My diy led build using arduino controller

[mark sid tottle]

In the few months its been running I have had some teething problems, the main problem was with the cooling of the heatsinks. I had one pwm fan that would work as it should and the other would just run at the same speed all the time.

When the pwm fans work correctly they are only meant to come on at a set temperature (which I choice to set to) and speed up according to the rise in temperature, and when the temperature is stable (or cooling down from the leds ramping down and the set temperature is reached) and the fan is making no difference to the temperature then the fans turn them self's off to save power. Well my fans did not do this. spent days and nearly weeks trying find out why, I spent money on a new fan thinking the pwm in the fan had broken. turned out was not the case.

In the end with help from the engineers at work we found the problem, the pwm circuit that is in the jarduino manual which used did work for my setup. due to the heatsinks heating up to quickly. well again the guys at work designed me a new circuit, It is massively over kill but wont have problems with it.
old pwm circuit. (it the one on the right)

new pwm circuit.

I do have a circuit diagram for this if anyone requires it for the build.

 

[Kalen]

Very nice. I see a little more clearly the open back In the canopy

 

[mark sid tottle]

The only other problem I have had so far is a fan failure in my psu. when the fan starts to make noises it means its going to break :smile: having to wait a few days for one to turn up in the post I am thankful for running jarduino v1.2 as it has an over temp. If the heatsinks get to hot the whole system shuts down till a sensable temperature is reached then starts up again. managed to get a very good replacement that so silent I had to touch it to make sure it was working lol. The new fan is a massive upgrade from the standard one, the new fan runs at 4000rpm so plenty of air flow there.

 

[mark sid tottle]

The only other problem I have had so far is a fan failure in my psu. when the fan starts to make noises it means its going to break :smile: having to wait a few days for one to turn up in the post I am thankful for running jarduino v1.2 as it has an over temp. If the heatsinks get to hot the whole system shuts down till a sensable temperature is reached then starts up again. managed to get a very good replacement that so silent I had to touch it to make sure it was working lol. The new fan is a massive upgrade from the standard one, the new fan runs at 4000rpm so plenty of air flow there.

Made a mistake in my last post, its if my psu over heats it has a built in over temp to shut down (not the heatsinks sorry)

 

[mark sid tottle]

In the few months its been running I have had some teething problems, the main problem was with the cooling of the heatsinks. I had one pwm fan that would work as it should and the other would just run at the same speed all the time.

When the pwm fans work correctly they are only meant to come on at a set temperature (which I choice to set to) and speed up according to the rise in temperature, and when the temperature is stable (or cooling down from the leds ramping down and the set temperature is reached) and the fan is making no difference to the temperature then the fans turn them self's off to save power. Well my fans did not do this. spent days and nearly weeks trying find out why, I spent money on a new fan thinking the pwm in the fan had broken. turned out was not the case.

In the end with help from the engineers at work we found the problem, the pwm circuit that is in the jarduino manual which used did work for my setup. due to the heatsinks heating up to quickly. well again the guys at work designed me a new circuit, It is massively over kill but wont have problems with it.
old pwm circuit. (it the one on the right)

new pwm circuit.

I do have a circuit diagram for this if anyone requires it for the build.

With the heatsink fans working correctly now the difference in temperature between the 2 heatsinks is only 0.1 degrees c.
The max temperature the heatsinks reach is 33 degrees c very happy with that temperature. the fans and the circuit are working well.

 

[mark sid tottle]

Well that is my build. Hope everyone has liked it? Don't really have any more to add until I can get a more accurate measurement of the spectrum, once I have that then I can look to add 2 more colours to widen the spectrum a little. What I have at the moment is working really well and the coral growth is really good. growing very fast. Any question please ask.

 

[mark sid tottle]

I have fitted some new lenses to my 3w leds. Replaced the 90 degree lenses with 120 degree one. Hopefully should get a wider coverage for the violet colour.

 

[Salty0331]

ok sorry for the elementary question but, how many lights can be driven by each driver in your build considering the shopping list?.....

 

[mark sid tottle]

That ok salty0331, it depends on what voltage the leds are? for example if your leds are 3v-3.6v then all you have to do is take the high end of the voltage and divide it by the voltage of the driver (30v) like so.... 30/3.6=8.3333333333. that will allow you to have 8 or 9 leds to one driver. The good thing with leds is that they self regulate the volt. so having to much voltage isn't a problem. The main thing you have to watch out for is to make use that the current is the same as the led or less. Hope this makes sense.
Any more question please ask.

 

[mark sid tottle]

Is there any one that can analyse spectrum shot I have taken?

 

[mark sid tottle]

Had my first led driver failure :sad:
For a few days now one set of my white leds kept flickering every now and then. Then the other day I noticed that the tank was a little dull in one area. well the driver had given up. luckily i had a few spare drivers. Old one out new one in all working again :roll:
Had some new code to upload to my arduino but was unable to do so as the usb com port on my arduino mega 2560 has died as well, think this happened with a shorting issue I had during the build of everything, the code at that point had already been uploaded. so was no need to change anything till now.

 

[mark sid tottle]

Been having a few problems but notthing that couldn't be fixed. Problem 1 was mega 2560 failed well the usb on the board did. There's a small chip (atmega8u2-mu) that controls the usb port turns out mine had given up which is why my computer kept telling that the com port was in use everytime I tried to load a sketch to the mega board. Fitted new board and all working again and finally uploaded my modified that jamie sorted for me last year some time.
Problem 2 shortly after fitting the new board my ds1307 clock which is built in to my mega shield failed, as we all know the ds1307 is not very reliabledas I found out. Seeing as jamie is now recommending on using the ds3231clock I went about getting one. Really easy to fitted with the help from jamie. Took me about 30 mins in all. Happy days

 

[mark sid tottle]

With the small repairs being done I upgraded my cooling fan on my control box as it was getting a bit noisy, swapped it out with a Arctic f8 Tc works great and the best bit is its silent.

 

[mark sid tottle]

Look what I have gotten hold of...... time for an upgrade I think. It's measures 1000 x 200 x 25mm. Looking to buy a bigger tank some. So going to upgrade the lights from 2 units to 1.

 

[Dekon]

That is a great diy write-up, way above my head, but a great write-up none the less.