Must-haves for EASY DIY controller?

Its any 12mm lithium battery, ie a CR1216, 1220, 1225, etc. If you are prototyping without a battery and don't care about storing the time vale, you should short the battery holder, else the RTC may behave erratically.
 
I didnt even see the condensed page till now I ended up finding the needed battery earlier by looking at the data sheets for the battery holder just figured anyone building this is going to need to know
 
Maybe we should have made that more clear about the BOM, we included a condensed page to make ordering a bit easier for quantities.

BTW, I uploaded gerber files that will work on the code site. They will work if you order from iteadstudio or seeed studio. Make sure you mention that the drill file is off and needs to be adjusted. Both of those companies will be able to do it no problem.
 
I have put in an order for 10 boards. Below is a list of people that requested boards that i have orders for:
Myself - 4 boards
Names - 1 board
5ft24 - 1 board
Fishman - 2 boards
snowman - 1 board
nauticac4 - 1 board

This order is boards only not the components from the BOM. Snowman was organizing a buy for the components. If you want to get a full kit you need to organize your components through Snowman. He was going to order on the 15th so if you are interested PM him. Snowman I have ordered all my components already so I am good to go. Thanks though. I will PM the above individuals once I get the boards to organize shipping. So dust of those soldering stations.

Thanks DustinB for the update to the BOM and Gerber files.

Thanks DWZM and TeraHz for all the hard work. Looks like you guys have started something here.
 
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HYDRA BOM parts kits are locked in. only have 5 left. PM me for details. reservations up until next Saturday.

Hey Seeliger, thanks for putting the effort into getting these for us. btw PM me w/ the details if you could, I might be looking at 2 or 3 boards,got a local buddy who might be interested in a setup as well.
 
For what it's worth, people needing LCDs, you can get them for $15.95 off hacktronics.com I have ordered through them a couple times and they offered great service. Next time a group buy gets setup they have discounts starting at quantities of 10+.
 
All,

Seems like the project is starting to gain some momentum - there are lots of "new faces" in the thread, and lots of talk about people building controllers now, so I thought I'd take a moment to post two friendly reminders that may have been buried in the earlier pages of the thread:

1) Reef Central does not officially allow the organization of "group buys" even if it's purely out of a desire to help other hobbyists - so, please take those activities offline from these forums. We realize this is awkward for things like PCBs since most board houses want to sell you at least 10. You can definitely work with fellow hobbyists offline (i.e. email) to organize that, or just buy from a place that'll do small quantities (batchpcb or dorkbotpdx come to mind).

2) We're releasing this project under a Creative Commons license. Specifically, the BY-NC-SA 3.0 License. This is a common license for "open source" projects like this. The intent is that we WANT people to be free to use, copy, or modify this project for their own personal purposes - we want people to use this design. But, we want to make sure it's done in a way that we see as "fair" to everyone involved. We care so much about this license that we've imprinted it on the silk layer on the board and mentioned it in this thread and on the google code site where we're hosting the project files for now. We hope that people choose respect this license because we basically have no realistic means of enforcement other than trusting fellow hobbyists.

The basic jist of this license is that anyone is free to use, redistribute, or modify the elements of this project (hardware and software). However, there are three restrictions (the BY-NC-SA part indicates the restrictions). These are:

BY: Attribution. You must attribute the original project. That means, if you modify or distribute the project (i.e. you post about your modified version on another forum, or post build shots of a "stock" Hydra on your blog), you MUST attribute the original project. For now, our preferred method of attribution is linking to this thread.

NC: Non-commercial. You may not use any elements of this project for commercial gain or personal profit. This means that you CANNOT make money as a result of this project. For instance, if you buy a bunch of sets of components for the BOM, for a cost of $10, and it would cost you $2 for postage to ship them to fellow hobbyists, you CANNOT charge $15 and pocket the extra three bucks "for your efforts." Or, for another example, you cannot put original-to-this project software components on your own design of controller and sell it for profit. (You CAN use components of the software in your own design, as long as your design conforms to this license).

SA: Share-alike. If you modify the project and redistribute your modified version, you MUST do so under the same license (CC 3.0 BY-NC-SA) or any more-current creative commons license with the same three restrictions. In other words, you cannot change a few things on the board, come up with your own name, and then distribute it under a closed license that doesn't meet the terms of this license.

More details can be found here if people are interested in the legal fine print:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode

Hope that this post isn't stifling to anyone's interest in this effort!
 
der_wille_zur_macht said:
All,

NC: Non-commercial. You may not use any elements of this project for commercial gain or personal profit. This means that you CANNOT make money as a result of this project. For instance, if you buy a bunch of sets of components for the BOM, for a cost of $10, and it would cost you $2 for postage to ship them to fellow hobbyists, you CANNOT charge $15 and pocket the extra three bucks "for your efforts." Or, for another example, you cannot put original-to-this project software components on your own design of controller and sell it for profit. (You CAN use components of the software in your own design, as long as your design conforms to this license).
Click to expand...

Hmm. I'm not sure you can lay claim to all the *elements* in the project. For example, I'm using an AVR with an ENC28J60 for my ethernet-enabled sensors. This is a (significantly) different design, but the elements are pretty much the same... I think you need to be clear that it's the specific implementation that you're laying claim to - quite rightly, IMHO. Going through the design process myself, I have an appreciation for how much effort goes into something like this.

I'm only making the point because I'm planning on making a really high-end controller, and possibly (hey, the thing *might* work!) selling it - no details so I can't be accused of advertising [grin]... I just don't want there to be trouble later on because I'm using the same ethernet & CPU chip, even if I'm using them differently.

Simon
 
Simon, you are 100% correct, thanks for pointing that out. I'm using "elements" in the sense of "constructs that are original or unique to this project." In other words, the Eagle files for the hardware, or the Arduino code for the firmware, or the BOM, or the documentation we write. We are certainly not trying to patent the use of AVR chips for controlling fish tanks. Rather, we are trying to license the use of the work we produce. In other words, if you take our Eagle files, and cut/paste 90% of the circuit into your own Eagle files, then we would hope you would choose to operate under the terms of the license. If you design your own controller from the ground up that happens to use some of the same components, then we certainly aren't going to try to interfere.

And again I want to reinforce that the spirit of this project is sharing knowledge and getting more reef keepers involved with embedded electronics. We aren't applying this license through any desire to restrict that growth, by any means. We want people to share, borrow, modify, and use this material. We just don't want people blatantly ripping it off and claiming it is their own, or trying to make money off it.
 
der_wille_zur_macht said:
And again I want to reinforce that the spirit of this project is sharing knowledge and getting more reef keepers involved with embedded electronics. We aren't applying this license through any desire to restrict that growth, by any means. We want people to share, borrow, modify, and use this material. We just don't want people blatantly ripping it off and claiming it is their own, or trying to make money off it.
Click to expand...

I figured that was the case, but I think having a lawyer for a wife is rubbing off on me :) These days I tend to like everything to be clear from the outset on any project I'm working on - nasty surprises are just that.

I'm all for sharing info - I know I've certainly gained a lot from reading how others have attacked problems, and I appreciate that immensely. I'm maybe not so prolific as the heavy hitters on this site, but I like to think I've contributed a little here and there :)

Cheers
Simon
 
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SpacedCowboy said:
... For example, I'm using an AVR with an ENC28J60 for my ethernet-enabled sensors. ... I'm planning on making a really high-end controller, and possibly (hey, the thing *might* work!) selling it
Click to expand...

Just to point out that if you're using the popular arduino library for that chip (in any of its versions : tuxgraphics, nuelectronics, thiseldo.co.uk), you have to release all your firmware under GPL. That doesn't mean you can't sell it, just that you have to provide the source with it.

And this is also true for anyone trying to use the Hydra firmware for other projects.

Just to point it out now that we're on the license topic.
 
terahz said:
Just to point out that if you're using the popular arduino library for that chip (in any of its versions : tuxgraphics, nuelectronics, thiseldo.co.uk), you have to release all your firmware under GPL. That doesn't mean you can't sell it, just that you have to provide the source with it.

And this is also true for anyone trying to use the Hydra firmware for other projects.

Just to point it out now that we're on the license topic.
Click to expand...

[grin] I'm well aware of the licencing issues. As I said, making a controller is a significant undertaking...

Simon
 
terahz said:
And this is also true for anyone trying to use the Hydra firmware for other projects.
Click to expand...

Another good comment. Clearly, the code we are using on this project includes code licensed by other people. We're planning on using and releasing that code according to those licenses as appropriate.
 
DWZM, What is the plan for software changes and submissions from the users. I assume you are not going to open this up to the world so something like SVN patch would be in order. What are going to be the guidelines for submission of a patch? Have you established a review team for patch submissions?
 
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