DIY LED + DIY Arduino Typhon

[thewarbrd]

So I'm way overdue for new T5's and not looking forward to another year of fighting the heat and evap they cause on my 75g with a big box fan running on them. I've been reading around and I've made up my mind I'm going to attempt a DIY LED setup based on this build thread over on RC which happens to involve a 75g:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1952442">http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1952442</a>

Right now I'm planning on duplicating that setup, the end result being 36 LEDS, 2:1 blue to white with 60deg optics. I'm still debating doing the bar tubing vs a couple of heat sinks as some day I plan to upgrade to a larger tank (8ft+). Haven't made up my mind if it'll be more flexible down the road to have 6-10 4ft rails staggered over it or a few square 'bricks'...

I also want more than just on/off, i.e. sunrise/sunset/cloud/storm, beings the drivers will be dimable. I have an RKL, but for the price the ALC module doesn't (at least now) offer much in the way of 'coolness.' Someone mentioned Arduino controllers and I stumbled across this one that is 'open source.'

[IMG]http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847680">http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847680</a>

I'm a programmer by trade, but not necessarily great with soldering, but I still think I'm going to take a stab at it and build a couple of them (did I mention I've got a 33L that has been sitting empty for over a year waiting on HVAC replacement so it doesn't boil in my office? LOL) I'll probably go ahead and order the boards myself, which is a minimum of 10 from a manuf. so I'll probably offer up leftovers here at cost.

Overall, it's looking like it'll be around $400-500 for a fully customizable 36LED system. I figure between $100 saved on lamps a couple times a year and selling off the two IceCap 660's I use now, converting to an LED setup will pay for itself within in a couple of years.

Any feedback from those that have done either of these projects is welcome. I plan to start ordering stuff in the next week or two and will naturally document the progress here.

 

[morganatlanta]

You could probably use the AI controller. You'd just have to figure out which outputs do what.

SuperClown on this site is doing an Arduino controller project.

 

[texhorns98]

Don't forget the power bill savings!

 

[superclown]

Glad to see this project going I may incorperate something to this affect into my tank later.just a tip you can get better prices off ebay but man is the shipping slow it took me over 2 months of waiting for parts because try all came from china I just now finally got enough parts to start also check out reefprojects.com some good info on that site

 

[thewarbrd]

texhorns98;621023 wrote: Don't forget the power bill savings!

:up: And I'm twisted enough to find something like a 120W grid-tie solar panel and have the lights be 100% power-free.

SuperClown;621026 wrote: Glad to see this project going I may incorperate something to this affect into my tank later.just a tip you can get better prices off ebay

Yeah, I looked at the lcd screens and chips on ebay the other day and most of them were in Hong Kong so I figured shipping would suuuuck time wise getting them there. The nice thing about that Typhon project is it's just for lights only so there's not really much to it. The hard part for me will be that it's 100% assembly required, you order the circuit board bare and solder it all together then plug the lcd screen into it. It doesn't make use of a prefab Arduino board, just the chip.

Just got done drawing up the rack for the emitters in sketchup. Looks like I should be good to go with 60deg lenses on the whites and 50's on the blues. Having them on a rack that will actually fit under the canopy again will be great. I've been running my T5's above the canopy because of spray and (mostly) heat. I'll be incorporating a splash guard on this rack for sure!
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[superclown]

You could always do a breadboard for it to help with not having to soilder

 

[morganatlanta]

Have you checked out this open source controller?

 

[cr500_af]

There is already an Arduino based LED setup with sunrise sunset (tied to weather info in Indonesia), lightning, cloud cover, etc in working order in the ATL area. It isn't finished yet, but it is functional.

 

[spiderman097]

I built a full led light system, and I absolutely loved it. I was most impressed with how I actually accomplished it. But you must be wary about salt creep. It will DESTROY your solders. Then you have to go in and re-solder them. It was such a giant hassle for me.

 

[thewarbrd]

cr500_af;621314 wrote: There is already an Arduino based LED setup with sunrise sunset (tied to weather info in Indonesia), lightning, cloud cover, etc in working order in the ATL area. It isn't finished yet, but it is functional.

Wow! I'd had the thought of trying to code some sort of live weather data mode at some point later on. Is it a member here or soon-to-be commercial product?

 

[serpent]

I would love to know this too for my build.

thewarbrd;621403 wrote: Wow! I'd had the thought of trying to code some sort of live weather data mode at some point later on. Is it a member here or soon-to-be commercial product?

 

[eric b]

thewarbrd;621403 wrote: Wow! I'd had the thought of trying to code some sort of live weather data mode at some point later on. Is it a member here or soon-to-be commercial product?

Nope it is a member here but it is not quite ready yet!

 

[thewarbrd]

Amici;622679 wrote: It will be interesting to see the par numbers on that setup. You think it will support SPS or clams?

I'm a little uneducated on all the specifics, but somewhere in the reference build thread there was a formula that has basically (tank w * tank l)/leds = Y and Y = square inches per LED

The guideline:
10=Hard Core (Too Much) Light.
15=SPS (most people use)
20=LPS, Softies
25=Softies

I'd have to dig for the source of that and how optics/spectrum come into play, optics being the biggest effect I'd think. My tank is all softies and a few heads of frogspawn right now and my math has me at a 24 on the above scale.

Given that, he posted an SPS shot that's on the bottom of his tank and he's still not running at max power yet, been ramping up over time, and he's running more focused optics 9" off his tank, the piece looked happy.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=18403859&postcount=336">http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=18403859&postcount=336</a>

I've seen where people with 24 emitters on a 75 have to run them turned down or their softies suffered. I'm hoping with the wider optics I wont have that issue. Some people dont run any at all and run full blast. It's a balance of how focused the magnifying glass is on the ant I guess

[B] Overall update:[/B] Everything is ordered and on the way! LED's, Arduino parts (PCB order is the bottleneck at the moment, vendor is non-responsive as of yet) all sourced and should start showing up in the next day or so.

I'm still debating the profile of the material for the rack itself. Lowes and other places I've checked dont stock 1"+ U channel, so worst case it'll be 90deg angle aluminum instead of U channel.

I'm exploring other options though, including extruded aluminum t-bar/track that has internal tubes down either side for possible use of an old PC water cooling system If I did that, I could get sporty with another controller and electric valves and run heated coolant through a submerged titanium heat exchanger for supplemental heat in the winter and room air in the summer, hah!

Minus the material for the rack, I'm at just under $500 for everything so far to build one complete system controller and all, including shipping costs. I ordered enough components to build 3 complete controllers.

 

[texhorns98]

thewarbrd,

This is really cool! Would you consider helping me do something like this if I bought the parts and gave you a ton of beer?!?

 

[spiderman097]

Beer is the new currency

 

[texhorns98]

spiderman097;623130 wrote: Beer is the new currency

If that's the case, I am now the Federal Reserve!!

 

[thewarbrd]

I wouldn't be posting it here if I wasn't willing to share the knowledge, fails, and success. Just be aware I don't claim to be an expert!! Hopefully within the next week or two the pics will start flowing along with do's and don'ts I learn. Can't guarantee much in the way of hands on help as I'm over in Athens, but anything possible given the right bribe to the warden (a.k.a. The Mrs.)!

 

[superclown]

When i get done with my controller. I want a simple Dusk Dawn Effect. I do think the weather emulator a awesome project however

 

[tjyoung]

Really interested to see how this turns out im looking into doing a couple of L.E.D. setups in my 55 please keep us posted

 

[thewarbrd]

Weekend update!

The LED's and controller parts arrived late in the week, and I just got email today saying the PCB's finally shipped, woohoo! Here's the goodies I have LED-wise, and what I worked with this weekend.

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I was pretty shocked at how SMALL the LED's actually are. Somehow I had it in my head that they were pretty large, but they arent even quite the size of a quarter!

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With this new knowledge, it was back to Lowes for some 3/4" U channel. I picked up 3 48" sections and a 36" angle for end bracing. Lesson learned: Take a tape measure with you if you're needing EXACT lengths, because out of the 3 pieces I got (I did check to make sure I got unbent pieces, which there were many bent in some way) no two were the same length!! The middle one is the only one that was the advertised 48"!!

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I cut the long one down to 48" like the 2nd and just dealt with the short one.

I cut a couple of 5" pieces of angle and drilled two holes in the end of each channel, I didn't want the rack to pivot on the bolts, so it's over engineered. I used angle with the intent to mount legs off it, but I think I'm going to just shoot a couple of bolts in the cross brace of the canopy and mount them that way. I'll be using molex connectors on each driver so I'll be able to pop off a couple of connections and lift the canopy off the tank, lights and all if I ever need to really dig around.

Bottom of the rack, 3" on center marked off for the LEDs

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Obligatory top view, nothing much to see here.

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I then opened all of the LED's and tested them with the included tester (holds 2 AA's). I was saddened to discover two issues. First was that I was only sent 11 Cool Whites, not 12, and second was that one of the Royal Blues appears to have been mounted off center and it will not light. I've got an email into RapidLED about this, we'll see how it's handled.

The kit I got included some pre-cut sections of wire, sweet! Wait... Crap. I'm mounting mine 3" on center. The wires are cut for just slightly less than that and I didnt discover that tidbit until I had them all glued down with the thermal epoxy :dunce: This is how that worked out....

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Let me zoom that in for you for the full effect of my grumbling

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That's OK, I like red wire for the hot feed anyway.

The wife and I took a trip into ATL today and I stopped by Rit's shop to check it out, looks great! While we were in the area I hit Fry's and picked up a new soldering iron and some remaining misc needed supplies for the build. When we got home I got some wiring done!

Here's my own cut and stripped wire in hot red...

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And all soldered in place! Pay no attention to the toe monster at the bottom... :jester:

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I checked all the LED's individually with the tester. Little tip, the 2 AA tester will not drive more than one LED at a time, at least with the batteries I have in it that are probably old anyway. At any rate, they all still fired up, so no heat damage or anything odd happened in the soldering process.

For now I'm back in a holding pattern until the PCB's for the controller get here and RapidLED (hopefully) sends me the missing Cool White and replacement Royal Blue. I'm not going to mess with mounting the optics until everything is in place and tested.

That's it for this week!