evilc66 Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 Looking sweet. Need more! Link to comment
thedoogan Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 WOW, that is epic. Nice job. Link to comment
DarkDevil Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 looking good, keep going! Link to comment
coolwaters Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 where did u get that controller? is the numbers after the colors the mA value? Link to comment
NanoReefGuy Posted October 16, 2008 Author Share Posted October 16, 2008 Thanks for the encouragement. Now I need the rest of the LEDs to arrive... CW The controller is a home brew. Its based around a Stamp Stack. I wrote the program for is in STAMP BASIC. The numbers following blue & white are 0-255 representing the relative brightness level. I am using a 8 bit digital potentiometer to make a voltage divider that feeds an analog signal into the buckpucks for the brightness level. There is one for the white & one for the blue LED strings. Great idea to make these read in mA! I could whip up some code for that in a flash Or maybe it may be better to have a number from 0 to 100% What do you guys think? The plan is to have this controller also run the fans based on the temperature of the heat sink. evil I almost changed plans when I saw your post on using an Arduino controller. The guys who I bought my STAMP from also have a $26 kit for a Freeduino clone of the Arduino. I have used Atmel AVR controllers in lots of other projects. Maybe for a version 2 controller I will make a change. I'll work on getting version 1 running first Cheers NRG Link to comment
evilc66 Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 Doesn't matter what platfor you use, as long as it gets the job done right? I ordered my Arduino kit today. Looking forward to playing around with that. For the display, I would do a 0-100% setup over mA. It's a little more easily reconizable. One thing I forgot to mention earlier, you might want to clean off the flux from those solder joints. It will corrode eventually. Use a little isopropyl alcohol to get it off. Link to comment
DarkDevil Posted October 16, 2008 Share Posted October 16, 2008 Stamp is good, but it's expensive, slow, and no assembly functions iirc, but no need to switch to another if it work good for you. Especially for a small project with only a couple sensors, stamp is more then enough. you can use acetone to clean the flux also, I use brake cleaner coz I can just spray it on, wipe excess, and wait for it to dry. then I spray a thin confontal coating on mine to prevent further corrosion. Link to comment
NanoReefGuy Posted October 16, 2008 Author Share Posted October 16, 2008 Thanks After thinking about it I suspect the 0-100% is probably the way to go. It also takes away the dependance on knowing the current limits of each LED array. Good catch about removing the flux. Actually its water soluable so I can brush it off with a damp toothbrush. Is there any interest in collaborating on a design for controllers, current drivers, or boards? Maybe we can put together a "standard" approach so that others could follow more easily? Group buying power may reduce the cost per lumen Let me know if any of the other LED types are interested. I think that the Arduino platform may be very capable as an aquarium controller. Cheers NRG Link to comment
evilc66 Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 It's funny you mention that. I was just thinking today that if I get the controller all squared away, I'd release the code open source and let people play and evolve it. Could be a pretty cool idea. Imagine the possibilities with a bunch of coders working on this. Link to comment
Zombo Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 You guys are totally out of my league now, so with that said, I will be doing no more LED dabbling. Link to comment
NanoReefGuy Posted October 17, 2008 Author Share Posted October 17, 2008 How about we start a seperate thread to try and laydown the design features for a controller? I can help with the hardware design and do some simple programming. Not quick, but I can certainly help. I think that if we can come up with a decent hardware platform that more of us use we can probably develop things faster & probably better. I think the idea of releasing some open source code should go with the a reference hardware design. I was thinking that we could put together a typical design for others to leverage. Here is the last board that I designed. Its a 4x4" data logger. Clock, Flash memory, i/o extender, reference voltages, 8 channels analog input, and serial connectivity. This is one of the boards that I didn't finish building. Cheers NRG Link to comment
evilc66 Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 That sounds like a strong possibility NRG. We have to make sure that the hardware can be reporduced cheaply and easily. If we can keep the costs under $100 I think it would be a viable solution. Zombo, keep doing what you are doing. Without guys like you building LED fixtures, there would be no point to what we are talking about. I still think you have done one of the cleanest retros going right now. This is just taking things to the next level for everyone. Is it a requirement to have a controller like this for your LEDs? No, but it sure is cool. Link to comment
DarkDevil Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 sorry NRG, off topic and clump up your thread a bit. I just want to point out, if we are going to do a controller of sometype, I hope we can use basic PIC chip of anysort. Using proto boards like adruio or similar will only add cost to the project, unless it's really powerful and got all the functions that we need built in already. Don't forget, if you finallize the cost, like adding probes, BNC connectors, and the rest of the things, it will be similar if not more then the controller on the market. Just a thought, now back to the topic. Link to comment
evilc66 Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Well, sounds like we are on the same page here, but I think we should leave this discussion for another thread. Link to comment
NanoReefGuy Posted October 31, 2008 Author Share Posted October 31, 2008 Wahoo Great news. The order for LEDs arrived today from luxeonstar! I see a big weekend of soldering parts together coming up Looking forward to trying out some of the 3 Rebel stars that they luxeonstar sells. Also splurged to buy a few of the single emitter Rebel squares to try out. Details to follow. Too bad its Halloween and I have to man the door for the kids in the neighbourhood Must resist candy bowl... it calls my name... resistance in futile. Happy Halloween NRG Link to comment
evilc66 Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 Screw the kids. It just rots their teeth! Get cracking! Nice banner huh? Psychographic did an excellent job with that one. Edit: just realized that every post on this page has it Link to comment
NanoReefGuy Posted November 2, 2008 Author Share Posted November 2, 2008 Hi All A quick update after a day of soldering and putting together LEDs. One thing is that I have had problems with a couple of the Cree LEDs. The lens has fallen off a couple of the Blue LEDs. I was really careful about soldering temperature & time so I am suspicious that this may have been a problem when the LEDs were reflowed onto the stars. Have any of you had this problem? I tried some of the GK Technik stars. They were easy to solder the Rebels onto and they come preset to have all LEDs wired together in series. Here's a photo for reference. And finally here is how far I got putting things together. 32 LEDs installed and 16 to go Hopefully I can finish installing LEDs tomorrow and get working on the controller. Cheers NRG Link to comment
PurpleGORILLA Posted November 10, 2008 Share Posted November 10, 2008 Any updates on the progress? Pics would help. I have a BC 29 that I would like to do the same. Appreciated if you can post links to where you get the supplies for the low. Link to comment
Zombo Posted November 18, 2008 Share Posted November 18, 2008 Yeah, updates! "CHOP CHOP!" -- evilc66 Link to comment
NanoReefGuy Posted November 19, 2008 Author Share Posted November 19, 2008 Hmm A week in Mexico seems to have slowed me down quite a bit I have been putting together a strip board to connect the Buckpucks & basic Stamp. Still waiting for a few replacment blue LEDs to replace the ones where the lens popped off. Cheers NRG Link to comment
evilc66 Posted November 19, 2008 Share Posted November 19, 2008 I had a few do that too. Thought it was one of my cats that did it. The cheap Cree blues from KD/DX work suprisingly well. Link to comment
Marteen Posted November 20, 2008 Share Posted November 20, 2008 I'm hopping on this thread! I'm really interested in doing this same mod, I really like the look of the BC29 hood, but halides and PC's get really hot. I'd like to do this upgrade in a year when bulb replacement comes around. How much do you think this build has run you? Where did you get the extra hood? Damn I forgot to enable email notification. Link to comment
NanoReefGuy Posted November 21, 2008 Author Share Posted November 21, 2008 Hi Marteen I probably paid too much All in I'm over $600, but If I were doing it again I think could do it for less. I picked the hood up from my LFS. I think they had a spare because a tank broke. Cheers NRG Link to comment
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