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Coral Vue Hydros

New controller project: Robo-Tank build


Benny314

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So I built 3 LED arrays the other year for my upgraded tank. While designing and building them I was looking into the best way to control that many arrays and LEDs.

The solution I settled on was some form of arduino. After looking into what was about I got some bits together and built a Jarduino based controller using the modified 5/7 inch screen code available.

 

I was intending on adding functions and features to the code as I went, however this proved harder than I first anticipated/had time for and it's sort of ticked over doing basic lighting and temperature control. The modified version for the bigger screens has also proved to have some glitches which have become increasingly prevalent over the year it's been running and I haven't had the time to weed them out.

 

Then late last year I stumbled on Robo-Tank.ca and thought hummmmm need to get me some of that.

Well just before Christmas I was finally able to pull the trigger on a DIY kit and I got my hands on it Saturday (not before having to pay UK border forces for tax and handling charges, money grabbing SOB's).

 

I ordered the basic DIY kit that needs assembling (I'm quite handy with a soldering iron and like a little project). Rob did kindly soldered some components I don't have the kit to solder.

 

Given the way Robo-Tank is designed and how helpful Rob is, I'm hoping I will get to add extra little features to this controller that I never got round to with the Jarduino, but even if I don't, Robo-Tank already comes able to control dosing pumps (something I wanted to do with the Jarduino) as well as 16 LED channels which will allow me to have control over all 3 of my arrays independent of one another.

 

Goodies!

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Oh yeah, some idiot spilt perfumed oil or something on the box and it smells a bit like cookies.

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Never mind the oil never made it though the box to the important stuff inside.

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Let the soldering begin, I even went as far as putting a new tip on my soldering iron and everything..........

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Rob's done all the hard work and produced these great PCBs that can be used plug and play or tinkered with/hacked or expanded with anything you can think of pretty much.

Rob's mission with Robo-Tank seems to be everything I wanted to incorporate in what I was doing with the Jarduino. I needed something to base my project on as writing code from scratch is a bit beyond me, but Jarduino all though a great code for basic control, isn't that easy to modify and tinker with (at least with my completely novice C++ code skills) and is limited by the use of a single AT Mega 2560 board. Rob's done an amazing job to incorporate expandability into the design of Robo-Tank so you don't have to constantly pull your stack of project boards off the arduino to change something. Using both a Mega and a Due Rob seems to have made a very fast UI.

I'm really looking forward to having this all together to start customizing the UI etc.

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We have progress!

 

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Got the power bar done today, damn some of those surface mount resistors and LEDs are small. I stole some power from the supply to my fans on the current controller to see what happened. The tiny LED lit up so looks like I soldered the bits on the right way.

 

Looks like I'm going to get it all together and be stuck waiting for my arduino's. Only got them ordered last week so it'll probably be the start of Feb before I see them.

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So everything is together. Yay!

 

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Just waiting on the arduino's to arrive (come on china post!) and we can start playing.

When I plugged 12v into it all the power LEDs lit on all 3 boards so I'm sure I've soldered most of the stuff on right hahahaha.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is very cool. If I didn't have the Apex and was already elbows deep in projects. Keep us updated!

 

Will do.

My arduinos showed up Monday, I've started trying to get code on them. Hit a little snag with the DUE not taking the main sketch and haven't had time to do anything with it yet. Think I just need to reset the board before upload but not got to it today.

Pictures to follow once I get life into it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hopefully. Got a few teething issues with the screen I have. It was a sainsmart one I had lying around, but sainsmart stuff is twitchy. I have it spare as they sent me a second one as the 1 I'd ordered wasn't working to start with.

Looking forward to getting this bad boy up and running.

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  • 1 month later...
Aqua Lab Aquaria

Very curious to hear how your reef robo-tank is going. We are about to get the full kit to tinker with here at Aqua Lab!

 

Kent

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Hi all,

 

Nice to see some interest.

Still some what stalled due to life getting in the way lol, literally had a replacement screen show up today, not had time to re-flash the DUE to see if this screen has fixed my issues I was having.

The problems have been I have no touch with the sainsmart screen and after a period of time the screen would get static blocks appear on it eventually covering the entire display, sometimes it would happen as soon as I powered up the boards, other times it would be 3 or 4 minutes. Think it's all down to a bad screen, the consensus seems to be sainsmart = PITA.

 

Updates soon I hope, my current controller suddenly stopped sending PWM signal from pin 9 which was controlling my blues the other week and again I haven't had time to get into it and re-flash that mega and with Robo-Tank waiting in the wings I haven't really been motivated to fix the old just before the new comes so my blue channel is currently tied to my white channel so I have lighting lol.

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nice to see this is still going.

I am doing some raspberry pi project for room automation and control at the university. maybe after it is finished I will modify it to control my tank ;)

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Sort of found arduino first and there seems to be loads more 3rd party hardware for dirt cheap if you don't mind waiting for stuff to ship from china.

Still battling screen issues I just don't have the time to sit down uninterrupted and get into it at the minute. The hazards of having a 1 year old lol.

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  • 1 month later...

My husband is a software engineer and wants something different than the apex to control our tank. He was not impressed with the "code" apex uses. Example:

 

Me: I need help

Husband: *after five minutes of looking things over* THIS MAKES NO SENSE. THIS ISN'T REAL CODE.

 

He's been playing with a RPi I got him for his birthday, but this is definitely something else to look into. I/we will be following

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Currently stalled by the programming port falling off my DUE lol. Waiting for a new one to arrive. Will update when I started getting somewhere.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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