DIY Reef Controller

[marspeed]

Kapelan

i understand what you are saying you do not need all 16 eight is plenty so just use eight not every thing is perfect just yet .

another issue is why do we need moon lite drivers on the mother board when most of us will be using ldd drivers, it becomes inconvenient adding another power source and more wiring from the board to the fixture you can mount your ldd boards on the led fixture supply it with it's own power source and only have pwm signal lines coming from the mother board but this would require about 10 pwm pins + 1 for the lcd

 

[nkd5024]

marspeed,

Good point.

This is the beta version and mainly for testing and getting bugs out of the design hardware and software. So I am looking for everyone's opinions in what you think could be done to improve things.

There could always be an ldd board that has the moonlight drivers on it to avoid the problems you mentioned.

 

[marspeed]

i think the ldd board would be good right now i am going to have ten channels six for whites and blues and four for moon lites
i realize this is a work in progress and you are doing a tremendous job

thanks now get back to work

 

[rott]

nkd
If you ever do make a daughter board for ldd drivers please consider having at least 2 if not 4 temp probes plus 12v at 3 amps to run fans I have 4 heat sinks across my tank would be nice to see what temp they are all at and separate fans to cool them that are not just on full blast all the time

 

[nkd5024]

Adding temperature probes to the ldd/moonlight board would be a great idea. 4 of either the tmp36 or ds18b20 could easily be added.

Are your fans pwm type?
How many channels total are you running on your four heatsinks?

 

[marspeed]

rott good idea i would throw away my 4 ups for a board like that also don't forget sockets for the LDDs in case you want to change MA output ho and pull down resistors to keep them from going full blast in case of a failure i know i left out about a half dozen things

 

[nkd5024]

This sounds like a good plan. The only downside is the amount of wires going to from the motherboard to the ldd board to control it. With 6+ pwm, 4 temp readings, 5v, gnd thats already 12 wires.

 

[marspeed]

something like this

http://www.adafruit.com/products/815

???????????????

 

[nkd5024]

That would work for the pwm signals but not the data from the temp probes. That chip from digikey costs almost the same as it would to have another mega328 on there but the atmega would also be able to take care of the temp probes, turning on/off fans, etc.

Plus the i2c bus isn't really meant to travel very far which is what this chip uses.

 

[rott]

if all else fails you can get cheap china uno clones or even mega's for like $15 anf free shipping but down side is it takes a month to get it in the mail

 

[rott]

Adding temperature probes to the ldd/moonlight board would be a great idea. 4 of either the tmp36 or ds18b20 could easily be added.

DS18b20 are nice and small easy to make waterproof also Sure electronics and a bunch of others sell made ones ready to go for cheap

Are your fans pwm type?
Yes I use F12 artic cooler fans and have pwm and a tach wire they cost more but are great fans and quite to run


How many channels total are you running on your four heatsinks?

I am running 2 on the out side plates 1 channel has 14 RB and the other channel is a 100w 10K led bright is an understatment so it is dimmed to about 70% the 2 inside plates run 10 white 3w and 10RB 3w on seperate channels I built these befor the invention of the LDD's

 

[rott]

for anyone that wants to see it this looks like a good start video for smd soldering

 

[marspeed]

the link ?

 

[rott]

sorry I totaly for got to post the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwrethy1tKU

 

[marspeed]

that vid makes me dizzy

any way if a mega328 works out better so be it and i agree i2c bus would not be very stable with heaters, pumps and relays clicking away i am sure you can come up with something

 

[nkd5024]

Here is what I think may work well for everyone.

We throw an atmega328 on the board with spots for 4 LDD drivers, four moonlight leds, two temperature sensors, and control of two fans. The six pwm pins on the mega328 would go to the 4 ldds and the two fans. Then we could add a pwm expansion chip that would be optional so people who need more ldd's/fans can get another board that would be identical but without the atmega328 and be able to control up to 23 pwm pins. There are a couple chips that can add 16 more pwm pins for around $3. I highly doubt anyone will need more than 23 led channels even when including pwm fans.


Rott,

Thanks for posting the video until I have time to make one.

It really isn't as hard as it seems and all you should need is a pair of tweezers. Add some solder to one of the pads, then hold the component in place while reheating the soldered pad to secure the component. Now solder the other side/sides and your done.

Make sure for the ds1307 that the writing "ds1307" is right side up when the usb port in facing you.

 

[marspeed]

i will need about 12 pwm channels 10 of those are for LEDs some people are using the dream chip three of those could be 15 channels just for LEDs

 

[marspeed]

nick
why not just leave the four moon lights off the board you can simply use the expansion boards with LDDs for moon lights less complicated ?

 

[nkd5024]

For people who only need one board for 4 or under channels of dimming.

 

[marspeed]

ok kind of universal that works