NEW LED PENDANT FOR PICO

[Bamboozle]

wow that looks great! nice job

[cdelicath]

Nice. Just imagine if you had used optics

 

it's already almost melting my zoo's

 

I don't even think i could keep anything in it with optics

[evilc66]

Do you have it running full tilt? You should be fine with almost anything at 200 PAR.

[cdelicath]

yes it is,

i might dim it a bit and see how things react to it.

the growth has been amazing though,

[yardboy]

PAR 295! Okay, that's all I really needed to know. I 'll be trying it out too.

Thanks ya'll, for a great thread on how to build one of these rascals.

With the dimming feature you could easily acclimate corals to the light and find the ideal level for them. Too cool.

[wombat]

PAR readings

 

 

Oh shiznit 300PAR on a pico

 

 

How dialed down do you have the LEDs?

[BlueAbyss]

PAR readings

 

 

Oh shiznit 300PAR on a pico

 

Any idea what you need to grow stony corals? If your softies are melting there must be a lot of light, or maybe just the shock of the intensity?

 

By the way this thread is great, very helpful and inspirational. Thanks man

[cdelicath]

The zoo's aren't melting they are actually growing at a very fast rate. They don't seem to open as much as the ones in my BC14 though. That's what makes me think they are a bit stressed from the light. But it could also be that the tank is only like a month old.

[evilc66]

Keep an eye on them. If they start getting smaller (but still open), it might be too much. 300 PAR probably won't do it, but 600+ did

[cdelicath]

good thing I can dim them.

I still hope to order the micro controller within the next few weeks or so.

This will be the perfect test light cause it sits right next to the computer

 

Hey evil have you found or do you recommend a thermistor that will allow me to add a temp monitor into the unit?

My goals for the first go round are:

• Temp monitor
  
• Dimming
  
• color temp
  
• ON/OFF timer "This one im afraid of "
  

[evilc66]

You could use a K-Type thermocouple, but an easier way would be to use a Dallas DS1822 one wire temp sensor. These are pretty well documented in the Arduino forums for use.

 

The on/off timer isn't to bad. It's the RTC that you need to set up is a little tricky, but once you have that out of the way, the timing is easy.

[cdelicath]

Have you worked with the LCD control board yet?

I'm wondering if I should put more time into making everything adjustable by the LCD or if I should spend the time coding a PC or web interface.

[evilc66]

I used a simple rs232 lcd. Super simple.

[cdelicath]

so you don't have any realtime input? do you just program everything to a specific setting via usb.

[evilc66]

Haven't got to that part yet. Once the RTC was working, I just hard coded different times in for testing purposes. I have been able to read and write to flash to store the settings though.

[SkiFletch]

Having some significant experience with PAR values from my local club, I'll just second Evil's sentiments here. In most cases, 200PAR is plenty for any coral. Lots of deper water ones will even do just fine down to about 50, but 200 is a great level to shoot for.

[cdelicath]

I dimmed the light a bit, i'm sure it's closer to 200 now. I'm going to leave it for a week and see how the zoo's do. Everything is definitely healthy it just doesn't seem to open up as much as under the 70w MH " which is a bit over100par".

[evilc66]

You will probably see everything open more now that the intensity is lower. When I was blasting my poor tank with 600+, the zoas ended up getting smaller and smaller as they didn't need to be as big to get the light they need. Corals that were closed up before are now opening now that I turned the wick down to 350mA (about 180 PAR)

[cdelicath]

ok evil i'm getting ready to order my micro controller, any other recommendations on other things to order with it.

[BlueAbyss]

Wow if you guys can figure out some way of setting up timing for dimming I'd be sooo impressed... I'm no programmer, so chances are I'll have to get someone else to build this end for me.

 

Or is it easier than I imagine it would be? Is there a such thing as a timer / potentiometer that I can pick up somewhere? That would really make things easy...

[evilc66]

Deli, get one of the protosheilds with the mini breadboard. It just makes life a little easier prototyping all the connections.

 

BlueAbyss, getting the controllers working isn't too hard if you have a little programming background. The Arduino language is pretty easy to pick up. After that, it will come down to your ability to think logically to get the functions you envision in your head down to the controller.

 

Doing a fade up, delay, fade down, and another delay isn't impossible without a controller, but it sure makes it a lot harder.

[cdelicath]

OK party people

 

Order was placed

 

 

 

 

I got the freeduino"same as the arduino"

the LCD keypad and the Ethernet adapter.

 

I figured why not just get it all now and save on the shipping.

It is coming from the UK and after the $ conversion it was like $60.00

for all of it shipped.

Now I ordered this at 12:00 in the morning so I expect to get a call from them saying something like "we don't ship to the US" or "shipping is extra" or "we are out of stock".

 

But hopefully everything is good and I can get started within a week or 2.

 

So assuming everything goes through ok, I got all the boards to make a controller with a keypad LCD display and the ability to connect to the net for $60.

 

I will still need a USB cable, wire,bread board,thremoster"temp sensor" and maybe a 9v power cord.

All piddly sh!t.

 

If everything goes well we are talking about $80 to build

[cdelicath]

 

Got some prototyping stuff today at radio hack.

I am going to do all my testing on 5mm LED's and then move the finished results over to the buck pucks. I HOPE

[rean_jem]

can you post the site or pm me where you placed your order with that cool looking freeduino? thanks.

[cdelicath]

http://www.nuelectronics.com/estore/