DIY Tank Controller

[nkd5024]

So I finally got around to starting my DIY Arduino Mega 2560 based reef controller. I wanted to share this to help anyone that may be interested by doesn't feel they have enough electronic knowledge to go for it. When I started this project, the only electronic experience I had was that I build a pair of led fixtures for my tank with a little PWM arduino uno controller.


So to start, the features I plan to include are as follows.

1. 3.2" TFT Touch LCD Screen for display and user interface.
2. Real Time Clock to keep accurate time even through power outages.
3. Micro SD card support to store images, data logs, and setting preferences.
4. Temperature probes for each LED Fixture and for water temperature.
5. pH monitoring
6. ORP monitoring
7. 8 Solid state relays and 8 TRIAC relays for controlling individual outlets.
8. Piezo Buzzer for alarms

9. ATO using a resistive tape type sensor used for sensing water levels, this is a solid state device so it won't have any mechanical problems that float switchs can succumb to.

10. 5 Channel LED dimming for blue and white on two fixtures plus one for green/red/cyan split between the two.

11 Dimming for moon lights. I have four moonlight leds that I will have "move" across the tank by dimming each separately. This will also allow me to simulate moon phases with brighter and duller days.

12. Vortech communication

After talking to the people at reef angel, it is possible to add their vortech module into my project. I feel that it is kind of cheating to buy it instead of build it but as I don't have access to vortech firmware to communicate with it, it is the only option I know of.

As of right now, I have the arduino with the touch screen, sd card, real time clock, the three temperature probes, and two 8-bit shift registers to control the 16 outlets.

I have started the user interface through the touch screen and now that I have the sd card will most likely replace a lot of the draws squares with nice looking shaded bitmap images instead. I plan on updating this pretty frequently with my progress so anyone interested can follow along.

If anyone has any ideas on how to make a nice looking case for the project, ideas are greatly appreciated. As of now everything is connected via a breadboard. I have a printed clad board so I plan on printing my own circuit so everything looks nice and neat.

Here are a few pictures of what I have so far.

Lock Screen<br>

Home Screen<br>

Temp Monitor Screen<br>

Temp Graph without data loaded<br>

These screens will likely change now that I am not limited in storage space with the sd card (2 GB)

Enjoy and let me know what your think, any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Nick Devan

 

[JW65]

Looks great so far!! A box would definitely make it look a little better haha. Acrylic or wood make nice boxes. Depends on your stand/canopy though you might want the screen showing and everything else enclosed inside somewhere.

 

[nkd5024]

Ideally I would like the enclosure to resemble the neptune apex. I plan on using usb, audio head phone connectors for the temp probes, etc that need to travel between the different modules I want to make. One for the screen and arduino, one for each set of 8 outlets. Plus one for the reef angel vortech module. I like the idea of acrylic as I am sure you can get it in different opacities, etc. Plus I have enough skills to actually make it look nice out of this, compared to the pre-made project enclosures.

Still have quite a bit of programming to do before I need to worry to much about that though, haha

 

[nkd5024]

I'm just moved this thread into the diy threads on the main forum.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2210357

 

[No1Daemon]

Are you still around Nick?
I would appreciate a little help understanding aspects of this if you could PM me please.

 

[jtmbtech]

No he took peoples money and then cut contact with everyone! I have tried to contact him multiple ways and he ignores all contact......very rude! I wanted to donate money to this awesome project but then this happened about a week after I paypal him for more parts!

 

[No1Daemon]

That's a shame. It was some good work. Very poor form to take money and then disappear.
I have seen too many of these controllers started then abandoned but this is the first instance I have seen of someone getting money for it then cutting and running.

 

[jtmbtech]

I don't think it was a ton of profit from it with all the components he sent me. But I would not have bought any of it if I thought he wouldn't Evan release a semi functional release. Now I am just out $150. He didn't Evan post the semi functional files he did have done. Should have just bought the reef angel and been done with it. But I love tinkering with electronics. I just have no programming knowledge.