Since there are at least a few people with these in-hand or in-construction, I wanted to add a few quick notes about actual use.
First, a photo. Excuse the fact that there are missing components and other "issues" as this was an early prototype I was messing around with. It's also important to note that this is from the first run of boards - the files uploaded have some silkscreen text fixes I'll point out below.
This is the Typhon without the LCD plugged in, so you can see the guts. There are 4 areas of interest with red numbers:
1) The DC power jack. You need a 12 - 18v (plus or minus) wall wart with a 2.1mm center positive plug. This is a very common plug so it should be easy to find.
2) The FTDI programming header. This is a header you'd plug an external TTL serial-USB converter in to, i.e. an FTDI cable or breakout board, to upload new firmware. If you don't intend on changing the firmware code, you can ignore this once the unit has been initially programmed. If you are plugging something in here to program, make sure you check polarity - for some common FTDI breakouts, the header is "upside down" - for example, to use my USB-BUB, I plug it in with the components on the USB-BUB facing down. No biggie, just make sure yours is plugged in correctly before use by looking at the order of the pinout.
3) The output header. This is a 2-row 90 degree header for connecting your LED drivers. There are actually two 4-pair headers right next to each other, depending on if you're using 5v or 10v outputs. The bottom 4, populated in this photo, are for 10v PWM outputs (i.e. meanwell ELN drivers). The top four, not populated, are for 5v outputs (i.e. buckpucks or most DIY drivers). You only need to populate the four you'll actually be using, no sense wasting headers if you'll never need them. It's VERY IMPORTANT to get polarity correct here, and this is where the silkscreen was corrected. In this 1st-run prototype board, the silk labels - down below the pins on the empty section of board - are BACKWARDS. If you look at the header from the side of the board, the ground pins are the TOP of each pair, and the signal (positive) pins are the BOTTOM of each pair. These are standard .1" male headers I used on this board, so you can use any common square pin .1" female connector - so called "header connectors" or even bits of female headers, or whatever your preference is. These are very common at hobby electronics vendors, and at hobby shops that deal in R/C hobbies, since R/C receivers use .1" connectors, too.
As mentioned elsewhere, the intent of this device is to control 4 channels of lighting - so there are 4 pairs of connections in these headers, numbered 1-4, from bottom to top. Each of these is a "channel" and can control many drivers - so if you had 8 meanwells, you could put two on each channel, or one each on the first three channels and then 5 on the 4th channel - and so on. Each channel can handle a few hundred mA of current, which should be more than any of us ever needs.
4) The buttons. Will be explained below.
There are some other areas of interest not labeled here. First, the long header in the upper left is a 16-pin header to connect an LCD - the board is designed for a 16x2 LCD which is pretty common, and is what's shown in the photos earlier in this thread. The little blue box between that header and the DC power jack is a trimpot to adjust contrast on the LCD. Brightness on the LCD is controlled by a PWM pin that the firmware manages.
To the right of the FTDI header is a 4 pin header not populated in this photo. This is an I2C header, intended for eventual expansion - i.e. if someone wanted to use this controller to monitor temperature or pH, all you'd have to do is design an I2C-based sensor and plug it in there. Or you could do a relay board to have the unit turn things on and off. The possibilities are pretty endless as there are lots of I2C devices out there. It's not populated in this photo because unless someone is going to go develop an expansion module, there's really no use for this header at this time.
In the middle of the board is the backup battery for the real time clock. This allows the device to retain time and date when it's unplugged. This battery should, in theory, last for years of unplugged use, and infinitely if the device is plugged in, so you should never need to change it. And FWIW, the firmware stores configuration variables (settings for the LEDs) in EEPROM, so it retains your configuration when the power goes out - no "blinking 12:00" with this device!
There are 4 holes in the board to allow for mounting. They line up with holes in the corners of most 16x2 LCDs. The holes in the board will allow for M3 or M2.5 threaded fasteners (bolts, standoffs, etc). Most LCDs have M2.5 holes. So, you could put standoffs between the Typhon board and the LCD, or use long through-bolts with spacers to mount the whole thing to a panel under your tank, or in a project box, or whatever else you wanted to do.
On to use. Keep in mind that this description is for the default firmware I've developed - people can write their own firmware to behave however they want.
When the device is powered up, it displays a welcome message, then defaults to a main screen that shows the time and the percentage that each of the 4 channels is currently running at. This gives you a quick status of the unit. After a set amount of time, the backlight on the LCD drops down to a dim setting so that the light given off by the unit won't be obtrusive. When you use the buttons to operate the unit, the backlight jumps back up so you can see what you're doing.
There are four buttons: menu, select, plus, and minus. Menu is used to cycle through the setting menus for the device. Select is currently not used, it's basically there to allow for future expansion. Plus and minus adjust the setting for whichever screen you're on.
So, to configure the device, you push menu to cycle through the various menus, and plus or minus to adjust the settings displayed. For each of the 4 channels, there are 4 settings:
1) Start time - time the lights turn on.
2) End time - time the lights turn off.
3) Fade duration - minutes/hours it takes for the LEDs to fade from zero to full power and vice-versa.
4) Max intensity - percentage of max power that the drivers hit when full-on.
So, basically, at the start time, the LEDs turn on and begin to fade up towards the max intensity percentage, which they reach after the fade duration has elapsed. Then, in the evening, the reverse process happens.
Besides those screens to set up the LED channels, there are screens to adjust the hours and minutes for the time setting on the unit.
That should be about it!
