Sammy's 20G LED Cube

[snorkeler]

Sammy, please could you give a little more details on your Arduino build and if possible your source code? Also, what do you connect the Arduino + Shield to (what stands between Arduino + Shield and the actual LED strings)?

Will be much appreciated, as I'm looking forward to building something just like you built, LED lamp with Arduino controller for LED control with dimming.

Thanks,

Snorkeler (Fabio Paoli)

[sammy113]

Originally Posted by snorkeler

Sammy, please could you give a little more details on your Arduino build and if possible your source code? Also, what do you connect the Arduino + Shield to (what stands between Arduino + Shield and the actual LED strings)?

Will be much appreciated, as I'm looking forward to building something just like you built, LED lamp with Arduino controller for LED control with dimming.

Thanks,

Snorkeler (Fabio Paoli)

Hi, I'll send you a PM with the code I'm using. I'm still very noob to this and all I did was with help from the DWZM and others in the forum. The Arduino has the ELN shield and a Real Time Clock (which I'm not using right now) the code uses a internal timer in arduino (which is not that accurate) but since I'm a noob at this, the code is very simple and works with a regular timer. When the timer kicks in, the Arduino will start to read the code to the desired times in the code.

The ELN dimming wires goes directly to the ELN dimming shield so there is nothing between the whole Arduino and the drivers. The LEDs go to the driver outputs so the Arduino workd directly with the driver, not the LEDs

[snorkeler]

Thanks, I 'll check out the code. I can probably help polish the code, but first I need to get my hands on an Arduino with that shield and drivers.

Where did you buy the ELN shield and drivers from? (web site?)

Snorkeler

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

[sammy113]

I got the ELN shield from DWZM here in the forum. That's a PCB he made and I bought it from him. There's a few threads with info from these prototypes and a newer one as well called "typhoon" which has integrated LCD and on board buttons.

[sammy113]

Talking about DWZM, I got my new toy


Wires to Dim +/- on Meanwells


My LEDs are loving it. So do I

It has 4 channels so its able to turn on/off and fade in/out 4 channels independently. Each channel can run a couple of meanwells so that's very cool. I'm currently using just two channels. One meanwell in each. If I ever upgrade to bigger tank and lamp with more drivers I will make some nice effects with this thing

[sammy113]

Today I had some time to mess with the controller. I'm a blueish lit tank guy so my blues are always at higher % than whites but I wanted to recreate somehow a full day including some peak hours where the sun is brighter. The controller does not provide any way to increase a channel at some determined time so I had to deal with that. I can adjust the Fade time, Max % per channel, time each channel kicks in/out.

So this is what I programed:
Blues Start @ 4:00pm
White Start @ 4:00pm

Blues Finish @ 2:00am
White Finish @ 2:00am

The trick was to adjust the fade time. Also since meanwells have a cut off at around 10% means that the blues will actually begin @ 2:10pm because there is no light under 10%

Blue Fade Time: 1 hour
White Fade Time: 4 hours

Blue Max: 50%
White Max: 60%

Result: The tank will be lit with actinics for almost 1 hour before the white starts. Most of the time the tank will look on the blue side while the whites keep fading in to max. Then whites and blues will stay for 3 hours in maximum set then start fading out whites to go the inverse as the beginning.

I couldn't stay for 10 hours looking at the tank to see the full cycle so I ran through the day changing the hour in the controller to see all the spectrum during one day.

__________Blue___White__________
4:10pm....10%.........0%
5:10pm....50%.......15%
6:10pm....50%.......30%
7:10pm....50%.......45%
8:10pm....50%.......60%
9:10pm....50%.......60%
10:10pm..50%.......55%
11:10pm..50%.......40%
12:10am..50%........25%
1:10am....40%........10%

Then fading out till 2am

I'm very happy with this settings. Hopefully my corals won't burn under those peak hours.
Tonight I'm gonna set up the tripod and take some pictures going through the entire cycle so you guys can have an idea how it looks like

[dantimdad]

Sammy,

Where did you get the controller and how much is it?

Thanks,
Steven

[wesley6610]

This is looking good sammy

[Jagarang]

OOOHHHhhhhh...did you say you were going to do a time lapse video from your tripod? PLLEeeeeeeezzzzzeeee

[grabthereef]

i second that /\

[sammy113]

@ dantimdad: Got the controller from der_wille_zur_macht he was the designer of the prototype

I wasn't really thinking of a time lapse... more like an hour to hour photo sequence. But a time lapse sounds really cool. At least taking a pics 15 minutes apart but I don't really have the time to do it.

Anyway, I'm about to put in new acans :P so pics are coming a bit later
Also got a new fish

Blue and yellow head... any guess?

[Mmckibben]

What pump do you use for the protein skimmer? I'm going to try to make a copy of it, but bigger. I have a 60 gallon fragging tank/ mangrove tank that I need a skimmer for, but I didn't want to spend more than $100. Diy with acrylic seemed best since I've worked with it before.

I like your picture of holowfied Ichigo.

[Taqpol]

Originally Posted by sammy113

Blue and yellow head... any guess?

Blue spot jawfish?

[sammy113]

Originally Posted by Mmckibben

What pump do you use for the protein skimmer? I'm going to try to make a copy of it, but bigger. I have a 60 gallon fragging tank/ mangrove tank that I need a skimmer for, but I didn't want to spend more than $100. Diy with acrylic seemed best since I've worked with it before.

I like your picture of holowfied Ichigo.

if you're talking about the skimmer I'm using now, it has a bubble blaster 1000. Great pump but costs more than $100 though. I'd say is worth every penny. Check out the specs. This skimmer is rated for up to 150g

Bleach rocks!

Originally Posted by Taqpol

Blue spot jawfish?

no got a pygmy angel (cherub)

[Mmckibben]

Ichigo is fighting Aizen right now

[sammy113]

Here's a low res timelapse of my tank. Unfortunately the original picture is 69mb but you get the idea. I really liked how it looks and enjoyed doing this so I'm trying another with 15 mins apart from each pic and will make a video with them

[wesley6610]

That looks awesome, all this with dimmable drivers and Arudino module? Any other parts necessary?

[sammy113]

Originally Posted by wesley6610

That looks awesome, all this with dimmable drivers and Arudino module? Any other parts necessary?

meanwells "P" model with DWZM's Typhon controller. Arduino based, so yeah just that.

[wesley6610]

Okay, I need to locate some P model meanwells and I will PM as well

[sammy113]

Updated pics of my tank. You can notice some more growth on SPS and also spend quite a few minutes trying to catch the fish


Zoa garden filling up nicely



This one had some RTN and was brown when I got it from a local. So far its doing great. RTN stopped and color is improving quickly

Another shot to show better the color (its the ORA one)

This guys keep growing quick

[sammy113]

Fragspawn

This one is healing up nicely and coloring up very well after flatworms eat almost all the tissue. Now some red bugs still bothering but will do interceptor treatment soon

Tabling acro

I love this one

Birdnest a little pale but I'm hitting it up with some light power at the top of the rocks

This one doesn't really care all the light up there

One of my favorite corners. The ACAN paradise

[sammy113]

Now some fish pics
Some weird mouth clownfish



One of my faves



My girlfriend wanted this pygmy so bad she even bought it

[sammy113]

Black Clown Goby (not so black haha)

Side view

Obligatory FTS

[wesley6610]

Filling out quite nicely sammy, what's your Calcium/Alkalinity consumption on a weekly basis? I believe I'm dosing about 240 ml of each a day, so almost a liter a week while my new rocks begin to color up. I have mostly SPS and one Clam, but I had taken a big hit in consumption once the warm white LEDs were installed and now the tank is actually growing at a faster pace.

[sammy113]

Originally Posted by wesley6610

Filling out quite nicely sammy, what's your Calcium/Alkalinity consumption on a weekly basis? I believe I'm dosing about 240 ml of each a day, so almost a liter a week while my new rocks begin to color up. I have mostly SPS and one Clam, but I had taken a big hit in consumption once the warm white LEDs were installed and now the tank is actually growing at a faster pace.

Thanks Wesley. I actually don't dose a lot to my tank. I've always used Kalkwasser in my auto top off and every other time I use Brightwell A/B. I'm not currently dosing it as my Ca and Alk test kits are over and don't like to dose anything I can't track. My SPS still frag sizes so I guess the consumption is not a lot. I also do weekly water changes with Brightwell which is pretty good. I'm soon to change to deltec H2Ocean as a few friends tested it and the params are perfect without the need of adding any buffer or something to balance Ca, Alk and Mg.

Last time I checked my params was 0 phosphates (hanna) Ca- 380, Alk 7, Mg (ELOS) can't remember and the basics 0ppm (Salifert and API). It was a bit on the low side. Hopefully they're ok and balanced