(Another) DIY LED Controller - Simple Arduino Style

[grinder143]

just to be clear a 10vdc supply to the meanwell P with the transistor as per your schematic . i wanted to be sure as i have seen bothe designs but could not find the circute that doubled the 5vdc to 10 . Really dosnt matter to me as long as it works and is not damaging to the driver.
thanks for all the work in documenting this project.
thanks
mike

 

[katchupoy]

just to be clear a 10vdc supply to the meanwell P with the transistor as per your schematic . i wanted to be sure as i have seen bothe designs but could not find the circute that doubled the 5vdc to 10 . Really dosnt matter to me as long as it works and is not damaging to the driver.
thanks for all the work in documenting this project.
thanks
mike

The original diagram 10vdc + pot + "P" driver works... Its analog but works. The only issue here is the very end (low) the cut off is too early.... I meant it will go off at around maybe 300ma... so its still bright then go off...

But when you add Arduino + transistor to that diagram, then that analog becomes "PWM"... which is perfect for "P" driver. Its nice and smooth compared to "D" driver. Thats why i suggested "P" driver....

Hope this helps.

 

[shikhyung]

Okay guys. Lets go to software mode.

Here is the sketch....
Just copy and paste it to your newly created PDE.

.

what is PDE, how do I load this sketch to controller?

 

[katchupoy]

PDE is the native file extension of arduino.

To make sure we are on the same page here... you should have something like this on your PC.

If you havent downloaded the software from Arduino... go here to read more and download...

 

[Molehs]

Well I got good news and bad news (for myself).

The good is that I got my Arduino and LCD up and running.

The bad is that my DS1307 RTC seems to be DOA and I can't seem to get my Arduino to run the sketch on anything greater than 5v. It lights up but nothing more, and a chip next to the power jack gets really hot.

With my P driver is it possible to drive my LEDs with PWM without 10v through the board?

 

[TheFishMan65]

Moleh what board do you have? If there is not 5 volt regulator you mave killed the whole thin/ The Arduino only runs on 5 volts. You must use transistors as switches. The siganl from the Arduino turns it on and off and IT supplies 10 volts to the P driver. Did you apply more than 10 volts to the DS1307, that maybe what killed it.

 

[TheReefNinja]

Molehs remember the clock wont start until you set it......

 

[TheReefNinja]

Running the 20x4 screen and I can say it is WAY better.... I will be able to fit a ton of crap on this

I made a nice board to house all the circuits on and connects to both the LCD and Arduino with a old 40 pin hard drive cable.

Double sided taped the RTC to the top of the board

All finished up

 

[ghellin]

Looks great I really like the 20x4!

 

[Molehs]

Moleh what board do you have? If there is not 5 volt regulator you mave killed the whole thin/ The Arduino only runs on 5 volts. You must use transistors as switches. The siganl from the Arduino turns it on and off and IT supplies 10 volts to the P driver. Did you apply more than 10 volts to the DS1307, that maybe what killed it.

My Arduino is a Mega 1280. I'm pretty sure the 5v regulator is what does the heating up when I try using a 10-12v power supply. I did some more reading and it sounds like I could use a op amp to turn my 5v PWM into 10v, so I'm not to concerned about that now.

I've only ever had the DS1307 plugged into the 5v on the POWER rail. I've tried so many things to get the RTC to work I'm not surprised I might have killed it. One time out of about 8 different libraries/sketches I tried It would show a progressing clock on 3 out of 5 returns in the Serial Monitor. But I was never able to get it to do it again. I spent about 6 hours yesterday trying every single thing I could find on the internet, including checking and resoldering any thing that looked potentially bad, to get the DS1307 going.

In the mean time I have mine pretending to have a clock by simply counting up from the time I give it. So next I'll start piecing together what I need to up the PWM V. As well I'm going to work on animations and a few other things until I can get a replacement RTC.

Thanks to you guys for laying the ground work to help get me to here in just a day. This is completely frustrating but quite a lot of fun!

Here is my beast of a screen at about 20x8:

 

[Molehs]

TheReefNinja where did you get your 20 pin ribbon? That'd certainly make screen placement a lot easier once I move to mounting.

 

[TheReefNinja]

TheReefNinja where did you get your 20 pin ribbon? That'd certainly make screen placement a lot easier once I move to mounting.

Old 40 pin hard drive cables......

 

[katchupoy]

The bad is that my DS1307 RTC seems to be DOA

This is what I thought too. How do you check? make sure that the solder points you did on the battery holder is good.

and I can't seem to get my Arduino to run the sketch on anything greater than 5v. It lights up but nothing more, and a chip next to the power jack gets really hot.

I assume that you plugged the power supply to the power jack of arduino? and the polarity is correct? But what if you remove the power supply and use USB instead? does it work?

With my P driver is it possible to drive my LEDs with PWM without 10v through the board?

Now I am confused. Yes the 10v supply does not need to be on Arduino. This is only needed in the future if you have devices connected to Arduino that requires more power.

If you dont connect it to your arduino (the 10v) does it work? You can also salvage those power supply that you use to charge (newer) celfones. Or anything close to 6 volts.

 

[katchupoy]

My Arduino is a Mega 1280. I'm pretty sure the 5v regulator is what does the heating up when I try using a 10-12v power supply.

This is good. And Im pretty sure, based on arduino website, that it can handle up to 12 volts and regulate it down to 5 volts.

I did some more reading and it sounds like I could use a op amp to turn my 5v PWM into 10v, so I'm not to concerned about that now.

Why op amp? just using the transistor as a switch and your 10vdc (+) supply it should work... (LOOK BELOW) no 10vdc connected to arduino...

I spent about 6 hours yesterday trying every single thing I could find on the internet, including checking and resoldering any thing that looked potentially bad, to get the DS1307 going.

Check pin (4 and 5) assignments and re-seat the battery?

In the mean time I have mine pretending to have a clock by simply counting up from the time I give it. So next I'll start piecing together what I need to up the PWM V. As well I'm going to work on animations and a few other things until I can get a replacement RTC.

Actually you can do it and run this setup without RTC by using "millis" Just need to restart (via mechanical timer) your arduino on a specific time everyday. I applause your spirit and keeping your heads up. I will go crazy if that happens to me...

This is completely frustrating but quite a lot of fun!

I feel bad and feel that i failed you.....

Here is my beast of a screen at about 20x8:

at least in the good side.... you have way better toys than me... i like that screen....!!!!

 

[katchupoy]

Reefninja,

Amazing piece of hardware/s... i need to upgrade my screen man, i tell you, after this crazy move, I will upgrade my screen.....

 

[Molehs]

Just need to restart (via mechanical timer) your arduino on a specific time everyday.

Actually if I just push the sketch everyday, or when ever, it has a line of code that will update the time based on the time of the PC. So barring any power outages, I should only have to update the time as often as I see it not being fairly accurate.

And no worries, the work you have put into this is what inspired me to do it as well. I just don't 'get' how all the little transistors and what not work. I've done both programming and auto mechanics but electrical stuff tends to not be as clear to me as others, so it takes me a bit longer to figure it out.

Next I'm working on animation with, hopefully, a sun/moon arcing over a horizon based upon what phase of the lighting it's on. Also going to implement the code for the hardware that came with my kit to use the IR remote. So plenty to keep me busy until I get a new RTC.

I'll have to see if I can get my hands on a 40 wire ribbon cable...

 

[TheReefNinja]

Molehs, please keep me posted on this as we have almost the same setup in mind I want my ir to work also so if you get it working please post.

As far as the RTC goes why do you think it is dead? did you uncomment the code to set and start it? if not it always reads 12:00:00am its in the LCD Setup part then set it and then comment it back out, make sure to reupload the sketch with the code re commented or anytime the arduino restarts it will reset the time to that.

 

[katchupoy]

Scroll down and look at this section.... S E T U P - D I S P L A Y

  /*|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||  S E T U P - D I S P L A Y |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||*/



  byte second, minute, hour, dayOfWeek, dayOfMonth, month, year;
  Wire.begin();

  // Change these values to what you want to set your clock to.
  // You probably only want to set your clock once and then remove
  // the setDateDs1307 call.
  second = 56;
  minute = 57;
  hour = 23;
  dayOfWeek = 6;  // Sunday is 0
  dayOfMonth = 26;
  month = 2;
  year = 11;
  //setDateDs1307(second, minute, hour, dayOfWeek, dayOfMonth, month, year);

  analogWrite(blue, bluemin);
  analogWrite(white, whitemin);
  lcd.begin(16, 2); // set up the LCD's number of rows and columns: 
  //  lcd.print("12:00 80.6"); // Print a message to the LCD.
  //  lcd.print(char(223));
  lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
  lcd.print("blue:");
  lcd.print(33*bluemin/85);
  lcd.setCursor(8, 1);
  lcd.print("white:");
  lcd.print(33*whitemin/85);  
}

and then pay special attention to this line...
//setDateDs1307(second, minute, hour, dayOfWeek, dayOfMonth, month, year);

Just above that, you will see second, minute, hour, etc...
This is where you set the time... make it so that its few seconds advance or a minute more... So that by the time you load it to arduino it is more or less sync with the correct time.

Before you hit "load" on arduino.

Remove the "//" before...
//setDateDs1307(second, minute, hour, dayOfWeek, dayOfMonth, month, year);

Once loaded.. put "//" back and load it again... So that in the future and you have to load or reset arduino... it will not restart from the initial time you had it...







.

 

[Molehs]

Trust me I tried 'everything' and I just can't seem to get a response from it. I tried what you guys just mentioned. I found a sketch that had you manually enter the fields in the serial monitor and still no dice. It won't take 'current' time info and won't progress. I've followed steps to reset and start, I resoldered all places that looked like they might be bad. I added a blob of solder under the battery spot. I checked the battery. I did every single thing on every single page I could find.

I just wish I had a way to test that the Arduino is even seeing it, much less that it's good or bad.

Only once, about 2 hours in of the 6 I worked on it, out of the dozens of tries did it appear to work intermittently, but I was never able to reproduce that.

As for the IR, I'll be following this page: http://www.arcfn.com/2009/08/multi-protocol-infrared-remote-library.html

It was sent to me by the person who sold the Arduino on ebay. Looks fairly straight forward.

I'll be out of town for a couple days, so I won't be working on it during that time but I'll take a crack at it again this weekend. Thanks for the help.

 

[TheReefNinja]

katchupoy, I have 2 48P's here as well as my 48D's which should I use? Currently the 48D's are running and seem fine. And I am starting to want to punch my monitor... my temp is displaying intermittently when it wants to.... I will be soldering up a new temp sensor today.