New Jarduino build gets started
 

Well, I finally broke down and have ordered most of the parts to build my own Arduino based controller based on the Jarduino. For starters this will control my DIY LED build, heaters, and skimmer and fuge lights. If I can get a few other relay's figured out I'll also include main return pump etc.
Also to dim my LED's I'm going to try and get a hold of those Meanwell LDD1000H drivers. If anyone knows where I can source some, can you please let me know? thanks.
Pics will come as I get the parts in the mail. So far have $112 invested :)

I ordered most everything too.... just waiting on everything to show.

The LDD-1000H's are hard to come by right now. Mouser has them in stock, but at twice the cost. The couple of other places I found either don't ship to Canada, or they only use UPS ($$$). Try "Octopart" it's great when trying to find electronic parts. I picked up 4 of the 600's where I got my power supply, but haven't had luck getting the 700's or 1000's yet. (out of stock) If you find a place.... let me know.

I also have a couple of the PCB's coming that hold 4 of the LDD's.

Sweet. Might be good to have someone to bounce ideas off of. I'm trying to get a hold of 4 of those boards too from a guy who has extra on RC.
I'm looking at getting some of those drivers from someplace I can't mention here. PM me if you need some and I can see if we can double up on an order if they're available.

Definitely sounds good.... I should have most of my things in the next week or two. Haven't decided if I want to go PWM for the fans or just use relays yet.

Don't know if you knew or not... but Modular LED had a sale on heatsinks.

I actually saw that about 2 hours after I ordered my stuff from somewhere else. Du'oh!

Definitely interested in 4 drivers. PM'd you!

Tried PM'ing you back but your box is full :)

Ya, seems I was popular today:razz: Should be clear now!

WoW! Ordered a bunch of Prototyping boards for my Arduino on the 24th and they just got delivered. Not bad since I ordered them from China! Take that Canada post :D

I've built my whole controller off the arduino. right now i have lights(with spectrum recording), skimmer, pump, heaters, fans, PH, temp, CO2 and a few others. If you want/need any info let me know.The Jarduino is pretty good out of the box, if it was available when i started i would have just gone with it.

One thing i like is my datalogging with cosm. pretty easy to add the client library to the arduino and start logging if you have the network card for the arduino. Saved my butt a few ties being able to look back and see that my tank was overheating in the summer at mid day. Pretty graphs are nice.

Hmmm, sounds like a sweet system. If you're open to the idea, I might have to get you to send me some code for some of those features :)

Well, I was able to purchase 4 - 4 LDD driver PCB boards and they're on their way. :D Now I just have to source the actual drivers, lol. Everyone seems to be out of stock.

:popcorn: cant wait for pics!

Well, probably not very exciting but...

These are the proto boards I picked up. For $2/ea and free shipping I was expecting really cheap stuff, but these are as good as the one I got with my Arduino Uno for experimenting with.

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psbddbb49b.jpg

And this is the Arduino that I got from Adafruit and I'm slowly, so very slowly, learning programming for it. :)

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psdd0cca40.jpg


More pics as stuff comes in.

I may have found a good contact for these MEanWell LDD-XXXX-H drivers. Please PM me again if you still need any of them. I'm thinking of ordering a dozen or so of the 1000's, 700's, 600's and 500's. I'll need a bunch so not sure what will be left over, but if you'r thinking of it, let me know.

Oh and I was able to get a hold of these little babies that will get soldered into the 4 LDD driver boards I'm getting so you can just plug the drivers in and out if you need/want to change them out :)

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...ps28ff2b45.jpg

Looking good.... I just got my arduino and TFT screen on Friday from China, unfortunately they sent me the wrong ardunio board. So still trying to sort that with them. Will probably be easier, and take less time to just order another board from someone else.

Also received my heatsink from Modular LED last week... just have to take in down and get it cut to size I need.

Are you trying to mount the drivers on the Protoboard?

Having your own boards made up may be easier. The eagle files are publicly available.

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h2...psaf68b747.png

It is very easy to send out to get your boards made up. My CAT4101 drivers only cost 99cents a piece.

If you go this route, all you have to do is connect your power supply and the PWM signals from your Arduino. It is much easier to troubleshoot separate modules than trying to put everything in one package.

Where do you get your PCBs made for that price?

Iteadstudio. They have regular sales on. I am really happy with the quality.

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps4ccbd5d8.jpg

The meanwell driver boards would be twice the size of the CAT4101 so they would be about $2 a board. There are also files out there for other boards with varying numbers of the meanwell drivers.

Not to hijack the thread, but I am changing the direction I am going with my DIY LEDs because I won a Vertex Illuminex fixture in the VAHS raffle. I have a number of driver boards and components and I am also thinking of getting rid of my 81 LED DIY 4 foot fixture that was run for only 10 hours total. Plug and play.

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps85e09455.jpg

Lol, I will be if I can ever get my hands on some drivers, haha. Yeah, I saw all those drawings being open source on RC, but I had already gotten a hold of a guy there and he sent me some of the 4 driver boards. They're still in the snail mail along with almost all my other parts and pieces.

Nice going with winning a fixture, totally cool! But alas, no winning for me. :( I'm really looking forward to this build though. Something to be said about being able to say you built something yourself. Hopefully it works :)

Well got some parts in today. My TFT LCD touch screen and the RTC MEGA shield.

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5d969cbc.jpg

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psce7c030e.jpg

ah dude that is so easy solder here and there touch some of the jiggy here and some of the jiggy there and pouf you have smoke. lol

seriously well done man I wouoldnt know where to start.

LOL, I'm not sure I do either, haha, but I'm figuring it out :D

And you're right, with a good soldering iron, it is very easy to solder these boards up. This is how the Real Time Clock and ITDB02 MEGA shield comes comes:
http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5fcf871b.jpg

and this is what it looks like after about 3 hours of soldering:
http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...ps277fa233.jpg

Actually it wouldn't have taken 3 hours except, see that tiny little chip to the left of the teeny little silver cylinder? I soldered it on backwards and had to unsolder it (much more difficult than it sounds) clean up all the solder pads and re-do it. I actually don't know if there is a right way or wrong way to put it on, but there is a teeny weeny little dimple on one corner and one of the photo's I found on the net of another guy who built the same thing had the dimple in the opposite corner that I did. Logically I just assumed I was the one between us that got it wrong :)

And the back:
http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...ps71650cb8.jpg

Looks pretty pro, Dom! How much fun did you have bending all those resistors :lol: And yes, there is a right way and a wrong way to solder on that chip. It's lessons like these that teach you how valuable braided copper solder wick is. It's like an eraser for soldering :razz:

Hmmm, braided copper solder wick, good to know. I had a devil of a time trying to get that sucker off there. I kept trying to tell myself, "well at least you know your soldering is good!" :D
Do you just use any stranded copper wire (I'm assuming prepped with flux) or is there a specific product you get? I do have a desoldering pump, but go figure, I only remembered it after I'd finished.

Looks like this:

http://www.photonage.com.au/images/i...od/T/T1220.gif

It's also called desoldering braid. Desoldering pumps work kinda "meh". The braid works like a sponge and sucks it up real quick. It's way less cumbersome and fussy than than the pumps. The day I discovered this stuff I tossed my desoldering pump in the bin (actually it was first disassembled for useful parts, then binned:razz:).

The solder wick comes on a roll
It looks similar to braided ground straps on older cars
Very handy to have on hand, but I've always got by with a solder pump

Nice work so far

Edit: I'm too slow :smile:

Sweet thanks guys. I'll see if Lordco or The source has some kicking around here for next time, because I'm sure there will be a next time.

The Source Pacific Rim Center shows 2 in stock :smile:

Hey, thanks Greg! I haven't been up there yet, but now I definitely have more motivation :)
I got some more goodies in the mail today. A ribbon cable for the LCD screen. I want to mount it in the hood so I don't have to open the cabinet door to see the screen.

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0cb5f5cc.jpg


And the 4 driver LDD mounting boards:
http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psd235aa8e.jpg


And thanks to Chatouille, I now realize I ordered the wrong PCB board terminals for the boards and I'll have to buy 3.5mm pitch blocks rather than the 2.45mm I have coming. Du'oh!
Good thing I only paid $1.5 for ten and free shipping. :D

Hey Dom,

Which of the RC guys did you get your boards from? I'm thinking I might try to grab one as well. Make sure you connect the PWM signals to ground with 10K pull down resistors.

I'm excited to see your build!

Do you mean to use the pull down resistor in case of power loss to the controller? (so that the LED’s don’t go to full power?) From what I’ve read, if you remove power to the arduino, the PWM output is already held low, and the lights will not come on. It would be a great safeguard if the physical connection is lost though, and very easy to add to the LDD boards.

Chris

Yes, in case if the physical connection is lost (all it takes is one loose connection). For the sake of engineering rigor and user experience, when dealing with logic or PWM values you should always use pull-up/-down resistors so that devices default to a desired state when they're unplugged. It's kinda silly for the lights to turn on 100% if you need to unplug your controller to do something, right? Imagine the amount of online bitching we'd hear if Radions did that:razz:

If the Arduino does lose power, the PWM pin should also go to ground because the -ve/ground of the Arduino is connected to the -ve of the driver, but there is also the possibility of the PWM pin of the Arduino just floating. The pull down resistors are an added safeguard in that situation as well.

Just never really thought of it like that since I planned to house controller/LDD’s within the LED pendant, so accidental disconnection shouldn’t be an issue. It is a good idea though, and something I will add.

Man it will be nice to get everything in, and get started on this project. I think I’ve changed my plans a couple of dozen times already.

Tell me about it. I almost just want to get my build done so I can get it it of my head! Hopefully all my parts will be here by next weekend so I can finish it off.

lol.... I have most everything from "plan 1, 2, & 3", too bad I din't stick with any of those. Did you find anyone on RC for a spare LDD board? I picked up an extra one when I got mine, so if you're stuck, shoot me a pm.

Chris

Ya, I'm on version "G' or "H" or something, I've lost count. When I get everything I ordered I bet I won't use some stuff and need more of others.
I thought you could order these boards straight from ITead Studio but I couldn't find them on there.
Have you decided on what you wanted to do with those drivers, ScubaSteve?

Chatouille has an extra board that I'm gong to grab from him. I'm going to add 10K resistor between the PWM inputs and ground for added safety.

I'm going to put an order through Mouser tomorrow once I make sure that I've thought of everything.

You have to purchase the PCB prototying service from Itead then send them the gerbers.

If you order the phoenix terminals, make sure you get the right part #, or check the foot print out before buying them. (ask me how I know :sad: )

Well, I got a wack load of stuff yesterday

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...psee98e789.jpg

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6caff948.jpg

http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/...ps05d75c0a.jpg

My main Arduino board, 3 temp sensors, a couple different adjustable resistors, screw terminals (the wrong ones, as it turns out), larger wiring terminals I'm going to use these to link my 3 fixtures, and some transistors.

Pretty soon I'm not gonna have much excuse not to start building this :D