Who wants a cheap, simple, Arduino-based LED controller?

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Yes thats the exact probelm I am having with all the strings/colours with Cree LEDs. Are there sketch updates for the 48P drivers that you know of?? Boost sell these drivers with the Typhon so you'd think all would be well.

It would be nice to set 10% as 1% an so on.

This isn't really the place to get support for a vendor-supplied product - your best bet is to contact the vendor.

A PWM driver with TTL output is a much better choise. The TLC5940 is a current sink LED driver by itself. You will need to drive the LED's directly from it, and it can only drive low power LEDs <120mA. Since it does not have TTL output you cannot connect this device directly to a high power LED driver.

In theory it is a driver itself, but it's very commonly used as a generic PWM signal chip.

The problem here is that the PWM frequency it generates is extremely high, and not compatible with some of the drivers we commonly use. You'd have to look up the specs but I remember running in to this a year or two ago when I first looked at that chip.

Honestly, IMHO, one of the best ways to add some more PWM support is to use another AVR on the I2C bus as a slave. This gives you PWM in the same format as you already have, plus extra program space and processing capacity if you need it. Since many of us are getting these boards from sources that give us too many (i.e. a 10-pack from iteadstudio or seeed), it's pretty simple to spend an extra $8 or so on another AVR, another resonator, and two or three passives to get the chip up and running. You don't need the display or RTC on the slave board.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Where to get your cool stuff?
I have been looking on these boards for 2 days and can't find how to purchase kits or just boards.

Only place I find it at is BOOSTLED.

Please point me in the right direction.

DWZM can you PM me?

Can you be more specific in what you're looking for? This thread describes how to get the design files, how to submit them to a board house, and where to buy the individual components from. The idea here is that you will order parts and build it yourself - it's a DIY project.

 

[Pny]

Honestly, IMHO, one of the best ways to add some more PWM support is to use another AVR on the I2C bus as a slave. This gives you PWM in the same format as you already have, plus extra program space and processing capacity if you need it. Since many of us are getting these boards from sources that give us too many (i.e. a 10-pack from iteadstudio or seeed), it's pretty simple to spend an extra $8 or so on another AVR, another resonator, and two or three passives to get the chip up and running. You don't need the display or RTC on the slave board.

I'm working on another solution... An Arduino-based controller with a 16 chn PWM ccontroller; NXP PCA9685. Some friends already use it, and to me it looks like a killer solution. One of its feature is programmable phase-shifting between of the different PWM channels making it ideal for high power LED builds. (Not good to have several hundreds of watts turning on and off in phase).

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Let me know how that goes. I actually have some of that chip laying around somewhere. I don't remember why I never did anything with it.

 

[ReeferVinnEE]

You can use a TLC5940NT. You can find them on eBay for 6 bucks. Each chip will give you 16 channels of PWM with 4096 steps (arduino has 256 steps). They use these chips often to make an LED cube matrix or mix RGB color.
However you might think about using digital pins for buttons and if you want an LCD screen get an IC2 serial LCD it uses only two pins (clock and data) and only one is PWM so you still have 5 left for your project. I have my LED project going with this setup and it works well.
Do you need more memory? Depends how much you want to do. I have about 1500 lines of code that does a ton of stuff with only 28 of 32k used on an UNO. I have run out of idea's to usefully expand the functionality. So 28k gets me:
Mooncycles, Lightning storms, separate brightness levels for blue and white channels, Sunrise and sunset twilights. Manual timer for the same time everyday lighting OR selecting the auto timer which figures out the actual sunrise and sunset times for that day for whatever lat and lon you input .

Crap, I was thinking I would end up short... forgot about the LCD outputs too. I have a screen from other projects, the hacktronics 4x20 one along with an arduino Mega 2560. It has 54 digital input/output pins (of which 14 can be used as PWM outputs), 16 analog inputs, 4 UARTs (hardware serial ports). So I would prefer to find what I can use with that already. Then again, screens aren't mega-money.

On the memory thing though, I might max it out it looks like. My plan is to break up my LED's into 24-28v clusters (about 6 led's per channel). For a 4' fixture, about 6 channels will work. With these 6 channels, I want to be able to simulate a light mover (slow like the moving sun, medium like a light rail, or fast like waves, I'll figure it out later). The blues will be set up similar to suppliment the whites. Royal Blues, etc. Thats something like 18 channels right there. Maybe I can combine the blues on the same outputs as the whites or put all of the royals on one or two channels, that would eliminate alot, but should still be able to vary the mix of white and blue for color mixing. Then I wanted to add a couple channels of warm white so things dont get too freezing cold, a channel of red, and a channel of 420nm LED's. Thats alot of channels... up to 30 at most, but I can work with anything close to that. If I could get close to 24 I would make it work.

Maybe I need a different platform all together, like Beagle or Android.

 

[joelatx]

Can you be more specific in what you're looking for? This thread describes how to get the design files, how to submit them to a board house, and where to buy the individual components from. The idea here is that you will order parts and build it yourself - it's a DIY project.

I was hoping to find someone selling the typhon boards. I ended up purchasing an assembled kit from BOOST, hope that's not frowned upon here.

To upload the current software which is better: FTDI cable or a break out board (FTDI Friend + extras - v1.0).

I would also like to add a temp sensor. How do I connect the 10K Precision Epoxy Thermistor - 3950 NTC?

I have combed over this board but have not found enough info to complete the task.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

I'm not familiar with the specific items you're referencing in your post, are you cutting and pasting descriptions from an online store? Can you just post a link instead?

In general any FTDI-based device will behave exactly the same for our purposes, of loading firmware onto the board. So basically, you could just buy the cheapest. They all have the same chip, in different packages. Personally, I like the breakout board style, since it exposes the design in case you want to modify. I REALLY like the USB-BUB from Modern Device, so that is what I would suggest to people looking for a solution.

Regarding the thermistor - you're probably out of luck. Only the latest version, 1.0, which was released with a non-commercial license (meaning you can't buy it), has an analog pin broken out. I just released that version about a month ago, and I don't think anyone's actually built one yet. If you have a pre-1.0 board, and you want temperature, the easiest thing to do would be to get a one-wire temp sensor (i.e. a DS18B20) and run it off a "borrowed" pin from the TTL header. But I don't like this for a number of reasons - first you're using a single pin for two purposes, which can create conflict. Secondly, I really don't like the one-wire temp sensors at all - they're not very precise and are really clunky to work with in software.

That said, I am working on a breakout board that has 4 analog inputs, and works with ANY Typhon, and is way more accurate/stable than the AVR's onboard ADC. That would be the most ideal solution for you, but it would entail waiting for me to finish the design, then building one yourself (it will also be released with a non-commercial license). There are lots of ADC breakouts available generically if you don't want to wait, but then you'd be coding yourself, since there likely isn't firmware written yet for any of those chips.

 

[shark boy]

Questions for the pros

Questions for the pros

I have a couple questions I hope someone can answer.
1. Could a 4x20 lcd display be used instead of a 2x16 if it were a HD44780-compatible interface? I checked and the pin-outs are the same. Then do something in the code like

lcd.setcursor(0,0);
lcd.setcursor(0,1);
lcd.setcursor(0,2);
lcd.setcursor(0,3);
To display information across 4 lines instead of 2.

2. Would it be possible to use the pwm pins to light up some low power leds as a power indicator when the channel was on. I was thinking a current limiting resistor in-line should work. It would add a little bling and be a good troubleshooting tool if needed.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Yes, and yes.

Look at the description of the LCD library on the Arduino site to understand how to translate to a different screen size if you can't figure it out.

 

[joelatx]

Hi all,

Got my Typhon and USB break out board. Added a low pass filter (made from a resister and 1 uf capacitor) to the 10v PWM circuit and now I can control the MW 48D very nicely. I have a 2 hour fade to about 43%, which looks plenty bright for what my tank is used to.
I have a Pre- 1.0 boards from Boost, what is the newest software that will work with this board?
Where can I get it?
Is there a software tweak to get around the fact that the lights come on and go off around 10%?
Is there a wiki for this board or a place that will shows the pinout?
This stuff is so cool, thanks for all the hard work!

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Joe,

Any of the software will work with your board, there isn't yet software that takes advantage of the 1.0 hardware changes.

No software (or hardware) tweak will get around the 10% "shelf" in the ELN drivers.

No wiki, documentation is essentially this thread. Pinouts are generally right in the silk on the board so they should be easy to figure out.

 

[joelatx]

Is there a way to pull software off a board? I don't want to over-write the stuff on the board without a way back? Or is it something I shouldn't worry about?
I think it was v0.1 alpha, but I just checked the Boost website and they have:
// Typhon firmware
// v0.2 alpha 2010-23-11
Are the tweaks with the newer sketch worth the update?

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

There is no way to pull software off an AVR. In theory, assuming your board has a socketed AVR instead of one soldered down, you could pull your AVR out and tuck it away somewhere, then slap a new one on the board. They're only like $5. Then you'd have a "backup."

If you have questions about software provided by a vendor I would suggest asking them directly, this thread is not intended for support of commercial products.

 

[joelatx]

If there is an advantage, I want to move away from their sketch, to yours.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

It's hard to say because I'm not familiar with their software.

I am working with a developer on a totally new firmware rewritten from the ground up, to be more stable (with respect to EEPROM) and more extensible. This will be the 1.0 release of the core firmware. But we're likely a ways away from a release.

 

[Bens_Reef]

i have been researching the Arduino set up for my LED lights but still am quite confused on where i need to start, if someone could point me in the right direction on how to retrofit my current LED system to be dimable and programmable. i do have some experiance in programming and electronics

 

[TheFishMan65]

What are your current drivers?

 

[Bens_Reef]

What are your current drivers?

i accually started a new thread here http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2101827 to try and cover what i want/need to do

 

[mmakay]

Are there any plans to update the code to be Arduino IDE 1.0 compatible? Or, are we better off just sticking with IDE 022 for the time being?

It's not clear to me all that has been updated. Wire.h has some syntax updates and EEPROMVar.h looks to be badly broken when used with 1.0.

-Mickey

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

A "stable" release of the firmware is underway right now, date to be determined. It'll do away with that EEPROM library, so that'll be solved at least.