DIY Reef Controller

The Itead 5" lcd screen uses the SSD1936 which the UTFT library does support, although as the screen is 800x420 pixels it would have considerably longer refresh rates when controlled by an arduino than the 3.2" screen. You would also have to redo all of the graphics I created as they are not the correct size.

Wouldn't mind trying it myself once I get everything going and get some free time and extra cash to spend on the project.

Rott, I couldn't find much about a 7" lcd screen that was arduino compatible, you have a link?
 
I agree with you, I think the 5" screen would look very nice. I wouldn't mind grabbing one when I have some money to spend and trying it out to see if the refresh rate is acceptable. It should work fine I would just need to redo the screens which may take two or three days.
 
Nick,
A couple of thoughts for your consideration.
1) On the weather setting page. I really like how you have divided things up and the fact that you have an on/off for weather in general. I would suggest that there should also be a separate on/off specifically for the lightning effect. Many people myself included like the idea of some lighting modulation due to "weather" but do not want distracting flashes of lightning in their living room.
2) You have 5 channels of main light LED control. It would be nice if the adjustment for max brightness for all 5 was available on the same screen.

Just some thoughts, Keep up the good work!
Mark
 
Marc,

When I released the first copy of the program I was only planning on having 3 led channels. Now there is all 6 max brightness on the page instead of 3.

I was actually trying to think of what would be best to do with the lightning as I have heard it freaks out the fish. Maybe instead of on/off for lightning there could be an lightning intensity setting where you can make it obvious or not so obvious. What do you think?

I have also changed the home screen to include a large table of all the current tank parameters.
 
nkd5024 said:
Marc,

When I released the first copy of the program I was only planning on having 3 led channels. Now there is all 6 max brightness on the page instead of 3.

I was actually trying to think of what would be best to do with the lightning as I have heard it freaks out the fish. Maybe instead of on/off for lightning there could be an lightning intensity setting where you can make it obvious or not so obvious. What do you think?

I have also changed the home screen to include a large table of all the current tank parameters.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Where can i download your last version with 6 led channels ???

Concerning the thunderbolt, it will be only for the eyes of the hobbyst, it's not neccessary for the cycle of the reef, on the other side lunar cycle is good for the corals and they spawn in the aquarium

for the table with all parameters, very good idea

Luc
 
An intensity setting would be fine as long as zero would be interpreted by the software as no lightning. Flickers in intensity are really eye catching even when small and I think there should be a way to by pass the effect completely.

Mark
 
PMFJI

This looks like a great thread. I'm looking at this and the Jarduino (or Stilo).

About a year ago I did extensive research on all the uC based aquarium controllers; it's sort of a life time hobby as I first was working on a micro-controller aquarium controller back in '95 or so. It was going to be X10 compatible. Never finished it :headwallblue: and then the Octopus came out.

Anyway, I picked the .NetMF framework and bought a Panda II to run everything - unattended operation is important to me and I wanted a web server and email abilities for stuff like pump breaking, water overflowing, etc. and the c# programmability seemed nice for reliability (I've designed embedded web servers before to run skid mounted generators, and tracking down memory leaks is a hassle).

Now, a year later, the display controller that was sold with the Panda isn't available, so I've got to change one way or another. Frustrating.

Good to know about the etape - I figured it would take a differential amplifier or something to be more accurate. Is the issue that it drifts or that it's hard to measure using ADC?

== John ==
 
luc,

Still working on the next one. I would like to finish the basic parts of the controller before releasing it. Temp, ATO, leds, moonlights, etc.

marc,

yup zero would be no lightning.

jgwinner,

I cannot completely comment on the Etape as I haven't tested it enough to make a conclusion. I did notice that ANY bending in the sensor effected the readings quite a bit, so it would have to mounted very well and kept away from any snails. I also have a pressure sensor that was recommended a few pages back. I will also be testing this out as well for use as the ATO sensor.

Keep in mind the pressure sensor costs $14 compared to the etapes $40, so the Etape may very well be scrapped unless it out performs the pressure sensor.


I have been reading some other treads of people making their own controllers and have decided to add a separate microprocessor to actually monitor and control the tank. I am thinking the Mega will now only be used to control the LCD screen and the ethernet/wifi connection. It will also have to control either the LED's or the moonlights due to its large number of PWM pins. To accomplish this I am adding an atmega328AU to the main board. (I had to redo the boards anyway due to an error) I am also planning for this board to support 0-10v analog dimming for anyone not using PWM and will be using a 3rd order sallen-key filter designed by marc111.

I decided to switch to board to smd components as the saving in space was very large and enabled me to fit the atmega328 with breakout of all its pins onto the same board. This atmega will be able to be programmed either through its ICSP header or with a USB-TTL cable once the arduino bootloader has been installed on the chip.

Let me know what you think so far. I should be done with the next board design soon and will post it before ordering to see if anyone has anything to add.
 
nkd5024 said:
luc,
Keep in mind the pressure sensor costs $14 compared to the etapes $40, so the Etape may very well be scrapped unless it out performs the pressure sensor.
Click to expand...

Yep, makes sense - I have SpectraPure's pressure sensor and it works pretty well, but this is a little different.

Did you see the SparkFun Magnetopot controller? I found a one meter length somewhere on the web too.

It looks pretty good.

Separating the lighting from regular reef control makes a lot of sense, although temperature could tie into it all. A lot of different all viable approaches.

Are you going to solder the SMD stuff?

== John ==
 
That magnetopot is pretty neat, would just need to find a way to keep the floating chamber with the magnet inside directly in line with the sensor, although thinking about it the small area in between baffles would probably work well.

I was planning on solder them myself. After watching a video on sparkfuns site about soldering smd parts at home it really don't look to be very challenging. Just make sure to have some solder wick lying around.
 
What pressure sensor did you end up using? I seem to get a lot of barometric sensors, which don't have a tubing barb. Whoops, it's probably back in the thread.

Regarding SMD, there's some good tutorials in some of the LED controller threads here too. Haven't tried it yet, but probably will need to, I have boards and parts for an LED controller, but now there's the LDD parts :mixed:

== John ==
 
For all of you who are talking about trying the 5 inch LCD panel, I did find one review on the ITDB02-5.0 site that bothered me a bit. The review was dated 11/5/12 and said "This screen is great as a display module, but out of the box the touch doesn't work and is not compatible with ITDB02_Touch. The screen needs calibrating and there is no arduino code to be able to perform this calibration as the calibration sketch is not designed for this unit and Henning Karlsen is not planning to recode it at this time."

Has anyone gotten past the calibration issue with this display??

Thanks,
Mark
 
marc111 said:
For all of you who are talking about trying the 5 inch LCD panel, I did find one review on the ITDB02-5.0 site that bothered me a bit. The review was dated 11/5/12 and said "This screen is great as a display module, but out of the box the touch doesn't work and is not compatible with ITDB02_Touch. The screen needs calibrating and there is no arduino code to be able to perform this calibration as the calibration sketch is not designed for this unit and Henning Karlsen is not planning to recode it at this time."

Has anyone gotten past the calibration issue with this display??

Thanks,
Mark
Click to expand...

Same question here. I'm waiting for a working 5-7" touch screen before I start this project.
 
nkd5024 said:
luc,
I have been reading some other treads of people making their own controllers and have decided to add a separate microprocessor to actually monitor and control the tank. I am thinking the Mega will now only be used to control the LCD screen and the ethernet/wifi connection. It will also have to control either the LED's or the moonlights due to its large number of PWM pins. To accomplish this I am adding an atmega328AU to the main board. (I had to redo the boards anyway due to an error)
Click to expand...

Nick a couple of curiosity questions:
1) What added capability will the atmega bring that is lacking?
2) Why add the atmega328 vs using the newer Arduino DUE? The due seems to add in alot of what you would get from the atmega and yet leaves you with a single processor to program rather than two.

Just Curious,
Mark
 
The due would be overkill for what I will be using the atmega328 for. I was debating replacing the mega with a due but the UTFT libraries don't work with it. I am planning to use the atmega328 to "talk" with the tank.

The atmega328 would add in a few more pwm pins for anyone wanting to control fan speeds or variable speed pumps. I also like the idea of having a chip dedicated to controlling the outlets, ATO and temp, etc.

With the atmega328 controlling the actual tank parameters and outlets, the arduino mega is left with 13 pins, leaving plenty of room in the program space and pins to run the ethernet or wifi shield.
 
If I have some spare time I can take a look at the calibration sketch to see if it can be edited to work with the 5" screen. Although I can't really tell if it works without having a screen to test it on, so may have to get one of these sometime soon. I would not enjoy changing all the backgrounds but it really would look nicer.
 
I looked over the calibration sketch and it doesn't look too complicated, although I did notice he doesn't support the ITDB02_Touch library anymore and replaced it with the UTouch library, so I'll look at this one as well.
 
nkd5024, thanks for sharing your controller sketches and you ideas on how to's. I just downloaded your files and was wondering if you have a list of the pin numbers for all the devices i.e., led's, temp sensor and any future items. I'm new to this and was unable to figure out which pins defined in the sketch to connect the PWM lines for the LDD drivers. Thanks again for your help.
 
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