evilc66 Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 The Buckpuck diagram is just a generic representation for a micro. Honestly, I don't knw why they even put it there as it has nothing to do with their connection. Quote Link to comment
sweevo Posted March 20, 2009 Author Share Posted March 20, 2009 The ATmega does have an internal 8Mhz osc (I believe) but some commands that use clock cycles, like delay and millis are effected by the change in speed. My current sketch is just a bare bones effort which uses delay and although I could maybe rework it to operate with the 8Mhz osc i'd rather go with a 16Mhz so that what code I write on the arduino is guarenteed to work when plugged into the unit i'm building. I'm planning on incorporating an LCD display, RTC and timer longer term but short term I just want the unit over my tank asap as my T5's are now long overdue. Quote Link to comment
sweevo Posted March 22, 2009 Author Share Posted March 22, 2009 3 months in the making, 3 months reserach and design, here it is!!!! Got the osciallator on friday so I had the unit completed and running on my tank by saturday lunchtime ! It's not running at full power at the moment, about 700mA on both royal blues and whites. Most if not all of my current LPS and shrooms have all receded due to the sudden change in light intensity. Hopefully in a few days they'll be back out again once they've adjusted to the new lighting regime. The overall colour temp is too blue for my own personal taste but that should change when I crank the whites up to 1000mA. If not I'll keep tweaking the blue's lower until I get the colour I want. The lighting sequence starts with the blues on only for the first 30 mins, getting brighter along the way. After 30 mins the whites kick in along with the cooling fans and both colours then get ramped up in paralell until they reach their max settings around an hour and a half (approx) later. Everything then runs for 8 hours as is after which the whites and blues slowly dim. After an hour there's only the blues left on and then 30 mins later it's lights out! Because i'm not running with a RTC at the moment the start/on times may slip backwards or forwards slightly each day but I'll be able to tweak the Arduino sketch to improve this once I know how much the start time moves each day. Other than that everything's working a treat! Once i'm 100% happy there's just the cabling to tidy up and i'm done. Here's a few pics anyway ! The optics in action. The cooling fans. The project box where all the magic happens that controls the lighting. A quick shot of the whole tank under LED's. When I get chance I do a parts breakdown of the whole system and costs etc. Quote Link to comment
evilc66 Posted March 22, 2009 Share Posted March 22, 2009 Very cool. Any chance of a front/side shot to get an idea of the spread? Corner shot makes it a little hard to see. Quote Link to comment
spark Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 Looks Great. Glad to see it above your tank! Quote Link to comment
Minadin Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 So looking good. I especially like the casing. Scott Quote Link to comment
sweevo Posted March 23, 2009 Author Share Posted March 23, 2009 Very cool. Any chance of a front/side shot to get an idea of the spread? Corner shot makes it a little hard to see. Sorry for the delay, here's the pics you asked for. Now i've got the LED's in place i'll probably aquascape some bits of my tank again to maximise exposure. Found that my sketch had bug today! After lights out last night the LED's weren't turned back on this morning due to some dodgy programming by yours truly ! Gotta reprogram the ATMega as a result so i'm going to use the opportunity to also crank the whites up to 1000mA as the heatsink and cooling are working well. Looks Great. Glad to see it above your tank! So looking good. I especially like the casing. Scott Thanks guys. Thinking of joining the party? Quote Link to comment
evilc66 Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 Can't remember, and can't find it in the last few pages, but what angle optics did you end up using? Quote Link to comment
sweevo Posted March 23, 2009 Author Share Posted March 23, 2009 Can't remember, and can't find it in the last few pages, but what angle optics did you end up using? 18 x 40's and 12 x 60's I got the 60's for the shallower areas of the tank but may spread them out a bit more longer term. Have programmed the controller just now to run the whites at 1000mA so will be interesting to see if it alters the colour temp much. When I came to remove the unit from the tank I was horrified to find that a chain of my blues were out. Ended up being a dry joint but I had to do a lot of poking around to find it. I had the thing upside down and on at full at one point while I probed about to check voltages. I now know how Spock must've felt in the Wrath of Khan !!!!!!!!! Quote Link to comment
davce99 Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 3 months in the making, 3 months reserach and design, here it is!!!! Got the osciallator on friday so I had the unit completed and running on my tank by saturday lunchtime ! It's not running at full power at the moment, about 700mA on both royal blues and whites. Most if not all of my current LPS and shrooms have all receded due to the sudden change in light intensity. Hopefully in a few days they'll be back out again once they've adjusted to the new lighting regime. The overall colour temp is too blue for my own personal taste but that should change when I crank the whites up to 1000mA. If not I'll keep tweaking the blue's lower until I get the colour I want. The lighting sequence starts with the blues on only for the first 30 mins, getting brighter along the way. After 30 mins the whites kick in along with the cooling fans and both colours then get ramped up in paralell until they reach their max settings around an hour and a half (approx) later. Everything then runs for 8 hours as is after which the whites and blues slowly dim. After an hour there's only the blues left on and then 30 mins later it's lights out! Because i'm not running with a RTC at the moment the start/on times may slip backwards or forwards slightly each day but I'll be able to tweak the Arduino sketch to improve this once I know how much the start time moves each day. Other than that everything's working a treat! Once i'm 100% happy there's just the cabling to tidy up and i'm done. Here's a few pics anyway ! The optics in action. The cooling fans. The project box where all the magic happens that controls the lighting. A quick shot of the whole tank under LED's. When I get chance I do a parts breakdown of the whole system and costs etc. Great Project can you put the schematic of youare project box where all the magic happens that controls the lighting Thanks!!! Quote Link to comment
sweevo Posted March 24, 2009 Author Share Posted March 24, 2009 (edited) Great Project can you put the schematic of youare project box where all the magic happens that controls the lighting Thanks!!! Believe it or not it's mostly in my head ! It's not too complicated or difficult to draw though so i'll try and knock you one up. I'll also post my Arduino sketch too once I know i've got it 100%. Right here's a rough breakdown of parts and costs [incl shipping). I live in the UK so i'll exchange to dollars at the end. Trust 120W DC PSU 22V/5A £30 [play.com] 12V/1A DC Power Adaptor FREE [had one already] 30 x Cree XRE LED £150 [dealextreme and cutter] 300mm x 250mm Heatsink £37 [RS Components] Acrylic Mount (custom made) £67 [RED Ltd, Ebay] PETG splash Guard for LED's £10 [4DModel Shop] 3 x 700mA Luxdrive Buckpuck £40 [Luxeonstar] 3 x 1000mA Luxdrive Buckpuck £40 [luxeonstar] Arduino Dev Board with ATMega £20 [Cool Components] Wire,components,sockets,fixings £40 [NR Bardwell , Maplin] Xilence Red Wing Cooling Fans £15 [specialtech] Project Box £5 [Maplin] I got the Arduino as an xmas pressie so that was free too really. So rough cost of an identical build would be £450 give or take a few bob. In US Dollars I currently make that $660. Could be the exchange rate has cost me dear ! Edited March 24, 2009 by sweevo Quote Link to comment
sweevo Posted March 25, 2009 Author Share Posted March 25, 2009 (edited) The controller did a full 24 hour cycle yesterday and restarted just over 5 minutes later than the previous day which was great. I've now updated the Arduino Sketch to compensate for this 5 minute gain and tomorrow it should only gain around a minute at most which will be fine for the time being. Did a quick video this morning and it's not the greatest and doesn't really show the shimmer effect that much but it's here anyway if you're curious. I know a lot of people like to see these things in action so here it is... Apologies on the background noise, my daughter was watching Tinkerbell !!! Here's the sketch anyway. It's a bit crude in places and could be written better but all I was bothered about for starters was getting a sketch that did the barebones I required. If any of you have done any programming before you'll soon realise how easy this Arduino business really is just by looking at this. int blueone = 9; // Blue int bluetwo = 10; // Blue int bluethr = 11; // Blue int whiteone = 3; // White int whitetwo = 5; // White int whitethr = 6; // White : END of LED Pins int fanctrl = 12; int bluedim = 255; //PWM start value for Blues int whitedim = 255; //PWM Start value for Whites int maxfullmins = 480; // Number of mins LED's at full power int timeledoff = 735; //Number of mins LED's are fully off int timeatfull = 0; int timeoff = 0; void setup() // run once, when the sketch starts { pinMode(fanctrl, OUTPUT); } void loop() // run over and over again { digitalWrite(fanctrl, LOW); analogWrite(blueone, bluedim); analogWrite(bluetwo, bluedim); analogWrite(bluethr, bluedim); analogWrite(whiteone, whitedim); analogWrite(whitetwo, whitedim); analogWrite(whitethr, whitedim); twenty(); // All lights off for 20 secs while (bluedim != 0) { //Bring Blues to 0 and Whites to 75 (approx 700MA) analogWrite(blueone, bluedim); analogWrite(bluetwo, bluedim); analogWrite(bluethr, bluedim); if (bluedim <= 180) { whitedim -=1; analogWrite(whiteone, whitedim); analogWrite(whitetwo, whitedim); analogWrite(whitethr, whitedim); digitalWrite (fanctrl, HIGH); } twenty(); bluedim -= 1; } while (whitedim != 0) { //Now Bring the whites up to full whitedim -=1; analogWrite(whiteone, whitedim); analogWrite(whitetwo, whitedim); analogWrite(whitethr, whitedim); twenty(); } int timeatfull = 0; // Reset the counter for timeatfull each day to zero while (timeatfull <= maxfullmins) { //Run LED's at full for maxfullmins minutes minute (); timeatfull +=1; } while (whitedim != 75) { //Reduce intensity of whites on their own first whitedim +=1; analogWrite(whiteone, whitedim); analogWrite(whitetwo, whitedim); analogWrite(whitethr, whitedim); twenty(); } while (bluedim != 255) { //Now reduce both blues and whites bluedim +=1; analogWrite(blueone, bluedim); analogWrite(bluetwo, bluedim); analogWrite(bluethr, bluedim); if (whitedim != 255) { whitedim +=1; analogWrite(whiteone, whitedim); analogWrite(whitetwo, whitedim); analogWrite(whitethr, whitedim); } twenty(); } digitalWrite(fanctrl, LOW); int timeoff = 0; // Reset timeoff each day to zero while (timeoff <= timeledoff) { //Keep LED's off for timeledoff minutes minute (); timeoff +=1; } } void minute() //Function: Just delay for one minute { delay(60000); } void twenty() //Function: Twenty Second Delay { delay(20000); } Think i'll be taking a break from this for a while now and see how everyone in the tank gets on for a month or two. I'm planning on getting rid of most of my remaining shrooms and picking up a few SPS frags to take their place to see how they like the new lights. So on a final note all there's left for me to do I guess is say a big thank you to evilc66 for all the help along the way and also to any others who chipped in too. THANKS GUYS Edited March 25, 2009 by sweevo Quote Link to comment
davce99 Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 Ok, think i'll go with the molded socket for now and maybe come back to this once I'm ready to box all the circuitry etc. Just a few quick pics as to where i'm now at with this. I've had a bit of spare time this week and the canopy/mount has been finished. First up here's the drilled and tapped 300mm x 250mm heatsink ready for holding 30 XRE's. Next up is the canopy/mount made from 12mm clear acrylic. I had this custom made by a plastics firm as I wanted the final unit to look good on my tank. I spent hours on google looking for something I could use for mounting the heatsink but in the end came up with this idea after seeing some acrylic tables somewhere. The arcylic was buffed and finished so all that was left to do was cut a suitable sized hole in it for all the XRE's and their Optics to fit through. Lucky for me my Dad's a DIY whiz so I left this to him! Once the heatsink was securely fastened to the mount I started soldering all the LED's. The first few weren't exactly tidy but after a few I figured it all out and made a decent (IMO) job of soldering all the chains. So now it's time to program the Arduino to drive the six chains of LED's and also control the cooling fans which i'll cover in my next post. Hy, can you put more pics of your plexiglas casing Thanks!!! Quote Link to comment
sweevo Posted June 30, 2009 Author Share Posted June 30, 2009 (edited) Sorry davce99, I've only nipped back here now and again to see how things have been going with other builds etc. Never bothered to check back on my own thread. If you still want some pics of the acrylic stand let me know which bits in particular are of interest and i'll see what I can do. Not sure how many DIY's have gone down the LCD display and RTC path in my absence? A few out there now? Well i've decided to try and join the ranks anway. I've ordered the bits so i'm just waiting on delivery of the parts before I can start. Think what I've got in my head will work, the hardest part will probably be when I have to rewire my exisitng controller as i'll be running short on I/O pins. Will worry more about that when I get the display and clock working though. Apologies again davce99. Edited June 30, 2009 by sweevo Quote Link to comment
tyty22 Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 Awesome led setup I wish I had the money to do one of my own. Your tanks sweet too. is it a standard aga? Quote Link to comment
sweevo Posted July 20, 2009 Author Share Posted July 20, 2009 It's an Aquaone Aquience 550. Not sure you can get them in the US or not. Just wish i'd gone for the bigger one ! Quote Link to comment
sweevo Posted July 21, 2009 Author Share Posted July 21, 2009 Here's a few pics to show the fruits of my labours this past week or two. Far too many late nights at the keyboard. This is just the regular display, shows the time and the current output levels of the blues and white LED's. I've wired up a number of tactile switches, one of which can be used to toggle the info on the display. From this display I can press various switches to increase the on time (1 hour at a time), increase the output of the royal blue and/or white LED's (when the lights are on) and also increase the total photo period to between 2 and 12 hours. Just deciding which way i'm going solve my I/O pin shortage now and then it'll be time to get the soldering iron out again. Quote Link to comment
motionless Posted August 6, 2009 Share Posted August 6, 2009 Great build Sweevo. Been searching all over the lighting forum, but can't find a thread with a definitive answer on the Arduino pwm output hookup to the buckpuck control pin. Is it a direct pin to pin hookup? I found this diagram showing a 2n4403 transistor and 2 resistors between the pwm output and the buckpuck 5v control pin. Any comments? thanks! Quote Link to comment
evilc66 Posted August 6, 2009 Share Posted August 6, 2009 You can do it both ways. The method pictured is safer for the controller (transistor adds seperation), and allows you to run far more drivers off a single output pin if need be. Quote Link to comment
madadi Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 sweevo, can you please tell me witch Arduino Dev Board you actually used. maybe a model number or a link. thanks you great job. Quote Link to comment
madadi Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 is it this one? thanks DEV-00666 http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_i...products_id=666 Quote Link to comment
evilc66 Posted August 23, 2009 Share Posted August 23, 2009 Any Arduino will work. They all have the same basic layout and features. Quote Link to comment
sweevo Posted December 4, 2009 Author Share Posted December 4, 2009 (edited) Looks like the LED revolution on here goes from strength to strength too, some fantastic builds! Look what you started Evilc !!!! Well it's been a few months in the making, various versions of code, things added, modified and removed along the way, but it's finally complete! There's been a few hurdles along the way, stuff like getting the code to work with a 24 hour clock cycle, running out of memory (!!!), melting temperature sensors etc ! Anyway, here's a few pics of the new controller which now gives me full control over the DIY, ie on time, photo period, blue intensity and white intensity. I've also added a feature whereby I can change these parameters and press a button to make it reprogram itself and set the lighting accordingly to where ever in the lighting cycle it should be. I used an old clip from an old Seio PH to make a clip so I could attach it to the larger project box which houses the BuckPucks etc. Pic of it sat on the tank. I've also added a thermometer to the controller which gives the current temp along with average temperatures for the past hour, 24 hours and week. It also displays a warning if the temp moves outside of 23C to 29C. I decided to add this feature so I could get a better idea of how stable the water temp is during the summer. I opted to use an LM35 to measure the temperature, it's sat in a spare Salifert test vial which is filled with epoxy to waterproof it. 99% of the time the readings displayed are stable and within the 1C tolerance limits stated for the LM35 but I do get the occasional reading which jumps outside this by up to a degree more which is a bit annoying. I've found increasing the sample rate (100x every second currently and averaged out over the course of a minute) has helped reduce these anomalies but they still do happen. Last of all , here's a link to my code. Feel free to examine, re engineer and adapt. I'm not a programmer by trade and I know that the structure of it all could be written in a more "professional" manner so all you propeller heads out there go easy on me. CODE Edited December 4, 2009 by sweevo Quote Link to comment
evilc66 Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 Nicely done. Yeah, we started something pretty crazy over here Quote Link to comment
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