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

[JarekS]

So, how hard is to attach simple temp sensor to typhoon to monitor temperature on one heat sink ? I need a wat to see how hot it gets inside enclosed hood with stock fans running. I'd appreciate any help

 

[jpguppy]

If anyone wants a Typhon board (V0.3- w/A3 pin on the left side) PM me. I have 4 available.

 

[Spuzzum]

So, how hard is to attach simple temp sensor to typhoon to monitor temperature on one heat sink ? I need a wat to see how hot it gets inside enclosed hood with stock fans running. I'd appreciate any help

Here's what I found for a single sensor.

And this is how I did 3 sensors. But note..

That red jumper should be connected to ground, not vcc.. buddy pointed that out to me just from the picture.

This post had the schematic for multiple sensors
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=19749657&postcount=897

It was pretty easy actually. Just look at my script, and see where the temp stuff was added, and you can see what needs changing. I just did a simple c/p from another script out there

 

[Spuzzum]

Here's an excellent example script for using the ADC keys.. it's too big to post

They're the same script.. I just c/p'd one into windows notepad in case someone has trouble reading the pde file.


Sorry.. can't remember where I got it from.

 

[JarekS]

Here's what I found for a single sensor.

And this is how I did 3 sensors. But note..

That red jumper should be connected to ground, not vcc.. buddy pointed that out to me just from the picture.

This post had the schematic for multiple sensors
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=19749657&postcount=897

It was pretty easy actually. Just look at my script, and see where the temp stuff was added, and you can see what needs changing. I just did a simple c/p from another script out there

Thanks Spuzzum, but im a little slow when it comes to this stuff, (assembled original typhoon and now just finished LED and it all works!) however, modifications like this were not on the master "plan"
How does the ds1820 actually connect to the heatsink?
And where is pin 3? would it be i2c pin on the board?
Also my display is not as big , only space is on the right side of the time display.
Eventually i'd love to one or two relays to control fans, but one thing at the time

jarek

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Jarek,

"pin 3" is the analog input pin that was liberated in version 1.0 of the hardware. If you do not have 1.0, you can set up your one wire network on one of the serial port pins, you'll just have to update the sketch to use that pin instead.

The DS1820 reports it's own temperature, so if you want it to report the temperature of a specific thing or a specific environment, just put it there! If you want it to report a heatsink temperature, glue it to the heatsink with a dab of thermal epoxy. Just make sure the pins and wires don't contact the heatsink or it'll short out.

Anyone who is new to this sort of thing and thinking about these sorts of expansions should probably get a "normal" arduino (or an RBBB if you're on a budget) and play with whatever the new component is on it's own, before trying to integrate into the Typhon. This will give you a solid foundation and help you understand how things function, which can be invaluable when integrating components.

 

[JarekS]

Jarek,

"pin 3" is the analog input pin that was liberated in version 1.0 of the hardware. If you do not have 1.0, you can set up your one wire network on one of the serial port pins, you'll just have to update the sketch to use that pin instead.

The DS1820 reports it's own temperature, so if you want it to report the temperature of a specific thing or a specific environment, just put it there! If you want it to report a heatsink temperature, glue it to the heatsink with a dab of thermal epoxy. Just make sure the pins and wires don't contact the heatsink or it'll short out.

Anyone who is new to this sort of thing and thinking about these sorts of expansions should probably get a "normal" arduino (or an RBBB if you're on a budget) and play with whatever the new component is on it's own, before trying to integrate into the Typhon. This will give you a solid foundation and help you understand how things function, which can be invaluable when integrating components.

I have of the very fist boards with inverted grd and + pins. So i assume that i dont have the pin 3 available.
Would any ardunio board do for testing or should i but a specific one that you guys recommend.
Having a two year old and a another baby soon is putting a roadblock into my "playtime" with anything. But i'll try.

DWZM did that expansion board project with moon led, temp sensor etcthat you were working on go anywhere ?

Jarek

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

For general experimentation on a budget, I like the RBBB from Modern Device. Of course if you need shield compatibility you'll have to look elsewhere. The shield-compatible clones from seeedstudio would probably be my choice then.

You can definitely experiment with a Typhon but I find that sometimes it is awkward to experiment with a board that has "extra" stuff on it.

I built the prototype for that expansion module but decided I didn't like a bunch of stuff on it. It probably works but I kinda gave up on it since I've been putting effort in to my big tank now that it's online again. If anyone is interested in taking over that effort I can send out the stuff I have to date and provide some comments on how I would change it.

 

[JarekS]

Would UNO be good for testing purposes or better just stick with RBBB?

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Depends. UNO has onboard USB, RBBB doesn't - but since the Typhon and Hydra don't either you're gonna need a USB-TTL breakout sooner or later.

UNO is shield compatible, the RBBB isn't. Not a big deal for these projects though.

 

[JarekS]

Ah already haveUSB-TRL , so RBBB than, thanks so much

 

[Spuzzum]

shark boy brought something to my attention... I needed to modify the script for "my" linux box, so if you're trying to compile "my" version of Typhon, then you'll need to edit a few lines back to what they originally were...

Use the "search" function and find:

// create the buttons
Button btnMenu     = Button(12,BUTTON_PULLDOWN);
Button btnSelect   = Button(13,BUTTON_PULLDOWN);
Button btnPlus     = Button(14,BUTTON_PULLDOWN);
Button btnMinus    = Button(15,BUTTON_PULLDOWN);

and change back to:

// create the buttons
Button btnMenu     = Button(12,PULLDOWN);
Button btnSelect   = Button(13,PULLDOWN);
Button btnPlus     = Button(14,PULLDOWN);
Button btnMinus    = Button(15,PULLDOWN);

It would error out on me if I didn't change to BUTTON_PULLDOWN.


And just to make it easier.. here's the pinout I'm using...

I also noticed that the sketch I uploaded actually needs the 6th channel activated in the menu still, as well as uncommented to activate the channel in the eeprom setup of the script.

If anybody needs it, I can upload it later.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Given some other threads that have been floating around, I want to mention here that there are people having trouble getting this controller to work with some of the larger meanwell drivers, i.e. LPF and HLG series. Some people are reporting these drivers working fine, others are clearly having problems related to the signal format the Typhon is generating.

Unless you can get exact hard confirmation that the Typhon actually works with a SPECIFIC driver from one of these product lines, I would suggest proceeding with caution.

 

[davidpesce]

shark boy brought something to my attention... I needed to modify the script for "my" linux box, so if you're trying to compile "my" version of Typhon, then you'll need to edit a few lines back to what they originally were...

Spuzzum - if you have to modify the code like this, you are just running and older version of the Button library. If you update to the latest version, it will work.

 

[davidpesce]

Just an FYI for new people trying to upload the current software to their typhon... if you are using Arduino 22 or before, make sure you download the correct version of the Button library.

Those of you using Arduino 1.0... I'm still working out a few bugs but hope to have the original code modified and back to dwzm so he can post it.

 

[KRavEN]

I was searching about for some PT4115 chip ideas since I have about 20 of the dealextreme drivers on-hand and found these:

https://github.com/danheidel/Big-LED-Controller-Board
https://github.com/danheidel/PT4115-Breakout

The Big LED Controller Board looks very interesting and similar to Typhon since it has the drivers onboard.

I couldn't find any blog or forum posts about Dan's projects but it looks to me like the breakout is a 3 channel PT4115 based driver controlled by a PIC. Second looks to by atmega controlled and PT4115 drivers but couldn't tell if it had LCD support, temp, RTC, etc...

 

[Spuzzum]

Spuzzum - if you have to modify the code like this, you are just running and older version of the Button library. If you update to the latest version, it will work.

Thanks davidpesce.. I had grabbed all the latest libraries, but my compiler environment's in linux.. thinking that's the issue. My version of Arduino is 0023, and my Button Library is dated Dec. 07, 2011.

Using just "PULLDOWN" would continually error out, so I looked at the "Button.cpp".

/*
|| @description
|| | Set pin LOW as default
|| #
*/
void Button::pulldown(void)
{
  mode = BUTTON_PULLDOWN;
}

I saw the "BUTTON_PULLDOWN", so tried it.. it worked. As I say, I chalk it up to the linux environment.. it's not as forgiving. But more than likely, the base system libraries for the compilers is the culprit. This isn't the first script that was written in Windows, that needed slight alterations to compile in linux.

 

[JarekS]

Question for the smart folks here. Would this relay work with typhoon to turn on fans?
http://shop.moderndevice.com/products/relay-plug
And than another question that just popped into my head. I'm using two (pin 1 and 2) 10v pins for dimming, i'm not really sure if this is possible, but is there a simple relay that would sense that there is voltage on the same pins 1 and 2 on the 5 volt side and close to turn on fan? That way there is no programing needed or anything. That way if the lights on pin 1 are on than the fan is on (pin 1 is turned on 30 min earlier than pin 2)
Thanks for any insigts

Jarek

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Question for the smart folks here. Would this relay work with typhoon to turn on fans?
http://shop.moderndevice.com/products/relay-plug
And than another question that just popped into my head. I'm using two (pin 1 and 2) 10v pins for dimming, i'm not really sure if this is possible, but is there a simple relay that would sense that there is voltage on the same pins 1 and 2 on the 5 volt side and close to turn on fan? That way there is no programing needed or anything. That way if the lights on pin 1 are on than the fan is on (pin 1 is turned on 30 min earlier than pin 2)
Thanks for any insigts

Jarek

I'm not sure about that relay board. It looks like it's designed to work with the jee plugs, which are more or less compatible with Arduino hardware but only if you have the required pins available. It looks like it works on the single digital and analog pins on the jee plug, which you could hack to two free PWM pins if you're only using two.

On your second question - that won't work. The 5v pins will have a PWM signal on them, so at partial dimming settings (anything less than 100%) you'll fry the relays by slamming them on and off at 400hz.

 

[mm.reefs]

I'm not sure about that relay board. It looks like it's designed to work with the jee plugs, which are more or less compatible with Arduino hardware but only if you have the required pins available. It looks like it works on the single digital and analog pins on the jee plug, which you could hack to two free PWM pins if you're only using two.

On your second question - that won't work. The 5v pins will have a PWM signal on them, so at partial dimming settings (anything less than 100%) you'll fry the relays by slamming them on and off at 400hz.

Jarek mentioned he is using channels 1 and 2 for dimming, so if he is not using channel 3 or 4, he can hook one of these to one of the mentioned 5v relays, making sure he use the 5v output and setting fade to cero to avoid PWM.