OR T247 controller dimming below 10%?

[b4tn]

I am looking for any info from anyone that has successfully modified their OR lights to dim below 10% via PWM. I have found a lot of very useful information and it seems very easy to tap into the PWM wire to control them but as far as I can tell everyone dims them down to 10% then shuts them off with a relay. Since 10% the lights are already pretty bright and I only run mine at 60/40 its not really worth the effort unless I can truly dim them to 0% for sunset and sunrise. I know that @mlivvy successfully integrated the blufish but same thing only down to 10% then off with a relay.

 

[ihavecrabs]

Tagging along. Looks like the new version of the T247 is also different from @mlivvy so interested to see what this turns out.

 

[b4tn]

Mine are 3 years old but I have not opened them up yet. Since they are my only lights I want to make sure if I start hacking on them something is going to work lol

 

[ihavecrabs]

Mine are 3 years old but I have not opened them up yet. Since they are my only lights I want to make sure if I start hacking on them something is going to work lol

You are likely good then. Mine were purchased 6 mo ago.

When you open it up, look at the back of the timer to compare.

 

[Diamond1]

I'm in on this one too. I'm planning on taking mine apart this weekend and doing some testing.

 

[b4tn]

@Diamond1 do you already have a thread dedicated to this? I would love to see what you find out.

 

[Diamond1]

@Diamond1 do you already have a thread dedicated to this? I would love to see what you find out.

Not yet. The lights are still up running my frag tank. I'm gonna replace them with t5s this weekend so i can mess with the OR lights. I'll post my results here if you don't mind.

 

[b4tn]

I'm in on this one too. I'm planning on taking mine apart this weekend and doing some testing.

Not yet. The lights are still up running my frag tank. I'm gonna replace them with t5s this weekend so i can mess with the OR lights. I'll post my results here if you don't mind.

Please do!

 

[Diamond1]

So after watching the above video like 8 times I have a few ideas about how to control t247 fixtures with a raspberry pi.

1. The first problem is to get rid of the crappy OR timer so that reef-pi can control the on off times of both channels.

This could be done using 2 relays to turn on a connection between the on-off wire and the 12 volt wire coming straight from the driver and bypassing the built in timer board altogether. The relays would be declared in the reef-pi equipment tab and could be set up with timers.
By using relays set up to run off of the reef-pi timers, we could turn on both channels at different times. The fans would turn on when the blue channel powers up. I'm thinking 12volt relays so that they can use my existing power supply and the 12volt rail I already have built into my proto pi hat. The guy in the video said that the led drivers in the fixture default to 1% pwm on start up, so that should solve the problem of having them start at 10% and reef-pi can ramp them up from there. I will do some testing to confirm this.
Was looking at these relays. https://www.amazon.com/SMAKN®-Chann...&qid=1542925664&sr=8-10&keywords=12v+dc+relay

2. There are 2 pwm gpio pins built into the rpi. GPIO 18 and 19. I'm thinking that we can use these 2 pins and declare rpi to run the pwm at 3.3volts instead of a PCA9685 breakout board, since we only have 2 channels to worry about in the OR T247. I believe we can use the reef-pi lighting tab to get the desired ramp up and down from 1% to 100% I'm not sure about the programing end of things but maybe we can get @Ranjib to chime in and help us out with that.

4. A DB9 cable would let us run the relays, the grounds and the pwm signal from the rpi to the light fixture.

Here's what I'm thinking of for a circuit to connect the relays and the lights to the pi hat.
Any thoughts or problems anyone sees?
This is just my initial thought process on integrating the lights with a reef-pi. I think it could work.

In the diagram I tried to stick with the same color scheme that Ocean Revive used in their wiring. That's why the ground is red and black is the pwm. I believe that the same wiring set up would work for later models of the 247 with different wire colors (the difference being the on on/off wire and 12v dc wire are different colors).

I hope the diagram makes sense it was just a quick throw together using paint.

 

[b4tn]

I would. Think you only need one relay. The 12 volt wire would just connect to 12 volts all the time and the on off wire would need a relay with switch 12 volts. The big question is if the 3.3 volt PWM wire will dim below 10%. If you have the doser circuit wired up you could test it with that’s calibrate mode just to see if the what the brightness looks like at different levels. I’m doing the same thing with a computer fan right now on my doser circuit running at different speeds at different times.

I have not played with the light portion of reef-pi but I “think” if you just select rpi as the driver for your lights the software might already control it but I’m not sure.

 

[b4tn]

Never mind. Just realized you have a relay per channel :)

 

[Diamond1]

I will be getting my new rpi on Saturday so I will start testing it then. I actually thought of running the whole thing off of the dosing pump tab.

 

[Diamond1]

Just a quick update, I'll post some more results here and in my build thread when I have a better idea of using reef-pi to control the lights.

I got my lights taken apart and cleaned up. So far I have confirmed that the lights do start off at a very bright at 1% using the onboard dimmers in the t247
The cooling fans do turn on when the connection is made between the on/off wire and the 12v DC wire.
The ramp up between 1% and 60% is a very visibly apparent using the onboard dimmers.
After 60% up too 100% there's not much difference visually but the light gets more intense. (If that makes sense)
So far I have only played with the blue channel so I can't speak to the way the white channel will react, but I expect the same results.
I tried to get a video of them ramping but it's hard to see and my dslr does not like blue leds.

I'm working on getting a raspberry pi up and running right now to check the circuit and see if rpi will control them.

 

[b4tn]

Thanks for posting this. With them taken apart does it look like buying a different driver Would be possible or is everything to integrated?

 

[Diamond1]

It looks like everything is integrated. The fans and the pins to the board are all wired directly into the driver. I guess if you could find the right driver you could swap them out, but not something I want to try myself.
I'm still trying to get my pi up and running to see if the pi controls the drivers any differently than the timer board does but I have my doubts.
Having a brain fart and can't remember how to turn the pwm on in the boot file.

 

[RomoFL]

Any updates on this? I know I’m pulling up an old thread.