DIY Reef Controller

[srayproctor]

nkd5024,

This is an incredible project. I've been reading the forums and planning to build my first reef tank using a DIY lighting kit from RapidLED and was evaluating different reef controllers when I stumbled across this thread and was blown away. I am very impressed and will be following closely. To get my feet wet, I've just purchased an arduino mega and have started watching arduino tutorials online. I'm greatly inspired.

Keep up the great work and thanks for sharing.
Scott P.

 

[rott]

I just got my SD card readers from China on Saturday trying to make it all work today I get as far as the password page and that is where I stop I cant type nothing in to the space for password none of the numbers work is this just a demo and that is as far as it goes? I used the screen UTouch_Calibration clicked on all the plus signs in the box's and changed the X and Y in the cpp file like it said still no joy.

 

[cichlidtx]

nkd5024, great progress. Can't wait for the build instructions. Good luck with the testing, hope all goes well.

 

[tgondek1970]

Laser cutter

Laser cutter

Hi All, i do alot of DIY projects, and this is really exciting! I own a laser cutter, great for cutting enclosures, cases etc. If you need anything cut for this project, just let me know. Would love to help, and maybe trade for some of the boards.

Tom

 

[WSPepsilon]

Hey guys, first off hats off to the op and everyone that has contributed to this project. I hope to someday take advantage of this and build my own system. I am however, very curious on what types of water chemistry monitoring are possible with a system like this. I know temp, salinity, p h, and orp are all possible but what about the other params important to our systems? Magnesium, phosphate, calcium, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, alkalinity. I've found some digital probe versions of a few of these ranging from affordable to well, not so affordable. Just curious what the possibilities are in this area...

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[nkd5024]

Thanks for all the compliments, nice to see everyone is liking the direction I am going and are excited about the project.

As a little side note, I just got my first Bubble tipped anemone yesterday for my two small cinnamon clowns and they took to it in about 2 minutes of me placing it in the tank. It was very nice to have a reminder of why all this work is 100% worth it!

srayproctor,

Keep at the tutorials. I have found that adafruit's tutorials (ladyadanet) has a lot of great tutorials. The great thing about arduino is it doesn't take much to start making awesome projects.

Rott,
When I released that demo the Utouch library wasn't released yet so it is still using the ITDB02-Touch library. Try running the calibration sketch from that library as I am sure they give different numbers and change ITDB02_Touch.cpp. If that doesn't work let me know, as it is just a demo but you should be able to see much more. Although keep in mind much has changed with the GUI since I released that package and it is not up to date.

tgondek1970,
PM sent

WSPepsilon,

While a few of these probes do exist for a "reasonable" price (calcium, nitrate) I don't think they are meant to stay in the water for more time than it takes to take a couple readings. As of right now the only probes I see this project supporting are pH and ORP which will come as soon as I get funds for them. Conductivity and dissolved oxygen are also easily added to the project. I may add in conductivity but I doubt i'd add dissolved oxygen in on my own as its not cheap and I don't personally see a real use for monitoring it.

I am planning to knock out the led dimming and weather functions today and finishing up the rest of the code for the atmega328.

 

[rott]

I used the ITDB02-Touch calibration that came with your sketch the changed the numbers in library > ITDB02_Touch.cpp and it still doesn't work I tried using the ITDB02_Touch that came with arduino 1.1 but it keeps giving me error about using small font

 

[nkd5024]

So when you use the library provided in the download everything compiles and runs until you get to the lock screen which doesn't respond to you touching the screen correct?

What brand/model hardware are you using and how are they connected?

 

[rott]

arduino mega 2560 on bottom next is sainsmart tft LCD mega shield v1.0 then 3.2 touch screen (SSD1289) on top nothing else connected

also when I use ITDB02-Touch calibration that came with your sketch there is a little corruption in some of the words on the calibration screen and some of the +'s on the left side have a black vertical line threw them

 

[rott]

for got I have 2 units that are the same the one I plan on using has a mega screw shield with the SD chip connected to it on 50,51,52,53, gnd and 5v it has a built in step down to 3.3v but both units are haveing the exact same problem

 

[nkd5024]

rott,

just sent you a pm for some code to test out.

 

[rott]

done and it seemed to work fine

 

[nkd5024]

So after finishing the sunrise/set and cloud code this is how the clouds/storm mode will work. The user will enter a percentage for slightly cloudy (0-9% dimming of set max) cloudy (10-24% dimming of set max) and Very cloudy/storm (25-50% dimming of set max).

The function gets random numbers to determine if the upcoming weather will be slightly cloudy, cloudy, or a storm. More random numbers then determine the length and speed of the upcoming weather pattern. These numbers are then used to ramp up to the max coverage of the weather pattern using the speed. After the ramp the leds will then run at that cloud coverage until the weather "passes" and it starts to ramp back to normal max brightness.

The weather patterns and the sunrise/sunset levels are taking into consideration before changing the led brightness. This results in having different cloud coverages during sunset, sunset, etc. The clouds will move in (dim the leds) a random speeds ranging from 30 minutes to half the length of the whole weather pattern in order to create more random affects.

Hopefully this makes some sense and it doesn't sound confusing.

 

[jay320bird1]

ROTT

I read in your last couple post that you have a mega board with the shield plugged in with the screen next. Are you using the SD card on the screen and if so were you able to get this configuration working? I currently have the mega 1280/shield/screen and after i load the controller software i just get a black screen.

Thanks
Jason

 

[rott]

Jason
No I never got the SD card on the LCD to work so I just bought a few of them
and just hooked it up to the arduino my self

 

[WSPepsilon]

Did I read somewhere that you were thinking about upgrading the brain of this beast to a faster unit in a version 2.0? Tried to find it but there's a lot to read over. Saw one of the early vids that shows the draw rate and though I know it's a minor thing I think it would annoy me in the long run...

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[rott]

atmega328

atmega328

WSPepsilon
I pulled this from an earlier post from NKD5024


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.

This should really speed things up as long as the communication is soiled between the 2 unit.

I hope with the addition of new pins we can get a couple more pins for temp probes to go on to the heat sinks I have 4 above my tank and would feel a lot better to have a constant read out of them all. And to have PWM fans on each one that is arduino controlled to speed up slow down or shut off the complete shutoff will need a circuit mad for it PWM Fan Control one BC549CNPN Transistor should work just fine to make sure the fan shuts completely off. Really saves on sound your tank makes also. If I have to give up pins for something like this then my vote is to use ones from moon lights I have no moon light over my tank never had. But I would be happy to try it out but use one pin to turn on the moon light about an hour before the main lights go out that way there is no surprise "lights on" to scare the fish or make one jump out the tank. Then have it stay on till about 3am then shut off. fish and coral both are healthier with a few hours of total dark as that is how they track time not buy days but buy nights.

this is only my opinion.

 

[dialfonzo]

Hi All,

this is a very nice project.
I have a friend who is not into soldering or assembling or programming and he show me that link to know if it would be doable to his tank.

I have some Arduino background but not a programmer.
Can do code but real simple.. HaHa...

I don't know (since i have to read all the thread) it you ever consider 4D Systems oLED display.
I have play with them and even me ... can make it work.. lol

http://www.4dsystems.com.au/products.php

And here is a video of what i was doing with it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coedDKQYwTE

They have nice larger size LCD ..

Eric Nantel
Qc Canada

 

[WSPepsilon]

Thanks rott, so much to look through. Did finally found mention of switching over tho the arduino due. Seems to be a step up in processing power and read that it should be fairly compatible with the current setup. Don't have the funds right now anyway so I'm just trying to soak up all the info I can (dream) for now.

Somewhat separate note. Nkd, have you thought about putting in some kind of automated salt dispensing apparatus for a wc system? Been looking around and haven't really found anything to my surprise. I did find one YouTube vid showcasing one that appears to just be a auger poked thru a bucket of salt. Couldn't find any build details though. I guess it would work but my thoughts are gravitating to slightly more elaborate setup. Any one else interested in somthing like this or am I alone in my insanity?

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[nkd5024]

The 4d lcd screens look nice as they include a dedicated processor to run them. Are you programming the chip with the ftdi cable and their IDE?

The edition of the atmega328 will have no impact on the loading speed of the lcd screen. The issue is partly the refresh rate but also the speed at which the arduino can read the sd card.

Upgrading the arduino mega to the due would greatly improve this problem, especially since the due is no more expensive than the mega is. But, since Henning karlsen's libraries do not support the arduino due at the moment this isn't really an option. In the future if he or someone else decides to add support for the screen then I may switch to it. Did you change the SPI speed to very fast? It roughly doubles the speed.

As to auto water changes, it is my personal opinion that there are some things that shouldn't be automated for a reef tank. I believe that water changes fall into this category. Although if someone designed a wc system that would be easy to control with this controller then it wouldn't be very difficult to make that work out.