# Specialist lighting controllers, any interested ?



## fixitsan (Apr 15, 2008)

I am posting this because there is the chance someone else may be interested.
I am about to build a custom electronic lighting control for our new viv. Inormally build one-off stuff to suit a particular purpose and tend to hardwire everything together. However if anyone is interested I could approach the making of this new controller from a modular point of view, which would make it easy for others to buy and use. If anyone is interested let me know, and if enough people show an interest I'll look to making a small production run. Obviously the more people who are interested the better, because then printed circuit boards and lcd displays will be cheaper in volume.

The controller has an lcd display, and all functions are set and unset using a single rotary 'click' type controller with a pushbutton built in.
The functions are as follows.

Adjustable Day/Night lighting timer. Uses low voltage LED lights to produce a white daylight and a blue/white moonlight effect. This has a proper 28.5 day lunar cycle, which is known to encourage breeding in some animals. A mains interface can be made, but mains lamps are switched on and off only, the LED's smoothly fade in and out, which is more gentle on the eye . (ours and our pets !)
Adjustable UV on/off timer. You can leave the UV on all the time, or it can come on and off as you wish. This would have a mains interface to control mains powered UV lights.
Sunrise/sunset colour burst. With the addition of red/yellow LED's a strong orange/red glow can be created which mimicks a real sunset. This colour cahnges are slow and gradual and make a realistic environment which would add an unusual dynamic to the viv. 
Cloud Simulation . If the main lighting consists of low voltage halogen lighting (my preference for safety and energy efficiency) then the main lighting can be gently dimmed at random intervals, for random periods of time, by a user definable amount. This would create small fluctuations in light and heat in the viv, creating a more natural environment.

Please let me know, either reply personally or on the message board if you are interested. I don't know what sort of cost to expect at the moment, because everything will be one-off and I expect to cost me £90. In volume it would come down by quite a bit.

Chris

I


----------



## paulgrant (Nov 24, 2007)

this does sound interesting 

have you got any made up ? pics?


----------



## fixitsan (Apr 15, 2008)

paulgrant said:


> this does sound interesting
> 
> have you got any made up ? pics?



I only have an earlier version made up, which currently controls the lights on my daughter's fishtank. It runs day/night cycles, UV light switching and lunar cycling, and has an animated fish swimming across the LCD screen for good measure !

I suppose I can see if it will video well at a low frame rate and put a video on Youtube. If I get a chance in the next few days I'll let you know.

Chris


----------



## paulgrant (Nov 24, 2007)

that would be good to see let me know :2thumb:


----------



## fixitsan (Apr 15, 2008)

paulgrant said:


> that would be good to see let me know :2thumb:


Paul, there is a very poorly put together video here...
YouTube - terrarium vivarium aquarium light controller project

YouTube - terrarium vivarium aquarium light controller project

The camera I have is such an old analogue camera that the colour transition between blue and white is not obvious due to the fact that the camera's CCD is getting completely light saturated saturated, but it should give you an idea of the controller functions which were on Version 1


Chris


----------



## yellrat (Jun 13, 2008)

sounds really interesting like the idea will pop back to this thread for updates :2thumb:


----------



## fixitsan (Apr 15, 2008)

yellrat said:


> sounds really interesting like the idea will pop back to this thread for updates :2thumb:



It will need to be said that the existing lighting in some tanks would not be able to be controlled by my controller. I am designing this from the view that all lighting is low voltage, either LED, or low voltage halogen bulbs.

It is very difficult (Read as expensive) to dim fluorescent tubes, and can be hit and miss.

In time, I will probably be making an interface to connect with and control mains powered filament bulbs. This would mean that where extra heating is provided by those bulbs there would also be a slow and gradual temperature drop the same as happens in nature when the sun goes down, instead of it being a sudden swing in temperature and lighting.

I'll keep you posted, I have a few other projects on the go which provide income and need to take precedence over my hobby stuff, but I would like to think it possible to make a complete low voltage heating and lighting system which is more energy efficient than just running everything off uncontrolled mains. 

Chris
Chris


----------



## counterculture (Oct 8, 2007)

this would interest me, as my thread would indicate and save me some brainwork


----------



## stuartdouglas (Mar 5, 2008)

I'd be interested


----------



## It's corny but.. (Feb 7, 2007)

would it be possible to put several controllers into one unit - for several tanks, so they may be controlled at a central location?


----------



## iangreentree (Nov 5, 2007)

*Specialist lighting controllers, any interested*

when i had my marine tank i had a unit from aquamedic abit like this was good thing to have i had it controlling my two 250 watt halides and 4 tubes. I would love something like yours for my chameleon tank which will be my next project.

Also the tropical marine center sell a controller that does longitude and latitude sunset,sunrise,rainly days,cloudy days etc.
BUT COST OVER A GRAND :lol2: SO £90 sounds good to me. keep me updated ill have one.:2thumb:


----------



## fixitsan (Apr 15, 2008)

It's corny but.. said:


> would it be possible to put several controllers into one unit - for several tanks, so they may be controlled at a central location?



Due to the amount of processing which each controller would need to do to set light levels eith pulse width modulation, PWM, there are limits to what one processor can control. This only applies if you want there to be a different day/night cycle in each tank. If you allow all tanks to be on a daylight phase at the same time then technically there is no limit to the amount of system expansion which could be done.

The building block led driver circuit which I am working with can control 2 high brightness clusters of each of the following colours, red, blue, white, yellow and UV, about 150 led's in total.

It would be possible to make a more poweful interface for very little extra money, one which could drive literally thousands of led's, and then you could fit lots of clusters in lots of tanks and still benefit from the low energy aspect.

The led's which I have ordered arrived this morning. Each cluster can consume 3W at full power, but with the exception of the white light, the other colours will not be on all of the time. What I'm getting at is that you could budget for about 8W-10W per 2' x 18"' x 18" of tank, but this is just a preliminary guess, and it depends how bright you want the tank to be too. 

The maximum which could be driven from one controller depends on which processor I use and which colours you wanted, for example, a larger processor (cost about £5) could be used to drive 20 channels of lighting. If you only used 2 colours, blue and white for day-night, then 20 channels could drive 10 tanks all with different day/night cycles. I am not sure I fancy trying to write software to do all of that but it is definately possible from a hardware point of view !


----------



## sarahking20 (Apr 12, 2008)

fixitsan said:


> Due to the amount of processing which each controller would need to do to set light levels eith pulse width modulation, PWM, there are limits to what one processor can control. This only applies if you want there to be a different day/night cycle in each tank. If you allow all tanks to be on a daylight phase at the same time then technically there is no limit to the amount of system expansion which could be done.
> 
> The building block led driver circuit which I am working with can control 2 high brightness clusters of each of the following colours, red, blue, white, yellow and UV, about 150 led's in total.
> 
> ...


the above is definately something i will buy without a second thought, i have just built a stack with 6 vivs included and one point of control would be groovy. if you ever did fancy making something that could control all 6 vivs in the way stated in the above quote then please please let me know, i will bite your hand off for it :2thumb:


----------



## Axel01 (Jun 14, 2008)

This looks good.
I'm interested in Dawn/ dusk functions. I probably missed something is is just the lighting rig. Can UV lamps could be on during the day as usual? perhaps dawn would start by ramping up the lighting and once at full it turns on the UV to get to full and then goes into reverse for dusk.


----------



## fixitsan (Apr 15, 2008)

Axel01 said:


> This looks good.
> I'm interested in Dawn/ dusk functions. I probably missed something is is just the lighting rig. Can UV lamps could be on during the day as usual? perhaps dawn would start by ramping up the lighting and once at full it turns on the UV to get to full and then goes into reverse for dusk.


 
Yes, and the MK1 controller does exactly as you say.

i have read all the other comments too, and appreciate the interest. I have also seen the lattitude/longitude type devices and still consider that to be an option. You could possibly set the controller by pluging it into a USB port of a PC and then reconnect it for normal use. That might make it cheaper because then there is no lcd display to pay for. In truth I prefer a live lcd display myself, but then I haven't tried to make this work any other way yet.

I intend to do plenty of work on it over the next couple of weeks.


----------

