Ideas for fishtank controller

Hi.

Some may know others may not but I have been wanting to build a lighting controller for over a year now!

I have managed to get pretty far in coding for the chip and would finish pretty soon. However today I visited some masters students doing electrical engineering at wits to get some help and much needed guidance. Basically what they told me is that there are easier way, I was programming in assembly where as I could have used the much friendlier C. Also there are chips that are better and easier to use than the PIC micro controllers I have based this on.

So the short of it is that I will be starting from square one, this allows for changes to be made!

What in your guys/girls opinion is needed.

here are some of my ideas.

Be able to set how long the startup sunrise time is, the full lights on time and the sun set time. The time between sunrise and full sun would be a gradual rise, kind of like a dimmer switch being turned very slowly.

I was thinking it would be nice to control the temperature too and be able to cool it at night or just decrease it easily to trigger breeding.

What other suggestions do you have?

 

What ballasts are you using? AFAIK Dimmable T5 ballasts are prohibatively expensive

Stupid question, why not look at the marine controllers?

 

Hi, im using high power leds. I could just buy one but its so much more fun and stimulating to try and build one. I will look at them for some ideas maybe. I don't think I was to be doing pH etc right now but will definitely try build a controller when this is done!

 

Wow.....So you are basically recreating a natural ecosystem! If you get it right PLEASE show us!Who am i kidding you will get it right!

 

yeah that is the plan DS DG! I will get it right with some time and ill post a complete how to guide with the coding etc. Costs should be low. Chip is R50, leds prob about R2000, thats 60leds for a 3ft tank, might be overkill though.

 

Ok seems like there will be an LCD screen to output the temp and time, a keypad to input variables and set the time, a thermometer and a lighting output, and an on off switch, guess there should be an override switch too...

 

LED zeppelin...LOL

I will possibly have some LED panel lighting assemblies available from 50W upto >100W (HighPower 1W) , in 1-2months.

Maybe your controller idea can interface and work on those .
What you think?

Have you looked at existing (few) LED aquarium light units that DO have dimmable , and RGB control for not just intensity, and time but for OVerall Colour Mix as well?
Should find clues to your intended functionality there... you can also just ASK them how controllable their units are!!!:bigsmile:

Holler if you wannago that way.
pm me for my email address.:blink1:

Good Luck however, wherever you go about doing this!