Reef Discussion

newbiereef · Jun 6, 2012

now just gotta find the funds :-(

wave makers 1st then this

Synodontis · Jul 9, 2012

rockerpeller said:
After playing around with the Mega, I've decided to upgrade to the 2560 Rv.3. Looks like I have a 1280 mega up for grabs... lol unless I can think of something else I can use it for.

3.2" TFT touchscreen showed up today. Still trying to decide whether I should go Meanwells or the Chesters garage LED shield to drive the LEDs. Its a dimmable 4 channel LED driver that can handle up to 39watts per channel, at 350-1200mA current. Would make it a lot neater. The Jarduino controller is the focus of this build, with a few tweaks. Any input MagicJ? They also have a fan/temp/RTC controller, but I think I'll code that one.

Have I missed your updates rockerpeller?? :p:rolleyes

rockerpeller · Jul 9, 2012

Decided on some different drivers which run up to 6 LEDs each, but they're still PWM controllable. So drivers, power supply, screws, nylon washers, connectors, and wiring are in the post as we speak. Got the heatsinks from firechild (Cheers bud), butchered the old 2ft T5HO fitting for the housing, so just need to trim them down to fit over my tank.
I was going to butcher a HDMI cable to clean up the wiring from the light unit to the external driver box, and then just run a VGA cable to the Arduino controller. Hopefully kiwikid_1 (Yes I noticed you signed up ;). Welcome to the forums, bro) can help shed some light on the code for me.
So its been a fairly productive week on this end :D

MagicJ · Jul 9, 2012

What drivers did you end up with rockerpeller?

rockerpeller · Jul 9, 2012

I grabbed 7 of these

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/380445349062?redirect=mobile

I'm hoping the link works. I'm posting on my phone

MagicJ · Jul 9, 2012

It's amazing what some of these Chinese sellers have available these days - try to match the input voltage to within a couple of volts of the Forward Voltage of the led string so that you don't have wasted voltage burn off as heat.

Synodontis · Jul 9, 2012

Soooo,
MagicJ, How you doin? :rolleyes
Life treating you well we hope? :rolleyes

Looks like I'm going to head down this well traveled Arduino path. No idea where to start to figured I's post in here & see where that leads lol. Started reading the Arduino home page, checking out little bird elec's & toys down under finding all sort's of toys! No idea what they all do, but should be fun finding out huh.

So for those of you in the know ( MagicJ ) Can you run an eye over the shopping list & impart some thoughts? Mainly for the LED's at the moment but you never know, I need a toy to play with so it may grow out of proportion lol. :rolleyes

Start with this bit I"m guessing....

Arduino Mega 2560 R3
So this is the brain behind the whole thing I'm guessing. Everything plugs into this, it sort's out what your after & tells the bit's you have connected what to do?

Serial TFT LCD 3.2" with Touchscreen
This is the bit were you can see what your doing I'm guessing.

Real Time Clock Module
Need one of these to tell the LED's to turn off & fade & stuff.

So bolt these three parts together & we should have something about to turn over? Now I need to knock up some of these doohickeys. Now I'm thinking I need to bang up one of these "Magic" circuits for each channel I want to dim with PWM correct?

MagicJ said:
I have been asked a question relating to driving Meanwell 60-48P's with an Arduino, so I thought this was the best place to post the answer :)

This particular LED driver uses a 10v PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) signal to control the dimming. The problem that we have is that the Arduino only outputs a 5v PWM signal so we need to find a way to increase this to 10v.

There are a couple of options including an op-amp circuit but there are some reports of this not switching quick enough - the simplest, and cheapest, method is to use a transistor switching circuit.

This is the circuit diagram

View attachment 3269

So, the wire from the Arduino comes in at the left i.e. a 0-5v PWM signal. This passes through a 10k resistor to the base of the transistor. I used a standard NPN 2222A transistor (30 cents from Jaycar). The Emitter goes to Ground - this needs to be linked to the Ground from the Arduino.

VCC is a seperate 10v DC regulated voltage source (a plug pack works well) - the positive goes through a 1k resistor to the collector of the transistor. The output is now 10v - note that the output signal is an inverse of the input signal.

This is a graph of the output - Circuit 1 is as described above. Circuit 2 is an alternative circuit which was being discussed on Reef Central some time ago and, from my experience, proved to be inferior.

View attachment 3268

And a picture of the completed circuit - this has two seperate transistor switching circuits on the one board

View attachment 3271

View attachment 3270

And everything mounted in a project box

View attachment 3272

Hope this answers your questions daveH - feel free to ask any questions.

Cheers

Don't look that hard, but bet you twenty I can f@#k it up as well as the next bloke. :confused:

So now I gots a brain box, a clock & screen, lots of little circuits the increase 5v to 10 for the Mean-well. Now I just have to get them all hooked up together, working in some sort of order & see if it works.

Now on to the upgrades,
Q. Why cant I leave the brain box hidden behind/near/on the PC or out of the way somewhere & use some of these things??
BlackWidow 1.0 ASync0003
To send the signal wireless to the other bit hooked up on the drivers dimming wires?? Or am I just getting to far ahead of myself lol.

HELP!!!!! before I either blow myself up or Jen cracks it with me & toys pleaseeeeeee :rolleyes

rockerpeller · Jul 9, 2012

A couple are going to only have a few leds, but the rest will be pretty close to max. I do have a couple of powersupplies at my disposal, so that's going to make it easier

rockerpeller · Jul 9, 2012

There's a shield for the TFT screen to make wiring that one easier on you Synodontis. I picked out this one for mine.
http://iteadstudio.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=18&products_id=231
There's a diagram in the manual which shows which pins aren't being used so you can either make up a prototype board (for the PWM connections) to sandwich in between the screen and the shield, or solder wire directly to the empty pins on the shield itself.

chimaera · Jul 9, 2012

I am so lost :p

Fancy making me one, rockerpeller? :D

MagicJ · Jul 9, 2012

Synodontis, do I reply to your post or answer a PM regarding an Arduino sketch from daveH that I have been thinking about for a few days :confused:

BTW, that little blue acro I got from you has some PE - looks pretty brown but you never know :)

rockerpeller · Jul 9, 2012

chimaera said:
I am so lost :p

Fancy making me one, rockerpeller? :D

Hey I'm still getting my head around this myself lmfao. I still haven't learnt the language yet, but I'll dive in the deep-end and see if I can sink or swim lol. If we all start one, then we can all give each other pointers lol

MagicJ · Jul 9, 2012

You win, sorry daveH - tomorrow night :rolleyes

Synodontis said:
Soooo,
MagicJ, How you doin? :rolleyes
Life treating you well we hope? :rolleyes

Looks like I'm going to head down this well traveled Arduino path. No idea where to start to figured I's post in here & see where that leads lol. Started reading the Arduino home page, checking out little bird elec's & toys down under finding all sort's of toys! No idea what they all do, but should be fun finding out huh.

So for those of you in the know ( MagicJ ) Can you run an eye over the shopping list & impart some thoughts? Mainly for the LED's at the moment but you never know, I need a toy to play with so it may grow out of proportion lol. :rolleyes

Start with this bit I"m guessing....

Arduino Mega 2560 R3
So this is the brain behind the whole thing I'm guessing. Everything plugs into this, it sort's out what your after & tells the bit's you have connected what to do?

Correct - the Mega will future proof your build as it has lots of output pins.

Serial TFT LCD 3.2" with Touchscreen
This is the bit were you can see what your doing I'm guessing.

TFT's look pretty cool but not something I have used - I currently use a basic 20x4 screen. The TFT's are not a lot more difficult to hook up but they take a LOT more code to program - not a major issue but it could take a lot more time to write the sketch.

Real Time Clock Module
Need one of these to tell the LED's to turn off & fade & stuff.

Correct - the Arduino has an inbuilt crystal so it can keep its own time reasonably well, to within a couple of seconds per day. But, on reset or power off it looses the time and starts again. The RTC module comes with a backup battery which will last for 5 years+ - this module is a must for what you are planning.

So bolt these three parts together & we should have something about to turn over? Now I need to knock up some of these doohickeys. Now I'm thinking I need to bang up one of these "Magic" circuits for each channel I want to dim with PWM correct?

Correct - these convert the 5v output from the Arduino to 10v. daveH was able to follow my guide so that's a good start ;)

Don't look that hard, but bet you twenty I can f@#k it up as well as the next bloke. :confused:

No doubt you will, but that is half the fun with this sort of DIY project.

So now I gots a brain box, a clock & screen, lots of little circuits the increase 5v to 10 for the Mean-well. Now I just have to get them all hooked up together, working in some sort of order & see if it works.

Now on to the upgrades,
Q. Why cant I leave the brain box hidden behind/near/on the PC or out of the way somewhere & use some of these things??
BlackWidow 1.0 ASync0003
To send the signal wireless to the other bit hooked up on the drivers dimming wires?? Or am I just getting to far ahead of myself lol.

Just to bring you back to reality, this board is no longer available :eek Other similar boards with WiFi, Bluetooth etc are available but, IMO are not really required for our application. We need power wires etc going to the drivers/leds and so a few more control wires are not really a major issue.

HELP!!!!! before I either blow myself up or Jen cracks it with me & toys pleaseeeeeee :rolleyes

Hope this answers some of your questions :)

VaultBoy · Jul 9, 2012

rockerpeller I have those same drivers running a little led over my mantis tank. I love them! I am running three ledson eachdriver with 12v input and the drivers dont even get warm... I havent connected pwm yet so i cant comment in that regard.

rockerpeller · Jul 9, 2012

VaultBoy said:
rockerpeller I have those same drivers running a little led over my mantis tank. I love them! I am running three ledson eachdriver with 12v input and the drivers dont even get warm... I havent connected pwm yet so i cant comment in that regard.

Thanks for the input VaultBoy. I ran the drivers past firechild before I purchased them to make sure all was going to work how I thought they would. firechild was going to use them, which made me breath a sigh of relief lol.
I had my eye on some other drivers that I would of had to piece together myself, but thats more soldering that I really didn't want to have to deal with.

The powersupply I'm waiting on is a regulated 24v 10amp 2 channel, which should have plenty of "oomf" to power up these drivers to drive the crees. I have another 12v, that I set aside to run the arduino, but I'm sure it won't mind sharing the power with 1 or 2 of the drivers. If not I have another sitting in the cupboard with the fried router/modem (don't let kids near modems people :mad:)

Synodontis · Jul 9, 2012

Thanks MagicJ, answered the questions nicely. Sorry daveH !! :)

How about you just jot down the parts list for me & then rockerpeller, daveH & myself will just camp out in that Reefuge Meeting room you built out the back until we have them up & running!! :)

Synodontis · Jul 9, 2012

Hey rockerpeller, what was your parts list?
Anybody else have a parts list to share lol :rolleyes This stuff is way over my head hahaha.

MagicJ · Jul 9, 2012

Synodontis said:
Thanks MagicJ, answered the questions nicely. Sorry daveH !! :)

How about you just jot down the parts list for me & then rockerpeller, daveH & myself will just camp out in that Reefuge Meeting room you built out the back until we have them up & running!! :)

Sounds like fun :p Maybe I can retire and travel the country putting together some controllers.

rockerpeller · Jul 9, 2012

Synodontis said:
Hey rockerpeller, what was your parts list?
Anybody else have a parts list to share lol :rolleyes This stuff is way over my head hahaha.

Of the full build or just the controller?

Synodontis · Jul 9, 2012

The full build mate! you trying to short change me here?? :p