Reef Daylight Controller V3

[willp2]

Well my obsession with a simple LED daylight controller continues. My previous efforts at building a simple daylight controller worked well however I wanted better build quality and more options. So I took my earlier designs and combined them into one controller that can be used a number of ways.

 

This new version is a dimmer, daylight controller and driver for up to 24 X 3W 700mA LEDs. Additionally I added the ability to use it with other external drivers that take either a 5V or 10V PWM dimming source. The idea there is that I can build it to drive the LED’s on my nano then use the same controller to be a dimming source on that 100G I want to move into. I can also build it as a controller only for systems I've already retro'ed. And in fact I can use the same controller to do both at the same time. So that means I can have two or more tanks with the daylight cycle synchronized!

 

Once I had the design where I wanted it I wanted something cleaner than my previous wire wrap boards so I had a few PC Boards made. First PC board I’ve ever had produced so I was pleasantly surprised at how well they turned out and that I didn’t make any mistakes in the design so everything works with no modification to the board.

 

 

If you’re not familiar with my previous versions, one of my main design concepts was to keep it simple. I wanted versatility but I’m not going after an end all. I tried building a model with a real time clock, LED screen, input buttons etc. But I found that overly complex for what I wanted.

 

I just want to set the brightness with a knob, give some parameters for how long I want it to run, how it should ramp up and ramp down and what kind of delay should there be between the different colors on the ramp up and ramp down. For that much control I decided to just use pots for the brightness controls and a dip switch to set all the timing parameters.

 

Here’s the top of the board

 

 

Pots mounted to bottom

 

 

Here’s my complete unit working right now

 

 

And for reference here is an older video I put together showing the kind of control I’m talking about.

 

Daylight Cycle Test – Previous controller

 

Now unrelated to the controller is the LED fixture retro itself which I detailed here

 

I’ve reworked this setup several times doing different things with controllers and driver combos. In the end it got to be a huge mess inside the hood. I had everything stuffed in the hood, drivers, power supplies etc. Every inch of space was used by something.

 

 

Here's the before

 

So now with the new setup everything is in the one controller box so I was able to pull everything out and clean it up a lot. Basically I’m just making wire connections to the various components. I still loose style points for all the mismatched wire on LED’s themselves, but I wasn’t willing to rewire the whole thing to just to make it pretty as I know I'll be back in there again soon.

 

Here's the after

 

The LED’s have been great. They are the same high output SemiLED’s I used in earlier builds. These are the older versions, more recently I’ve been getting some different color temps, some higher power Bridgelux LEDs (10W, 30W and 50W) and am doing some testing with those units. Most interesting lately is that I can now get these 3W SemiLEDs with a 60 degree viewing angle. That’s with no optics installed. They are getting tons of PAR to the sand and very efficiently.

 

If there's interest I'll put together a video explaining how it works in more detail.

 

***** EDIT *****

Had a few people ask to see more about how this thing worked. So here's a video that shows more about it.

 

When I show the cycle at the end, thats simulating over 90 seconds what would normally run over a full day. In this case I do the ramp up / down in 30 seconds each. The ramp up / down doesn't show so well on the camera as its trying to compensate for the brightness changes. In practice, I get a nice gradual change where everytime I look at the tank during the ramp up / down it looks a little different. The change is subtle and happens over time.

 

In regular use I'm currently running a 30 minute ramp up and a 90 minute ramp down on my regular cycle. Click the pic to see the video if interested.

 

 

Daylight controller - link to video

 

 

Thanks

[herranton]

This thing looks awesome!

[Mini-Dude]

This thing looks awesome!

this

[herranton]

More info needed. It appears to be arduino based, is that correct? Is the DBxx connector used for powering the leds?

 

[edit]

If it is arduino based, can you use all 6 pwms? Will you release a BOM and eagle files?

 

[edit2]

the video is awesome

[willp2]

More info needed. It appears to be arduino based, is that correct? Is the DBxx connector used for powering the leds?

Yes, using an Arduino Pro Mini for the controller. A DB9 for LED power and a standard stereo headphone jack for PWM output to other devices.The toggle switch is to switch between straight PWM to the daylight cycle. And finally a DIP switch sets timing and picks between 5V and 10V PWM output.

[herranton]

Yes, using an Arduino Pro Mini for the controller. A DB9 for LED power and a standard stereo headphone jack for PWM output to other devices.The toggle switch is to switch between straight PWM to the daylight cycle. And finally a DIP switch sets timing and picks between 5V and 10V PWM output.

Sorry for all the questions.

 

Is the db9 cable a thick enough gauge to carry the power to the leds.

 

I am guessing that the caps and whatnot near the bottom of the board are for the switching between 5-10v?

 

Did you deal with the buckpuck wanting a "backwards" signal issue?

[willp2]

Sorry for all the questions.

 

Is the db9 cable a thick enough gauge to carry the power to the leds.

 

I am guessing that the caps and whatnot near the bottom of the board are for the switching between 5-10v?

 

Did you deal with the buckpuck wanting a "backwards" signal issue?

No problem on the questions. I'm pretty obsessed with this stuff and have an unreal amount of time into thi, so it's all good to me.

 

The black IC in the middle of the board is handling the 5V-10V. The caps are mostly just to clean up the power.

 

I'm using a 22 awg db9 cable right now and that’s plenty big for this much current and means little signal loss over the cable length. I think 24 or even 26 awg would work OK. During testing I actually ran for a few days with a 30 awg wire and it worked fine, but I won’t do that in regular use.

 

Not sure what you mean by “buckpuck wanting” or a backwards signal, so I can’t really comment on that yet.

[herranton]

Not sure what you mean by “buckpuck wanting” or a backwards signal, so I can’t really comment on that yet.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

 

By backwards, I mean that buckpucks are full on at a 0v signal and completely off at 5v.

 

I am planning on building one of the 'Typhon' controllers that DWZM over at RC designed. I have all the parts except for the boards. I might get around to ordering those tonight, but this weekend for sure. Eventually, I would like to design shield that would allow the Typhon to put out a 5-10v signal in pwm or analog and also invert the voltage for the buckpucks. Or just redesign the thing to have it all on one board. This might be a more optimal solution because I could intigrate a fan controller(for the lights) and utilize all 6 pwm outputs that the arduino has. I still have ton to learn though.

 

I look forward to seeing the build thread for this thing.

[willp2]

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

 

By backwards, I mean that buckpucks are full on at a 0v signal and completely off at 5v.

 

I am planning on building one of the 'Typhon' controllers that DWZM over at RC designed. I have all the parts except for the boards. I might get around to ordering those tonight, but this weekend for sure. Eventually, I would like to design shield that would allow the Typhon to put out a 5-10v signal in pwm or analog and also invert the voltage for the buckpucks. Or just redesign the thing to have it all on one board. This might be a more optimal solution because I could intigrate a fan controller(for the lights) and utilize all 6 pwm outputs that the arduino has. I still have ton to learn though.

 

I look forward to seeing the build thread for this thing.

Sounds like a very cool project.

 

From what you are describing on the reverse voltage thing, I suppose if you just turn the pots the other direction to get the results you are talking about. So all the way clockwise is 5V or 10V / off and all the way the other direction is 0V or full power.

[willp2]

Had a few people ask to see more about how this thing worked. So here's a video that shows more about it.

 

When I show the cycle at the end, thats simulating over 90 seconds what would normally run over a full day. In this case I do the ramp up / down in 30 seconds each. The ramp up / down doesn't show so well on the camera as its trying to compensate for the brightness changes. In practice, I get a nice gradual change where everytime I look at the tank during the ramp up / down it looks a little different. The change is subtle and happens over time.

 

In regular use I'm currently running a 30 minute ramp up and a 90 minute ramp down on my regular cycle. Click the pic to see the video if interested.

 

 

Daylight controller - link to video