accurate moonlighting/daylighting

[bensenvill]

This may sound silly but I have a senior design project to finish my electrical engineering next year. Basically the school spots me money to build something, so naturally I want something I can use for my tank (especially if its free). I want peoples thoughts on this and features I should include. I want to design a light timer that keeps track of the date with the appropriate hours of light and also the moon cycle. I intend on having 4 modes of light intensity, quarter, half, full, moon. Also if I build something like this it will be fairly easy to duplicate it, so would anyone else be interested in such a timer (provided I can get it to work well.

Just shootn ideas around in my head.

~Terrence

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a good Idea. Whould you be able to set the lattitude/longitude? There is a lot of Light difference between,say the Indo Pacific, and the carribean. You should take that into consideration. What about also creating a random 'cloudiness' to the settings as well? And you could also make the same timer control powerheads and pumps in the tank to create storm, that go along with the lights. Of course, you could also make it a nice Full- moon calm open seas (aaaahhhhhhh) Setting as well.

Just my 2 cents. (but if it worked, I would be interested in one...)

B

 

[bensenvill]

bingo,
what your saying would actually be pretty easy to do. The difference is that your reef tank would need to be within about 25 feet of a computer running a very small program (attached throught the serial port to those power strips DJ's use for lighting equipement). The other option althought it would have to be much more stripped down in features than what you talked about would all be programmed into a ROM chip inside the timer. So would people be more interested in a simple timer with automatic sunlight adustment thought the year or an overly optimized and feature laiden power stip but needs to be reasonable close to a computer?

 

[kampkomfort]

Hey Terrence,

I like the idea of the computer/serial port/power strip idea. You say DJ's use something like this...where could I look for such a setup? I would love to control my lights/powerheads with my computer. Also, do controller programs exist for this type of application, or would this be a custom programming job?

Good luck with your project!

K

 

[freedom75]

That would be awesome to be able to control my tank VIA my serial or USB port but The main thing is the price. Software you might look at would be a package called space explorer. Not sure who makes it but you might be able to modify it to run your tank. it is made to run a telescope so you can enter Long and Lats and it serial enabled for talking to scopes.I think it can track your moon phases to.This might help but I would love to know what happens with this project and let me know if you need any PC parts I would be glad to donate anything that I might have laying around to see what the final product would look like

John Wray
Computer Tech
[email protected]
http://home.triad.rr.com/jwray/reef.html

[ November 06, 2001: Message edited by: freedom75 ]</p>

 

[bensenvill]

I'll have to double check the DJ equipement we have in our basement. But they are large oversized power strips that have a serial port on them that is intended for a sound/light controller. I was planning on reverse engineering the strip to turn on/off components on the strip. And for the computer, it is fairly easy to write VB code to send signals via the serial port. Admittingly I know nothing about the math of the lunear cycle (so I have a bit of leg work there). I plan on writing all the code for it myself, hence why the school will cut me a check for the expenses. I wont be starting this project until about this time next year but all the components are off the shelf. I'll post periodically as I refine the idea. Thanks guys, just wanted to make sure I wasnt turning loony with this idea.

 

[Anonymous]

hi.
If the communication protocol is available, you can use a calculator to control the switches instead of a computer. Hewlett Packard's HP48 series calculator have timer/alarm/clock mode and it is programmable to send serial command over a DB9 at 9600 baud. I am trying to use it to control my digital camera to take time lapse photo, and for a wave maker for my tank.

I am looking for cheap PLC (programmable logic controller), but the DJ idea should be a cheaper alternative. Please keep me updated on your progress.

 

[Chucker]

Actually, I know of a gent that occassionally visits this board and frequents the #reefs chat channel that has written software to do just such a thing himself. It runs off of an X-10 firecracker module iirc.

 

[Dazureus]

I was thinking about doing my senior design project on an enviornment controller for the vivarium for my mantellas since I run my reef off of x10 stuff. Most of the students use the motorola HC11 since it's what we're weened on in the lower classes and I think it would be a great programmable microcontroller for your project if you haven't ruled it out already. Since the moon cycles on about 29 days, it would be a pretty simple task to program moon phases appropriately. Likewise for programming a date tracking program. OF course the feasibility for reproduction would be slim since the Axiom HC11 I'm using is $150, close to the price of a pre-made light controller.

 

[bensenvill]

Wow guys I'm really impressed. I wrote down the names so I can do a bit of research. And I'll check on those DJ strips (I bought 2 of them, they were like 50 bucks each, but never attached any light/sound processor so not sure exactly how they function. Now I'm excited because I'll be able to troubleshoot a bit. I still plan on using a computer simply because if other people want to adopt it, all they need is a dj powerstrip, a serial cable, and a way to get that cable the the computer you are staring at now.

~Terrence

 

[CLAY CRUDEN]

UH-OH! don't mean to be a pain or throw wrenches at what sounds like a pretty important step toward a career, but...check out this.

http://www.championlighting.com/

and go to "dimmers". I actually own one and it does it all. waves, true moon phase through incandecent bulb dimming from a percent of power, temp if you want, cpu, sat. etc.
It sounds like this is what your trying to create.

 

[liquid]

Here's the webpage that Chucker was referencing above:

http://cereal.mv.com/reef

Check out the menu items for JMoonLight and eLightMaster. The gent's name is Bill Esposito and he goes by Bill-e on #reefs irc...

Shane (aka 'liquid')

 

[bensenvill]

thanks, its now a question of weither I trust myself to design a better one and drive myself crazy trying or dish out some cash. Damn, both of them require work dont they, its that stupid catch 22 thing again.

 

[DontYouJustWish]

What about using x10 technology?

 

[liquid]

Bill-e's program uses X-10 technology. He just posted something to Reefkeepers about it:

http://www.escribe.com/pets/reefkeepers/m44741.html

Shane (aka 'liquid')