Building an aquarium controller

[ocd_mariner]

I was visiting a friend in baltimore this week and caught the arduino bug. With but a little time to marinate on the idea, I immediately decided I wanted to build an aquarium controller. Lindsey just mentioned that harry was building one as well, so that further amplified the perfect storm of geek obsessions. I think it will be an awesome project and I've decided to document my progress as I go, the good and bad.

If any of you are hardware hackers, or just curious, check out my first initial posts here: http://bit.ly/iizSJ8

The sad truth, this won't be quick. It could be awesome.

Please, if you have any input whatsoever, from the hacker point of view, or the end user point of view, make your voices heard.

 

[theplatypus]

good luck

 

[mixer911]

I have thought of doing it a few times and just never did it. The potential is unlimited with todays technology and then you wouldn't be dependent on some else's platform or hardare.

Looks like a good start Chuck!

 

[poolkeeper1]

Make it in plain English to set up and I will be your First Customer! Everyone in this Hobby is not PC Experts.
Bill

 

[NeveSSL]

Thanks for sharing this, Chuck. I'm definitely very interested to follow along. I was in Baltimore last week, but I didn't pick up any Arduino impulses while there.

Excellent ideas, man. I get a cloud vibe off of what you're saying. I really like where you're going with it for sure. Its not much, and I'm sure you have access to better, but I have a small Win Server 2008 R2 server if you need it for anything.

I subscribed to your blog. I'm looking forward to where you're going with this.

Brandon

 

[ocd_mariner]

Rick -
If you have any ideas to share when you were considering this, I'm all ears.

Brandon -
I was really hoping to hook you on this Glad you subscribed.

 

[ZachB]

Tagging along .. this will be cool. It would be awesome to build something completely custom.

 

[AdrianBryce]

just so you know, this has been done. you might look to this concept for your programing code. www.reefangel.com

 

[NeveSSL]

I think we all know that people have done Arduino based reef controllers. There are several out there. This one, however, is Chuck's. Chuck has not done one yet.

Brandon

 

[ocd_mariner]

Thanks Adrian, I'll add that to the list of the other arduino reefcontrollers on the blog I linked. Didn't see it before.

edit: also can't get this out of my head - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifleman's_Creed

 

[ZachB]

Thanks Adrian, I'll add that to the list of the other arduino reefcontrollers on the blog I linked. Didn't see it before.

edit: also can't get this out of my head - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifleman's_Creed

:lolspin::fun2:

 

[AdrianBryce]

I think we all know that people have done Arduino based reef controllers. There are several out there. This one, however, is Chuck's. Chuck has not done one yet.

Brandon

Hey, no problem. I guess I should have specified that I was saying it had been done on a commercial level. Of which Reef Angel is the only one I had seen.

 

[NeveSSL]

Oh, ok. Gotcha. I love the Reef Angel project. I almost tried it out, but my geekness got the best of me and I decided I wanted an Apex because it would do more than one aquarium.

I may still try the Reef Angel eventually, though.

Brandon

 

[ocd_mariner]

This is absolutely not a commercial endeavor. My goal is to provide a step by step process for creating each peice of the controller for the hackers that want to do it themselves. Perhaps, when each peice is finished, I'll provide a ready made model for people that would rather hack on the firmware code.

This honestly is a learning experience for me. Im starting from almost zero knowledge of hardware hacking and moving toward a fully functional aquarium controller.

It may not be interesting for people that already know how to do it, but when I'm done, it should be a wealth of step-by-step information for someone who has this dream also.