Meepduino: 2.0 RELEASED!

[disaster999]

Good. I thought it was kind of unclear.

pictures with a thousand words haha.

 

pretty stoked about the controller, cant wait till i get home.

[Horerczy]

All I did was plug the right angle headers into the female headers. They fit fine for me with the shield on so I didn't give it any thought.

[disaster999]

i have another problem, i tried to flash the code onto my arduino and this error came up "ds1302" does not have name a type...

 

theres actually a whole list of "does not name a type" and errors that follows it....halp!!

 

*edit: went back to the google docs, downloaded the libary and i flashed the program into the arduino. everything seem to work, but my touch input doesnt seem to work and i cant change any of the settings.

[MeepNand]

i have another problem, i tried to flash the code onto my arduino and this error came up "ds1302" does not have name a type...

 

theres actually a whole list of "does not name a type" and errors that follows it....halp!!

 

*edit: went back to the google docs, downloaded the libary and i flashed the program into the arduino. everything seem to work, but my touch input doesnt seem to work and i cant change any of the settings.

Really? Works fine for me, except when I try to change the time.

[disaster999]

well after some tweaking my screen finally worked....i was able to set the time and play with the settings.

 

made a video of the controller spazzing out. it seem to stabilized for now. left it running over night with no glitches.

 

Edit* another thing i was wondering, how do you determine if the output set by the controller is exactly 1amp or 700mah? do we need to use a multimeter and determine what percentage = 1amp output? also, why is it when i adjust the output on each channel, the [+] jumps by 10 increments while the [-] only decreases by 1?

[MeepNand]

well after some tweaking my screen finally worked....i was able to set the time and play with the settings.

 

made a video of the controller spazzing out. it seem to stabilized for now. left it running over night with no glitches.

 

Edit* another thing i was wondering, how do you determine if the output set by the controller is exactly 1amp or 700mah? do we need to use a multimeter and determine what percentage = 1amp output? also, why is it when i adjust the output on each channel, the [+] jumps by 10 increments while the [-] only decreases by 1?

Nice video! So is it working or not? I think my clock will arrive within a day or two, so I can test the code then.

EDIT: I am losing faith in the ds1302 library. That's the same glitch that happened to me, with the time jumping.

Might be a bad connection.

 

The controller is not a driver. It puts out a PWM signal, like the Typhon.

The + jumps 10 and the - jumps 1 because otherwise it would take years to set 24 hours fro each channel.

Trust me. It was hard enough when there was only 6 settings per channel; with 24 you NEED to have a big jump.

[disaster999]

Nice video! So is it working or not? I think my clock will arrive within a day or two, so I can test the code then.

EDIT: I am losing faith in the ds1302 library. That's the same glitch that happened to me, with the time jumping.

Might be a bad connection.

 

The controller is not a driver. It puts out a PWM signal, like the Typhon.

The + jumps 10 and the - jumps 1 because otherwise it would take years to set 24 hours fro each channel.

Trust me. It was hard enough when there was only 6 settings per channel; with 24 you NEED to have a big jump.

I think its working now. im not sure why it was jumping around like that at first. I made sure all connections was secure and it seemed to fix the problem for now.

 

yes i know its a controller and not a driver, its sending a signal to the driver telling it to increase the current to the LEDs...so im wondering if at 100% on the controller really means exactly 1amp or i have to do the multimeter trick and see at what percentage on the controller outputs the current you want on the driver.

[MeepNand]

It means exactly 1 amp. 100% is a pure 5v signal, so that means 100%, unless the driver is off.

And at exactly 5v, it should be fine.

[Confuse]

Is there a way to run a fan with the arduino so I don't have to make another plug for it in my project box?

[MeepNand]

Is there a way to run a fan with the arduino so I don't have to make another plug for it in my project box?

Not really. You power the while thing off a 12v power supply anyway though, so all you need to do is splice a couple wires and a transistor.

[Confuse]

Not really. You power the while thing off a 12v power supply anyway though, so all you need to do is splice a couple wires and a transistor.

 

So I'll have to have two power supplies? One for my arduino and another for my fan?

[Cheese-Lover]

So I'll have to have two power supplies? One for my arduino and another for my fan?

 

Run them both from the same power supply.

 

But unless you are running a silent fan, you'll want to slow it down to avoid excess noise.

[MeepNand]

 

Run them both from the same power supply.

 

But unless you are running a silent fan, you'll want to slow it down to avoid excess noise.

Essentially yes. You need to wire the transistor's collector and emitter inline with the - of the fan (black wire) and attach the power wire to the 12v power supply.

Then, the base of the transistor goes to the arduino heater/chiller pin.

[disaster999]

Pretty much plug and play for me... my old lights works just fine. gotta clean up the wiring an come up with a project box to house everything

 

 

one thing i did noticed was when i had the time keeper plugged in with external 5v power supply (not from usb), the time will go crazy. when i unplug the positive wire everything goes back to normal..

[MeepNand]

Pretty much plug and play for me... my old lights works just fine. gotta clean up the wiring an come up with a project box to house everything

 

 

one thing i did noticed was when i had the time keeper plugged in with external 5v power supply (not from usb), the time will go crazy. when i unplug the positive wire everything goes back to normal..

Maybe if you put a capacitor on the input? I didn't have that problem.

[disaster999]

is it possible to turn on the fan without the temp prob? they controller sees 32F/0C initially anyways, i cant set the fan to turn on at 32F/0C right?

 

bought a project box and housed the arduino in it. just waiting on my LEDs to get here and ill completely overhaul my light

[Confuse]

is it possible to turn on the fan without the temp prob? they controller sees 32F/0C initially anyways, i cant set the fan to turn on at 32F/0C right?

 

bought a project box and housed the arduino in it. just waiting on my LEDs to get here and ill completely overhaul my light

 

That looks really good! I'm on my way to pick up a dremel to cut out my project box. My only issue is that I'll have to hook it up to the power supply so it won't just be one box.

 

Are you using LDD drivers? If so, you hid them pretty compactly. I used a bigger project box from radioshack.

[MeepNand]

Housing looks very suave.

And you need the temp probe to turn the fan on and off, unless you control the fan using the PWM slot from a lighting channel.

[disaster999]

That looks really good! I'm on my way to pick up a dremel to cut out my project box. My only issue is that I'll have to hook it up to the power supply so it won't just be one box.

 

Are you using LDD drivers? If so, you hid them pretty compactly. I used a bigger project box from radioshack.

Im not using LDD drivers, Im using some other PWM driver to drive the LED which is mounted on the light. the box only houses the controller.

Housing looks very suave.

And you need the temp probe to turn the fan on and off, unless you control the fan using the PWM slot from a lighting channel.

i just want the controller to turn the fan on when the light is on to cool the heat sink. mind telling me how to do this?

[MeepNand]

Im not using LDD drivers, Im using some other PWM driver to drive the LED which is mounted on the light. the box only houses the controller.

i just want the controller to turn the fan on when the light is on to cool the heat sink. mind telling me how to do this?

Just set a dummy channel that you won't use (like channel 5, for instance, if you have only 4 channels used) and set the PWM output to 100 for all the hours you want the fan on. Connect the pin for channel 5 to the base of a transistor (NPN type) that is rated for more than what the fan uses (think about 1 amp). Connect the collector of the transistor to the - of the fan, and the emitter to the - of the power supply.

If you're confused, look at the wiring diagram on the first post attachments.

[disaster999]

ah alright. ill give that a try. would the TIP110 you suggested work? or i need something beefier?

 

Edit, I got the fan to work with the TIP110 Darlington transistor. im able to control the speed with PWM. Meep, is there a way to modify the code so that instead of slowly ramping up the value from 0-100% over an hour, can i just have one channel be at 0% 11:59:59 and 100% at 12:00:00? Im not really sure whats the long term effect it has on the fan with it trying to start at 1% and have to wait for it to go to around 25-50% before it actually turns, i cant think this is good for the fan

 

Heres a video of the PWM controlled fan, that high pitch whine will definitely drive me crazy over time.

[MeepNand]

ah alright. ill give that a try. would the TIP110 you suggested work? or i need something beefier?

 

Edit, I got the fan to work with the TIP110 Darlington transistor. im able to control the speed with PWM. Meep, is there a way to modify the code so that instead of slowly ramping up the value from 0-100% over an hour, can i just have one channel be at 0% 11:59:59 and 100% at 12:00:00? Im not really sure whats the long term effect it has on the fan with it trying to start at 1% and have to wait for it to go to around 25-50% before it actually turns, i cant think this is good for the fan

 

Heres a video of the PWM controlled fan, that high pitch whine will definitely drive me crazy over time.

To stop the whine you can use either a solid-state relay or put a capacitor across the collector and emitter (I think. It might be base and emitter. Try it both ways).

 

And as of now, you have to deal with the ramp. I am adding a "test" screen, so you should be able to see what the cutoff PWM value is for the transistor and start from there on the ramp.

 

EDIT: You are using a resistor to limit current, right? 2k should work for the transistor. Also, I used PWM to control the transistor for the longest time, and it still works fine.

[CrazyEyes]

I haven't really read through all the pages but just looking at the pictures I'd have to guess these are the mega boards right? I think 6 is a good a good amount of channels. I do agree with the violets, either going to them all out or not. I run mine at 70% on a 1000mA driver so essentially 100%.

[MeepNand]

I haven't really read through all the pages but just looking at the pictures I'd have to guess these are the mega boards right? I think 6 is a good a good amount of channels. I do agree with the violets, either going to them all out or not. I run mine at 70% on a 1000mA driver so essentially 100%.

Careful with that. If your controller fails, then your violets die.

 

And yes, these are the Mega boards.

[CrazyEyes]

Yeah I really do need to get a 700mA driver for that scenario too. But if they die it will be easier to explain to the g/f why I need to buy ones from LEDgroupBuy. Hmmmm.