Reef Angel Forum

i have a 56column rr tank and have the r/a mount on the stand on the inside of the doorand the relay box underneith the stand high. well 2 weeks ago i was doing a water change when i spill some water spill on the seriel connector and the relays were acting funny and the screen was brite white. so i disconnected everything took apart the head unit. no water got inside the unit at all, just in the seriel connector. i put the seriel wire and bottom bottom of head unit in rice over night to absorb the moisture. when i reconnected everything it did the samething. so i replaced the seriel cable and everything seemed ok. i had already hooked everything up to a regular power strip for a week or two to make sure it was working properly. so basically it just was dimming my leds. well over the weekend i started hooking some things back up. shortly after port 2 which was my return stopped working so i switched it to a different unused port. a few weeks ago my ph probe stopped working. and i figured since last time it broke just after i bought it and you covered the cost i would just buy this one. i mean your a business and need to make money to stay in business. at the same time i ordered the rf module to connect my mp10w to it.(i cant get that working not sure if its related to this or not so i didnt wanna mess with it till i got this scuared away) yesterday i cam home from work and the screen was white and my leds were on full blast. i tried disconnecting the wire and reconnecting in and when i start to plug it in it work for a second then stops. if i reset the whole system via disconnecting the power to the whole system and turn it back on it works for a little bit from 10mins to a few hours. i kknow no water got inside the relay box. i had my ato disconnected till till last night i checked the relay which is port 7 and its aon not working as ato. like i said i know 100% water didnt get in the relay box but since my ato, dimming and relays not working i dunno what i screwed up any help please?

I know that water on any part of the head unit can and will cause the relays to freak out. The head unit tells everything how and when to work, on/off , etc. my advise would be to discontinue use until you get a new headunit due to the water exposure, before additional damage is done. Once you get your replacement head unit the relays should resume normal function. That is IF you haven't done additional damage to them by doing various disconnects/reconnects. The head unit runs the show and yours in damaged.

do you think i need a new reef angel plus board upgrade?

If you have the standard RA...it would be a great time for the RA+

Send me a PM for RMA and you can send it in for diagnostics.

hey just a little update its been over 24 hours since i disconnect the rf module and the screen is up and running i didnt check the relays to see if its functioning 100% or i need to send it in....what do you think?


ps i already have ra+

Wait a little longer to be sure and relocate the RF to another port in the hub and away from the power sources.

im sending it back the relays are still acting up

ok just got it back tonight.....i wanted to test stuff out before trusting my tank with everything

i hooked up the rf module and tried relocating it with the limited room that i have a made everything go crazy so im just not going to use it (would you swap it out for a pwm expansion) which leads me to my next question

im using the steves led driver pwm w/ the r/a pwm dimming off the relay box i have 2 different acintic drivers i basically soldiered the i wire from relay box to 2 regular wires which run to each driver. and i have 1 channel of white well i just took a picture my leds are supposed to be down to 1% for actintics and 0% for white i will try post after i send this but i looks like the actinics are at 1-5%(very little light but definately not off) and the acintics are @ about 50%(looking at it with the naked eye) i have all of the drivers wired the same.......ive been thinking of adding led channels to my fixture for a full spectrum effect but wanna make sure the work 100% with my system. in the picture i do have 2 white leds tied into my actinic channels

how can i diagnose whether the issue is pwm related or driver or some how wiring.....this has been going on since the beginning i just never noticed because i had it setup to originally 20% a and 10%white.

My relays are still acting up is there a certain wire tht I need to get from relay box to head unit?

If you use a meter, you can measure the voltage coming out of the dimming ports on the relay box.
It will vary from 0 to 10V for 0-100% respectively.
When you say acting up, can you explain a little better what it is doing?

im going to look into the pwm in a little bit

as far as relay box goes i just hooked up a couple things to verify operation and i think port 2 and 4 are not working but give me a couple hours and ill have a everything detailed as i should have some time early after noon to play with it

but i know the rf when the rf is connectedit cause the display to go white my leds look like they are 100% and relays not working i tried moving it away from the relay box with the supplied cable i also tried placing it outside the stand and it did the same thing

on my way home im going to pick up a new serial cable just to make sure its not cause they issue with the relay box

It's not a serial. It's a svga cable, but it needs to have all 15 pins carried through as RA needs all 15 pins to communicate properly.
If not, you will see some relays not working or even no power at all.

i took the cable off of my laptop-> office computer and it seems to be working. i did not have a much time as anticipated(i sell heating and air conditioning and its 20 degrees here in nj which is a rarity) but im happy thats working. i did look into the pwm and is the pwm signal/dcv linear? the head unit showed my leds @ like 54% and the voltage between the + and - side was like 7.2v does that sound right?

i did not try the rf again i wanna wait till im 100% the relays are working properly before i move on

what im thinking about doing is a turn my rb/w into rb/w/red/green/cool blue/and uv with the dimming add on but im limited on fund and wanna make sure its going to do what i want 100% before i even consider ordering everything from steves led. the reds are going to need to be at like 25% max close to the same with green and everything else im going to really need to play with ya know

or do you think its not worth it? it would be really cool if i could adjust the lights like the radion from the app rather than using the wizard every time.....like set up the normal sun rise sun set but if i wanna over ride it to show off the tanks coral colors i can just change the setting temporarily on the fly or is that just not possible?

Is it with the drivers disconnected?
Yes, the meter in DC voltage should measure the average voltage, which is a linear representation of the PWM %.

i disconnected the neg from my psu and measure from the pwm- to pwm+ while it was tied into the boards

Just to be sure, please run the ControllerTester code with the leads disconnected.
You can try straight into the pins in the relay box, so you don't need to strip the wires.
It's a little tight, but may be easier than stripping.

ok im going to have to do that tomorrow right now i just checked voltage at driver the display says i should be at 18% actintic but the voltage is 6.9 vdc and the brightness looks like its at 69% again as a gustimate i will check the voltage out of relay box under controllertester code tomorrow after noon

Is the test code just going to send a certain voltage out of pwm ports? Or will it prompt me as what to do? I'm assuming download the test code disconnect wire read voltage post up here

It will actually go up 1% every second.

ok im at a lost the pwm port closest to the video cable is showing pretty close to display 7.9v for like 83% during the test mode the other port is showing voltage as .3 volts for 30% .8 for 80% .9 for 90% then reset back to

7.9 for 83% is within range...
The other one, is it .3 or 3? .3 is too low. It would only show a faint dim in your LEDs.

i just re hooked up leds and there is like no display i musted have F up something while trying to test them :/

What happens if you disconnect the LEDs?

disconnect the leds from where?
when i disconnect the pwm wire all the leds go out except for one string that i think the half of that driver is stuck on i literally just rewired my whole led fixture making sure and stiched out drivers and i switched it from white to blues and now the blue is doing it

Humm...
Seems like there is something shorted out in there that could have back fed into the controller.
I'd disconnect your LED system from RA and try to get both working independently first.
Then put them together.

i just went over the whole system i think when i was measuring the dcv on the terminal my meter leads touch and shorted out because when i have all 3 drivers hooked up to the one channel and all working properly so i guess im going to order the dimming expansion along with a new driver from steves to have everything working 100% and wait to do all the extra leds


what should i do for rf module?

ok today i received the dimming expansion kit.....
yesterday my led stuff came in so all wiring was done yesterday and ran for 24 hours to insure no issues....

if you remeber when i hooked up the rf module my r/a would stop working screen blank white and status on head unit blinking,,,no wifi connection and when screen was blank the relay wont change they just stay the way they are.

last time i just stopped using the rf module. well i set up the dimming through the reef angel wizard....wired everything up dimming worked great but after about an hour the display went white dimming stayed where it was had to kill power to whole system to reset, 15 mins later its doing the same thing....i just disconnected the wifi to see if its related. last time you told me to mount the rf away from relays but i just disconnected.

when i set up the dimming i actually mount it via velcrow to the bottom of my tank as far away from everything else but still using the usb to mini usb cable you provided.

now the only thing i did was use the usb to mini usb wire that came with the rf module

#include <ReefAngel_Features.h>
#include <Globals.h>
#include <RA_Wifi.h>
#include <Wire.h>
#include <OneWire.h>
#include <Time.h>
#include <DS1307RTC.h>
#include <InternalEEPROM.h>
#include <RA_NokiaLCD.h>
#include <RA_ATO.h>
#include <RA_Joystick.h>
#include <LED.h>
#include <RA_TempSensor.h>
#include <Relay.h>
#include <RA_PWM.h>
#include <Timer.h>
#include <Memory.h>
#include <InternalEEPROM.h>
#include <RA_Colors.h>
#include <RA_CustomColors.h>
#include <Salinity.h>
#include <RF.h>
#include <IO.h>
#include <ORP.h>
#include <AI.h>
#include <PH.h>
#include <WaterLevel.h>
#include <ReefAngel.h>

////// Place global variable code below here


////// Place global variable code above here


void setup()
{
// This must be the first line
ReefAngel.Init(); //Initialize controller
// Ports toggled in Feeding Mode
ReefAngel.FeedingModePorts = Port5Bit | Port7Bit;
// Ports toggled in Water Change Mode
ReefAngel.WaterChangePorts = Port1Bit | Port2Bit | Port3Bit | Port4Bit | Port5Bit | Port7Bit;
// Ports toggled when Lights On / Off menu entry selected
ReefAngel.LightsOnPorts = 0;
// Ports turned off when Overheat temperature exceeded
ReefAngel.OverheatShutoffPorts = Port1Bit | Port3Bit | Port4Bit | Port7Bit | Port8Bit;
// Use T1 probe as temperature and overheat functions
ReefAngel.TempProbe = T1_PROBE;
ReefAngel.OverheatProbe = T1_PROBE;
// Set the Overheat temperature setting
InternalMemory.OverheatTemp_write( 830 );


// Ports that are always on
ReefAngel.Relay.On( Port2 );
ReefAngel.Relay.On( Port8 );

////// Place additional initialization code below here


////// Place additional initialization code above here
}

void loop()
{
ReefAngel.StandardHeater( Port1,720,735 );
ReefAngel.Relay.DelayedOn( Port3,1 );
ReefAngel.Relay.DelayedOn( Port4,2 );
ReefAngel.StandardLights( Port5,6,0,0,0 );
ReefAngel.StandardLights( Port6,11,0,21,0 );
ReefAngel.SingleATO( true,Port7,30,0 );
ReefAngel.PWM.SetDaylight( PWMSlope(10,30,20,0,1,94,120,1) );
ReefAngel.PWM.SetActinic( PWMSlope(11,30,20,0,1,96,130,1) );
ReefAngel.PWM.SetChannel( 0, PWMSlope(12,0,20,0,1,80,120,1) );
ReefAngel.PWM.SetChannel( 1, PWMSlope(12,0,20,0,5,85,120,5) );
ReefAngel.PWM.SetChannel( 2, PWMParabola(14,0,18,0,1,75,1) );
ReefAngel.PWM.SetChannel( 3, PWMSlope(12,0,20,0,15,80,120,15) );
ReefAngel.RF.UseMemory = false;
ReefAngel.RF.SetMode( Lagoon,80,10 );
////// Place your custom code below here


////// Place your custom code above here

// This should always be the last line
ReefAngel.Portal( "civictuner04" );
ReefAngel.ShowInterface();
}

void DrawCustomMain()
{
int x,y;
char text[10];
// Dimming Expansion
x = 15;
y = 2;
for ( int a=0;a<6;a++ )
{
if ( a>2 ) x = 75;
if ( a==3 ) y = 2;
ReefAngel.LCD.DrawText( COLOR_DARKGOLDENROD,DefaultBGColor,x,y,"Ch :" );
ReefAngel.LCD.DrawText( COLOR_DARKGOLDENROD,DefaultBGColor,x+12,y,a );
ReefAngel.LCD.DrawText( COLOR_DARKGOLDENROD,DefaultBGColor,x+24,y,ReefAngel.PWM.GetChannelValue(a) );
y += 10;
}
pingSerial();

// Parameters
#if defined DisplayLEDPWM && ! defined RemoveAllLights
ReefAngel.LCD.DrawMonitor( 15, 39, ReefAngel.Params,
ReefAngel.PWM.GetDaylightValue(), ReefAngel.PWM.GetActinicValue() );
#else // defined DisplayLEDPWM && ! defined RemoveAllLights
ReefAngel.LCD.DrawMonitor( 15, 39, ReefAngel.Params );
#endif // defined DisplayLEDPWM && ! defined RemoveAllLights
pingSerial();

// Salinity
ReefAngel.LCD.DrawText( COLOR_DARKKHAKI,DefaultBGColor,15,76, "SAL:" );
ReefAngel.LCD.DrawText( COLOR_DARKKHAKI,DefaultBGColor,39,76, ReefAngel.Params.Salinity );
pingSerial();

// Main Relay Box
byte TempRelay = ReefAngel.Relay.RelayData;
TempRelay &= ReefAngel.Relay.RelayMaskOff;
TempRelay |= ReefAngel.Relay.RelayMaskOn;
ReefAngel.LCD.DrawOutletBox( 12, 94, TempRelay );
pingSerial();

// Date and Time
ReefAngel.LCD.DrawDate( 6, 122 );
pingSerial();
}

void DrawCustomGraph()
{
}

Yeah man, you are definitely picking up noise somewhere in the between the head unit and the module.
Remember that the expansion bus starts in the head unit, travels through the svga cable, into the relay box and to your module.
Can you also move the head unit away to test.
I also would like to test one thing, since I know for sure you have this problem. I could never replicate this issue, so it is hard to try to come up with a solution when you can't get it to do the same thing.
Let me make some modifications to the libs and I'll get back to you.