jedimasterben's Nano Box Reef ATI Sunpower Retrofit

[jedimasterben]

So now that I’ve had my NBR ATI Sunpower retro up and running for a good while now, I wanted to do a writeup going over what I did, how I did it, and why I chose to do it.

The Plan

This build was several months in the making. Dave and I first starting talking about it late September, me wanting a custom array using warm white, lime, royal blue, blue, cyan, and violet. After some discussion back and forth for a little while, Dave came to the conclusion that this was the perfect opportunity for him to not only go four channel but to also upgrade the LED choice, as well. PCB prototyping would cost the same. I was all for it since I’d get fancy boards out of it without having learn or pay for PCB design and development



Early October, Dave's supplier had nailed down the PCB and so began the long wait for them to be prototyped, the LEDs to arrive, everything be tested, then the full order of PCB to arrive and all the LEDs be mounted. This took from around October 10th until January 7th, when Dave finally had the arrays in-hand!

That time for me was spent amassing all of the parts for the build and planning every detail that I could. The plan constantly evolved, especially as far as wiring and control. The main detail was control over the two T5 ballasts. The original plan was to use a Storm X with custom programming to activate 5v relays using spare pins – one for each T5 ballast and one for fan on/off control. However, this pin control would be hard coded into the firmware – there would be no menu option for it and no way to change the time schedule without uploading new firmware to the controller, which isn’t difficult, but a pain nonetheless. I loved my Bluefish unit, but at the time there was no way for it to force output (it has since been added to the firmware to do 100% minimum dimming), and in addition I was planning to use four channels for LEDs, one for each T5, and one for the fans, so seven channels were necessary, and that's where this came in. I'd imagine Dave's face when he got this was something like



Anyway, so I went back and forth for a little while with a few little changes here and there, then right around when Dave got his new arrays, he sent me some... classified info.







So, the wiring diagram changed again, and the plan continued to evolve. Since the mini only gives 3.3v output, it posed a bit of a problem when it came to working with relays or the fan control circuit that O2surplus made on my LDD boards. I wasn’t sure if the BF mini could provide enough current to be able to trigger them properly, being limited to a maximum of 4mA per channel. Ended up that I had dribbled some solder unbeknownst to Dave on the fan control circuit and managed to destroy one of them, so now that Meanwell SCW would always send out power, so the fans would always be powered. Damn.

A little bit later, Spencer publicly revealed the BF mini and all the specifications, and O2surplus, the busy bee he is, decided to design a custom LDD/SCW board that the Mini would mount directly to, be powered by it, and have direct access to the LDD and SCW fan outputs, in addition to being able to daisy chain the boards together. This introduced another delay to the light, so since Dave already had everything basically assembled with the old boards, I had him go ahead and ship it to me for me to finish it out when the new boards arrived.

The new plan.



Which was set to be immediately replaced by these new boards lol






The Build

In the meantime, I hung up just the guts of the Sunpower. Removed the T5 ballasts for the time being and only ran the LEDs. Hung it up with some wire (it’s surprising how strong 24AWG stranded is lol). There was an issue with one of the arrays – it was completely missing one of the white LEDs, so the two arrays that were in that series would not light. Didn’t really bother me too much, Dave was sending another array and I would just swap it out once the new boards and whatnot arrived.






















Was a little off-balance lol





Unfortunately, after a short time, another string of whites went out, leaving me with only three total white arrays out of eight. I still had plenty of output, so I wasn’t worried about that, either, but I took the arrays down and tested them and found that two of them would no longer fully light, each with at least one LED that was out. A very strange issue, but Dave came to the rescue with another pair of arrays to be swapped out when everything else arrived.

After a nice long wait due to Chinese New Year, the BF Mini LDD boards finally did arrive, but for some reason, the fan control circuits just wouldn’t work. No clue why, O2 couldn’t figure it out either. He also discovered that the boards had an error and the daisy chain control wouldn’t work properly, so he quickly developed a new version that not only had the error corrected, but now also includes an Arduino Nano and some additional circuitry so that the fan control output would now have 25KHz PWM control. Those boards are en-route and should be here in the next couple of days.

After getting everything situated with the Sunpower itself, I took everything apart to clean up the wiring and prepare for new LDD boards. Removed the T5 ballasts, unsoldered allllllll the wires (mother of god), and prepped to get everything rewired.

That was quite the long, arduous process, but I finally got it done over a few days. Unfortunately, as I was testing things out, I managed to drop a pair of metal tweezers onto an array, shorting out the white channel on it. THAT one was absolutely my fault, so paid Dave for yet another array that I am yet to install lol, still waiting on the new LDD boards to arrive. In the meantime, seven of the eight arrays are fully functional so I’m not all that worried (see a trend?).
















One cable going into the Sunpower.






The Results

Dave’s new arrays are the closest to ‘optimal’ as I’ve ever seen. The combination of warm white and lime gives excellent color rendition of non-fluorescent colors with the same visual punch as you’d get from a fluorescent or metal halide array, thanks to lime’s peak at 567nm and its wide spectral half-width. Every shade of color from corals, invertebrates, and fish can be seen and are accentuated. There is no compromise – reds are red, oranges are orange, purples and blues are purples and blues, and they stay that way. You won’t find your red acans shifting to orange like you will on nearly any other commercial LED array that uses low-CRI cool whites and no cyan supplementation.

One common problem with commercial LED arrays is the incessant use of smaller and smaller fixtures. They use large quantities of LEDs pushed with a high current to make a high wattage, high output array that covers only a very small area. Most will only cover an 18”x18” area with good coverage – nothing like the 36”x36” that they are claimed to cover. Most don’t seem to realize that people are not lighting a flat surface, they are lighting tanks with rockscapes and corals that grow up and towards the light to block others around them from doing so. When you have a single, small source of light, corals receive light from only that angle. As most of you know, corals exhibit the best coloration only on the side that faces the light. If your light is in the center of your tank and you spend most of your time looking at it from the front, you won’t get to truly enjoy the coloration of these expensive animals we keep.

More light is needed from more places. This is why fluorescent lighting does so well with stony corals – they emit light in every direction from every point across their entire length. This extremely diffused light gives corals even lighting across their entire surface and gives many more angles for light to bounce off of surfaces and light corals on their fronts and sides, enabling better coloration on all sides. In addition, this provides more light to the eye, which in combination with a spectral spike from mercury phosphors used in the bulbs peaking at 545nm, gives significant brightness to the eye. Only through the use of multiple rows of LEDs and the Rebel ES lime can this be fixed in LED-only setups.

My Sunpower started life as a 6x39w fixture – two lamps were removed in favor of the LED arrays, replacing 78 watts of T5HO with roughly 205w of LED. Significantly more power, but also significantly more output with similar spread.

This is the tank as I have been running it since I got the fixture hung - LED only.

















All in all, it was well worth the wait. Only thing I would change is to swap the neutral white for another standard blue. In my test arrays, there was no change in going from a warm white/lime only to warm/neutral/lime.

The past couple of days I have been experimenting with two of the four T5 bulbs, but while I like the look of the tank with the LEDs at 100% and the T5 on, with the T5 on and my LEDs at 50-60% like they normally peak at just looks a little bland using one Giesemann Actinic Blue and one Aquablue Coral. I've tried with the corresponding ATI bulbs (Coral Plus and Blue Plus) but there was no change, still the same look. I would imagine that I could get better photos with the extra light, though.

[Rehype]

Awesome write up Ben!

[metrokat]

Nice write up Benny.

[TheKleinReef]

all those picture and diagrams and thingymabobs make me want to keep my 6x39w a 6x39w. hahah.

so. much. confusion.

[knd107]

Where do I sign up for the O2 boards?!

 

Thanks for the write-up Jedi!

[DaveFason]

Thanks again Ben. This was a massive project. The unit itself needed some work too.

 

Glad all is working out.

 

-Dave

[jedimasterben]

Where do I sign up for the O2 boards?!

 

Thanks for the write-up Jedi!

Actually, these are the 'flawed' V1 boards.

 

This is V2, with an onboard Arduino Nano for proper 25KHz fan control and fixed ethernet ports for daisy chaining multiple boards.

 

 

But even this one is only temporary. A third board will enter the mix soon enough with even fancier fan control

[knd107]

Do you guys have a thread somewhere? I want to get in line for a V3 board if possible.

[jedimasterben]

Do you guys have a thread somewhere? I want to get in line for a V3 board if possible.

The V3 isn't from O2, can't say much about it for now other than it will be crazier. Soon, though

 

In the meantime, you can contact O2 on Reefcentral to get his V2. He still has some of the V1, as well.

[knd107]

The V3 isn't from O2, can't say much about it for now other than it will be crazier. Soon, though

 

In the meantime, you can contact O2 on Reefcentral to get his V2. He still has some of the V1, as well.

 

I can wait. I like fancier fan control-ability. I can just wire everything up as I was planning until its released.

[jedimasterben]

I can wait. I like fancier fan control-ability. I can just wire everything up as I was planning until its released.

I don't have an ETA on this different board, so you may be waiting a while. O2's V2 board I found out does NOT need a dedicated PWM channel, you can piggyback it off of another.

[Nano sapiens]

Very interesting and nice work. Gettng a lot closer to having LEDs emulate T5 lighting characteristics.

[gus6464]

Ben,

 

How does the board work if say you want to use 2 LDD chips for one PWM port? It has jumpers to bridge em?

[jedimasterben]

Ben,

 

How does the board work if say you want to use 2 LDD chips for one PWM port? It has jumpers to bridge em?

Yes. Once I get them I can take a couple of better photos to show that.

[gus6464]

Yes. Once I get them I can take a couple of better photos to show that.

Cool. I already contacted O2, he's sending me a V2 board as well.

[Gordan101]

Wow! i may have to play with my ati ... that is gatering dust lol shame its only a 4 tube

Would you be able to send me the eagle file for the V2 board?

[jedimasterben]

Wow! i may have to play with my ati ... that is gatering dust lol shame its only a 4 tube

Would you be able to send me the eagle file for the V2 board?

Its not mine to send, and I do not believe that Aaron will be sharing that one, a lot of work went into it. You can contact him to get a copy of the board, assembled, though. He is selling them for $30 including the Arduino.

[Gordan101]

Kk no worries the problem for me is shiiping to the uk ile send him a pm

[gus6464]

Kk no worries the problem for me is shiiping to the uk ile send him a pm

He does fantastic work. Can't even count the multiple boards I have from him including his 1600ma LDD type drivers.

[Gordan101]

Quick question is there any way to add a temp probe to the board??

[jedimasterben]

Quick question is there any way to add a temp probe to the board??

The Arduino is still an Arduino, but there is no way for it to talk to the Bluefish, and it doesn't have a display or anything like that.

[Gordan101]

I understand that it cannot talk to the bluefish i was thinking more along the lines of controlling the fans based on the highest heatsink temp and maby a safty shut off if it goes above a certain temp .... or something like that

so do you have any hints on the v3 board .... how much crazier can it get? Expresso maker ;-)

[jedimasterben]

I understand that it cannot talk to the bluefish i was thinking more along the lines of controlling the fans based on the highest heatsink temp and maby a safty shut off if it goes above a certain temp .... or something like that

so do you have any hints on the v3 board .... how much crazier can it get? Expresso maker ;-)

Actually it is more along the lines of a roomba

 

I can't really say anything about the next board (also, just an FYI, it's not a 'V3' board as in the BF mini line from O2, this is actually a different project altogether), but as soon as I am able I will spill the beans

[Gordan101]

Actually it is more along the lines of a roomba

 

I can't really say anything about the next board (also, just an FYI, it's not a 'V3' board as in the BF mini line from O2, this is actually a different project altogether), but as soon as I am able I will spill the beans

So more of a controller ............. for everything ........ i give up ... ime surprised you didn't put the ninja smiley at the end lmao

[jedimasterben]

So more of a controller ............. for everything ........ i give up ... ime surprised you didn't put the ninja smiley at the end lmao

 

 

Better?

 

Like I said, I can't really get into the specifics, but it will still use the Bluefish Mini at the heart.