only thing I have not got done is correcting the date and time on the unit. I have looked around and just can't seem to figure out how. I am sure I am missing something obvious. Any help would be appreciated!


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[CaptiveCoral]

So funny story for any one to follow this thread and are also trying to set up an older model. Changing the date and time uses valuable coding space. So I did some "time math" and compensated the time I set my lights so they would come on and off at my actual desired time.

I think down the road I will upgrade to the plus, but just want to make sure I understand the concepts before I do that.

[lnevo]

Are you using wifi? There's an API command to set the date&time. You can do it also from the portal.

[cosmith71]

Push the joystick in. Go down to setup, and push the joystick in again. Then go down to date/time.

[rimai]

He has the standard RA.
The menu for date/time won't fit and the wifi API also won't fit.

[lnevo]

With an older version it would, wouldnt it?

[binder]

I would think that you could load the standard code from an older version (like lnevo said), then change the date and time and then reload his code without the date/time on it.

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[binder]

or he could load an old version, enabling wifi and then program the date and time. I know my android app will still work with libraries back in the 0.8 version (or at least it should still have that logic and code in it).
besides, there's really nothing wrong with those versions other than a lack of features.

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[lnevo]

I think maybe up to 1.0.9 was ok. Maybe we could add a sample code with just the time and date menu. Like the RF setup code.

[CaptiveCoral]

I don't think I can do wifi with the hardware I have. I didn't think about loading in the date and time program and then unloading it and reloading my operation code. I would just need confirmation on the date and time code to use.


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[lnevo]

You can use the wifi with older versions for sure

[binder]

Yeah, I ran wifi with old versions for a long while until I had to upgrade to add in support for all the new addons. Even if you do not have the wifi module, having wifi support added in allows you to connect the controller to your computer and send commands to it (via the serial console built into the arduino program) to set/update the date and time. It is a little tricky to do but honestly not bad. We can tell you exactly what command to type in and what you should receive as a response and you will know immediately if the date and time were set because the controller will be updated instantly.


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