Arduino Reef Monitor / Lighting Controller

[Scythanith]

Oh well of course! I completely forgot about stenciling and the re-flow oven....

[_Adrian_]

Originally Posted by Scythanith

Oh well of course! I completely forgot about stenciling and the re-flow oven....

The PCB house that I'm using will include an SS stencil if I order 100 boards which from the looks of it will be about $80

[_Adrian_]

Things have evolved into something a bit more than just a "simple" board !!
Driver Modules them-self were redesigned to facilitate simpler routing on the main board.





The main board does not share a central power source either as each module ( up to 4 can be plugged

into the main board ) have their separate power supplies, which comes in handy when your running LED

strings with different voltages ( 2.4V - 2.7V VS 3.2V - 3.6 ) now doesn't have to be a logistical

nightmare.





Another change is the MOSFET implementation. By adding dedicated connectors for each MOSFET and Reference Resistor now channels can be "Enabled" or "Disabled" by powering down the unit and unplugging the MOSFET module. This was when the unit is powered back up it will check the MOSFET and Reference Resistor and if not found the chip will disable said channel.

All the controls are available on the center of the board via a IDC header that can used as is, or use a number of Control boards that I have designed to be plug and play and offer a number of configurations on the fly.
The I2C board allows one to use a single serial cable to control all 16 dimmers via an NXP

PCA9685. This chip can be "addressed" so multiple units can run simultaneously on the same bus allowing LARGE light arrays to be controlled via a single controller. Currently ther is no on-board power for the chip and will be supplied externally via the I2C header either from the micro controller. I have been thinging of adding in a DC/DC buck converter, but at this time its just a speculation, but it may become reality as this project is evolving.





In the works is an pure PWM board as well as a serial board board. Even though the IDC is available some "configuration" is required via the mode pin.

Currently I'm working on a I2C shield for your standard arduino using 40x4 Character LCD and and a rotary encoder.
Latter on complete controller package will be offered.
This way a simple out of the box solution is available allowing each channel to be controlled independently as well as a single master control.