Salinity Probe not recognized

[Sacohen]

I hooked up my expansion hub and my salinity probe that I just got.
The Salinity probe is not being seen by the portal, the Andriod app or the RA Client.

The expansion hub and Salinity Expansion unit both have green lights on them and the expansion hub seems to be working properly because my water level expansion unit is working fine.

The head unit did see the probe when I did the calibration and calibrated it fine, but when I restored my working code and put the salinity probe in the sump it doesn't see it.

Any and all help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[lnevo]

If you went back to your old code, make sure you include the Salinity.h, sot sure if anything else needs to be referenced.

[Sacohen]

Yes the Salinity.h is in the code I've been using.

I had to go back to it, when I had the Salinity code running, nothing worked.
The lights were off, the pumps shut down.
All that was working was the RA head unit and it's devices, anything controlled by the RA was off.

Thanks

[rimai]

Make sure your code has the salinity being displayed in your custom main screen.
If you don't care, you can simply use this:

Code: Select all

//ReefAngel.Params.Salinity

That is the keyword that triggers the Salinity feature.

[Sacohen]

Ok. The manual doesn't say you need a secret keyword.

I don't have a custom menu.
Where exactly should I put it?
I use the standard menu and regular screen.

[rimai]

You don't need a secret keyword.
The wizard would put that in the code for you, but since you already have your code made, you have to add it yourself
It's not custom menu... It's custom main screen.
The code above is just a comment, so it can be placed anywhere really. It won't contribute with nothing in your code. It just enables the feature.
If you want visual readings in your screen, you can use something like this in your main screen:

Code: Select all

  char text[10];
  ConvertNumToString(text, ReefAngel.Params.Salinity, 10);
  strcat(text,"  ");
  ReefAngel.LCD.DrawText(DefaultFGColor,DefaultBGColor,15,93,"Salinity:");
  ReefAngel.LCD.DrawText(DefaultFGColor,DefaultBGColor,75,93,text);

[Sacohen]

Thanks the first code you gave me did it.

I was thinking that it was just a comment while I was out walking the dog and was going to try it when I got back, but I saw your post.

Thanks.

On a side note if I want to disable my ATO if the salinity is below 35 what would the code be?
The ATO Is on Port8 and is controlled by the water Level expansion.

[rimai]

Try this:

Code: Select all

if (ReefAngel.Params.Salinity<350) ReefAngel.Relay.Off(Port8);

Place it after your ATO code.

[Sacohen]

Thanks. I placed it in the code.
No way to test it unless I deliberately drop the salinity to below 35 and lower my water level to below 32.

I'm going to do a water change this weekend, so I may try it then.

[Sacohen]

Well I the code has been tested and it works.

Unfortunately the test was not the way I wanted to do it, which was controlled.
Apparently somewhere around 1 and 5:45 this morning (according to the chart on the RA Client and the Portal) the Salinity probe started reporting the wrong salinity.
It dropped from 35.7 to 6 ppt.

I commented out the code from above and the ATO kicked in and brought the water level back up to where it should be.

While typing this the portal started reporting the correct ppt of 35.4 now.

Thanks

[rossbryant1956]

RA reports 6 ppt when it cannot see the probe. Mine is disconnected right now during my re-wire and the portal says 6 ppt.

[Sacohen]

Fine, but my point is that I wasn't doing a re-wire or anything.
There was no reason for the probe to not be seen.

[rimai]

The minimum value of the salinity module can measure is 6ppt. That's why you get 6 showing up.
Anything lower than that will require a different probe, but we are really not interested in less than 6 ppt anyway.
Not sure what was going on, but this will let the pump go on when it finds 6ppt:

Code: Select all

if (ReefAngel.Params.Salinity<350 && ReefAngel.Params.Salinity>60) ReefAngel.Relay.Off(Port8);

[Sacohen]

Right now I have the code commented out and I'm going to keep an eye on things for a bit and see if and when it happens.

At first I thought it maybe happening when my de-nitrification unit sumps water back in the sump at 1, 7, 1 and 7, but I don't think so because it happened at 1 and 5:45 and did not happen again at 1pm. There was a slight dip at 1pm of about .2 ppt, but that's nothing.

[Sacohen]

This issue of dropping to 6ppt or not being recognized has stopped, but now I'm having spikes of 36 ppt a couple of times a day.

It usually reads 34.5-34.7 ppt, but I've noticed jumps up to 36 ppt several times during the day and these are very brief time.

This is from 1:30 am to 7:45 am today.

[Diverjoe]

The minimum value of the salinity module can measure is 6ppt. That's why you get 6 showing up.
Anything lower than that will require a different probe, but we are really not interested in less than 6 ppt anyway.
Not sure what was going on, but this will let the pump go on when it finds 6ppt:

Code: Select all

if (ReefAngel.Params.Salinity<350 && ReefAngel.Params.Salinity>60) ReefAngel.Relay.Off(Port8);

I had asked earlier about doing EC monitoring for my freshwater tank. You had replied that the Salinity was simply an EC monitor. I looked at the code and the formulas didn't appear too cumbersome to "undo" any Salinity calcs so I got one. It is all hooked up and shows up on the portal. But, the only way i get anything but 6ppt is to dip it into my fertilizer bottle and there I get 52. When i do a straight Salinity.read - which is where it looks like the raw reading from the expansion occurs i get a 60 back on the serial.print stmt in serial monitor - which is based on other similiar readings is to be taken as 6.0 ppt. Ok, so what I am wanting from it is just the raw microSiemens reading from the probe. Do either of the two jumpers on the board alter the output in any way? Where could i get a different probe if that is what is needed.

[rimai]

just google for the equation to convert ppt to microSiemens.

[Diverjoe]

Can you tell me what JP1 and JP2 are for? Right now they are both completely open. 6ppt is not low enough for anything in freshwater. The readings that are important are around 5-200 ppm (~0-400 uS)

Thanks for being patient with me as I muddle through this!

[rimai]

They are test points where you can connect an oscilloscope to troubleshoot the circuit.

[Diverjoe]

Is the expansion hard coded to not return below 6ppt? The probe is a K=1 rated and goes down to 5uS. (7 ppm). That is the middle ranges probe.


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[rimai]

I haven't tried with K=1.
Do you have one to try?

[Diverjoe]

the probe is a k=.99 which is the same. The higher the number the less accurate. K=.1 is good down to .5 uS, 1 down to 5uS and 10 is good for 10uS

[dedvalson]

From my understanding a probe of K=1 is not really suitable for saltwater readings. I believe that generally probes for saltwater have a K of 2 or greater with 10 being very common.

Am I misunderstanding something here? What is the K of the probe shipped with the RA?

[rimai]

It uses K=1, but we never saw any problems with reading values.