Arduino based tank controller

[AndyL]

G'day all,

So any other canreef'ers spending too much time reading tech jargon of late? I find myself heading down the road into insanity - building a DIY reef controller...

Picked up my freeduino SB today (just finished soldering it together - 20 minute project) along with the little bits & pieces to assemble the pH probe reader (less the probe) gotta order up my DS18B20's for temperature readings as active and MRO didn't have anything comparable...

In the process of figuring out my high voltage controls - how many plugs I want to directly control - pretty much decided today I'll just build the power center, rather than pay for an american DJ power center to hack...

Links for those who haven't heard of these projects:
http://reefprojects.com/wiki/Main_Page (wiki sucks but search finds tons of info)
http://delicathdesigns.com/LED/
http://richardorme1979.googlepages.com/home

Andy

[byee]

AndyL

I'm also in the process of building my own controller using the Arduino 328. Purchased it a couple weeks back and just getting familiar with the coding.

Thanks for the links. I'll just take advantage of what others have written and change to my liking and re-post for others.

Which Arduino are you using for your aquarium controller ??

[banditpowdercoat]

tagging along

[hillegom]

interested too

[AndyL]

freeduino sb is what i chose to go with - largely because we've got a local supplier here in calgary :) http://www.hvwtech.com/products_view.asp?ProductID=682 (turns out they have the ds18b20's too - thus i can get some progress this weekend)

was seriously thinking about the illuminato or the mega - but a bunch of reading last night made me realize the additional expense is completely unneeded, as there's an I2C port expander available to us... so those extra io's aren't a problem.

[AndyL]

Grabbed the DS18B20's for temperature readings (looks like a transistor, i'm going to mount them into an aluminum probe scenario - then encase in epoxy for reef-safety...

Also grabbed a pair of photoelectric resistors - basically to confirm the lights are in fact on... how i'm going to tie those in... Not so sure :) Looks like I might need a 3rd shield with just an i2c port expander on it - as I'm going to run out of analog inputs quick at this rate...

Highly recomend HVW, these guys are great to deal with - extremely helpful thus far.

Hopefully I'll have the temp & pH circuits sorted this weekend.

Overall plan, is to connect the arduino to a wifi router running dd-wrt (fonera 2100 in my case) use it for the logging & give myself a web based front end similar to the wrrc project from reef central. Not a big fan of the LCD's at the tank - easier to just log into a nice webpage and see the graphs as to how/what things are happening than to try to pull that same info from a little lcd...

[fishytime]

I just read through this and.....didnt understand a word of it:mrgreen::wink:

[JDigital]

I just read through this and.....didnt understand a word of it:mrgreen::wink:

That probably means you should go with a AC Jr.. :wink:

[AndyL]

What a frustrating weekend...

Got the ardiuno so it should be outputting to the router, had a bunch of configuring to do on the router to make this work... Somehow I bricked the router doing this :mrgreen: whoops; can't connect to it by wifi or ethernet anymore - so it's a whole new learning experience to see if I can't connect to it directly using the palm pilot (pretending to be a terminal) to reset things...

ah the fun of programming small electronic devices :D

[byee]

AndyL,

sorry to hear your brick'd your router. there's got be a away to reset the router to its default values. Which router do you have ??

are you communicating with your network via ethernet or wifi ?? which Arduino shield are you using ??

did you write the source yourself or download the source ? can you please email me your source code.

[AndyL]

it's a fonera 2100; running openwrt - so not so easy to unbrick :D

The plan was to have the fonera running a webserver; linked to my network via wifi. No shields at this time (though I've got a few protoshields for the inputs/outputs once I'm happy with their operation on the breadboard.

Source is freely available - see links above + tons on the arduino.cc forums; just about everything you could want to do is there (including the app i'm currently playing with to use the palm as a temporary lcd display so I can play more while I figure out how to unbrick the router).

I'll post things up more when things actually work right :D My CGI scripting on the fonera side is suspect for the bricking, so I'm not going to torture people more than necessary just yet :D

[byee]

No worries. Glad you have everything in hand.

I'm very interested in 'adventures' putting together your controller since I'm also looking at building my controller on the same platform.

I'll definitely be monitoring this thread for your progress.

[BlueAbyss]

Hmm, interesting... I'm doing something similar, but much simpler ie: no internet, just a standalone controller to keep everything in line (and run my LED lights) on my yet to be built 6 gallon. I just don't want to have to worry about such a small volume of water.

I'll be tracking this... and it's good to know that there is someone to ask questions of in this regard :lol:

[AndyL]

There's actually a bunch of people working on this type of project nano-reef forums each using slightly different methods. Though I do disagree with the 'commercial' venture project... Seems stupid in my eyes to take a nice open source design then completely rework it so you can't just use the plugin modules already available with the arduino platform...

Waiting on a bunch of parts right now for my LED driver shield design... Basically 4 software configurable 100-1500mA constant current drivers mounted in a shield format. Although I'm pondering whether it's really needed - does incorporate PWM dimming, but that seems redundant when you can simply adjust the current to accomplish the same. Nice part is each driver can feedback to the arduino mA and voltage (possibly looking at adding I2C and adding temp feedback as well)- so realtime monitoring of the LEDs is possible (thus splashes, shorts, overheats or plain old LED failures can be accomodated - and handled appropriately, saving the array rather than burning it up).

Albeit the internet connection isn't necessary - I think it's ridiculously handy to have; to be able to graph out tank parameters so you can watch for trends (ie heaters underperforming, pH fluctuations, topoff use, plus day to day monitoring (sms text message /email if the light bulb burned out or if the main pump had to be shut down for low water levels etc)

[AndyL]

Making no progress lately... But torturing delphinius last night - noticed there's now a full arduino reef controler posted - complete with code and wiring and all those things some of us have fun figuring out... :)

reefController - part 1 - The power pack
http://reefprojects.com/w/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=21
reefController - part 2 - The controller
http://reefprojects.com/w/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=22
reefController - part 3 - All together
http://reefprojects.com/w/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=23

[banditpowdercoat]

Drooling!!!!

[byee]

AndyL

thanks for posting the links !

[pterfloth]

Please continue to post your progress. I too am very interested in a DIY controller. I would really like web monitoring.

[Vancouver Reefer]

Hi Guys,

I have been making quite abit of progress on my controller so far. Infact i have run out of I/O and memory, So i found this little guy to upgrade to:

http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/

They are fully compatible with all the arduino code and are great for a larger controller.

My controller is currently at the following stage:

ATO
Automatic water changer
Tank temp
led lighting with sunrise and sunset
PWM cooling fan control
flood sensor
heater and chiller runaway cutoffs
alarm
LCD
Real time clock

To be finished:

PH and salinity circuits for tank and fresh salt mix
4 head perilstatic doser
Internet GUI Text message alarm notification.


Please see my link at the bottom of the page for a little idea of what i got up to at the start of this project. Now i have gotten a new job i now have the finances to get back into this full swing!!

If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask and ill see if i can help out!

VR

[KrazyKuch]

I have been looking for awhile for a circuit for measuring Salinity....have you found one or designed one....I believe it works on the same principle as ph and orp, but am not sure!

[Vancouver Reefer]

Hi Kevin,

I have found this one:

http://www.octiva.net/projects/ppm/


I have still yet to build it, but the guy who designed it has built and he seems to have it working good.

My parts are on order so i will be able to play in the next month or so when i get round to it. Let me know how you get on if you build it before me.

VR.