reef-pi :: An opensource reef tank controller based on Raspberry Pi.

[Gareth elliott]

Ok i might be over thinking this.
But how do i wire multiple voltage regulators to one supply?
Or what is the simplest way to have one supply to convert to multiple voltages?
On hand i have resistors, transistors, and some lm2596.

From the single supply(lap top adaptor) i would like to power the pi, the sensors, relays and the pwm circuit.

 

[denierlexiese]

@Ryan115 i would love to know what wires you used in your blackbox to power the 12 volts coming in, instead of an external power supply. I labeled my setup.

I think your assumptions are all correct except the one in red
+12V & GND = ~12V
+V & GND = ~10V - this is my third picture right? Is there any ground on the 4 pin board? Is Vim - a ground? In my third pictures V+ to dc fan ground is 11.71 volts
+V & ON/OFF (When OFF ~10V, When ON ~0V) the ON/OFF is being driven high to turn the driver on, which is why there is no voltage difference when on.

Here's a picture i labeled to hopefully make my setup more clear. This took a surprisingly long time for me to create in gimp. I'm not very good at gimp

 

[arno]

am unable to get lighting option in my reef pi dashboard

I had the same issue, I solved it by turning on Dev-Mode and light. Then reloading the page worked for me ( 20-03-2018) ( development mode)

 

[Ranjib]

I had the same issue, I solved it by turning on Dev-Mode and light. Then reloading the page worked for me ( 20-03-2018) ( development mode)

If you dont have the pca9685 enabled, then lighting will be disabled and not loaded even if you enable it,. DevMode makes everything fake out the device calls, its used for development purpose (i.e. it will run on laptop, macnbook etc)

 

[Ryan115]

@Ryan115 i would love to know what wires you used in your blackbox to power the 12 volts coming in, instead of an external power supply. I labeled my setup.

I think your assumptions are all correct except the one in red
+12V & GND = ~12V
+V & GND = ~10V - this is my third picture right? Is there any ground on the 4 pin board? Is Vim - a ground? In my third pictures V+ to dc fan ground is 11.71 volts
+V & ON/OFF (When OFF ~10V, When ON ~0V) the ON/OFF is being driven high to turn the driver on, which is why there is no voltage difference when on.

Here's a picture i labeled to hopefully make my setup more clear. This took a surprisingly long time for me to create in gimp. I'm not very good at gimp

That should have been +Dim not +V.
You are correct that -Dim should be the same as GND. With your multimeter you can check resistance between the two (with power off).
You would power the dimmer circuit from the +V pin.

 

[denierlexiese]

@Ryan115 Still trying to figure what you did inside your black box to power it. So i started drawing this diagram below. However this can't be what you did because i believe in yours ON /OFF doesn't provide power. So you must have gotten the connection from another adapter? Perhaps you T-off the fan pins inside your blackbox because they run off 12 volts?

Did you do this essentially ?

 

[denierlexiese]

That should have been +Dim not +V.
You are correct that -Dim should be the same as GND. With your multimeter you can check resistance between the two (with power off).
You would power the dimmer circuit from the +V pin.

What would i use for the ground cord for the psu? Would you just splice off of -Vdim?

 

[denierlexiese]

measured the V+ to V-dim. When the light is off it's 10 volts, when the light is on it goes up to 12 volts if the light is running at full intensity

for v+dim to v-dim, the light goes from 0-10 volts depending on light intensity

 

[Ranjib]

Love the discussion around blackbos wiring. @denierlexiese , I am sure you'll get this sorted eventually. We should document the whole thing after its over, i bet this is one of the most common LED requirement

 

[Ranjib]

Time for some reef shots

Nikon 5300+tokina 100mm macro

and

enjoy

 

[denierlexiese]

This is what i got so far based on hours of studying your kessil light plus the black box information on the internet and from @Ryan115 . I think i'll need a breadboard right outside of the light, or perhaps it will go inside if i get the confidence. But it looks like my longest three wires could be the two wires from the pca 9685, and the ground to the rasberry pi. @Ranjib Do we really need a ground wire back to the raspberry pi? I'm new to electronics, but it would certainly cut out one semi long cord run for me. Also if i have both a blue channel and a white channel is there any way to get away with one voltage regulator if i want to control the channels separately? It looks like @Ryan115 might be controlling both channels at the same percentage with his reef rpi. I.E. controlling both white and blue exactly the same percentage. @Ryan115 is that true? @Ranjib. Yes solving the black box problem should help a lot of users because it must be for more fiscally conservative people one of the most popular choices.

 

[denierlexiese]

Another thing with the black boxes if the V+ and ON/OFF is set, the fans will spin all the time, even when the lights are not on - So that's basically 6 watts of power that wouldn't be needed for 12 hours of the day.. ... I wonder if we could design a circuit for the black boxes that only turns the fans on when the PWM has some voltage / current - and only then....

 

[Kampo]

Time for some reef shots

Nikon 5300+tokina 100mm macro

and

enjoy

My Zoas are so boring compared to these...NEED

 

[Ranjib]

Another thing with the black boxes if the V+ and ON/OFF is set, the fans will spin all the time, even when the lights are not on - So that's basically 6 watts of power that wouldn't be needed for 12 hours of the day.. ... I wonder if we could design a circuit for the black boxes that only turns the fans on when the PWM has some voltage / current - and only then....

Yes, i believe you need the gnd wire connected to pi, or they should share a common ground. As per my brief discussion with @theatrus and @Marc Kruithof , this may not be needed, and things should work with floating gnd as well (i had asked similar question along the line of multiple voltage regulators [lm2596] ). If you are wiring this, why not just test it out? I dont think this is a super risky thing to test. My concern with not connected gnd is it may be an open circuit for the pwm signal. But this is really depends on the actual circuit , which can differ from build to build.
I see no reason to have a recommended perf/bread board based circuit for blackboxes, that covers the fan control as well.

For what is worth, you should be able to do that already, with some work arounds. Just treat the fan as another channel, and pass 3 pwm channels from pca9685 to blackbox. Use one of them to control the fan. You need an appropriate transistor (a tip120 or any logic level mosfet). The wirings should be same as kessil controller, except this time you are hooking up the fan power. On the UI, then you can just create an automatic daily cycle that controls the speed of fan in accordance with the led values.

I have no way to test this, and i bet there will be some hiccups, but as of now, i dont see anything thats an obvious blocker.

 

[Ranjib]

My Zoas are so boring compared to these...NEED

I love those LA lakers. My zoa island is a burst of colors
LA lakers and bambam and purple death paly.. all intermingled .. its so satisfying to watch them

 

[Ranjib]

This is what i got so far based on hours of studying your kessil light plus the black box information on the internet and from @Ryan115 . I think i'll need a breadboard right outside of the light, or perhaps it will go inside if i get the confidence. But it looks like my longest three wires could be the two wires from the pca 9685, and the ground to the rasberry pi. @Ranjib Do we really need a ground wire back to the raspberry pi? I'm new to electronics, but it would certainly cut out one semi long cord run for me. Also if i have both a blue channel and a white channel is there any way to get away with one voltage regulator if i want to control the channels separately? It looks like @Ryan115 might be controlling both channels at the same percentage with his reef rpi. I.E. controlling both white and blue exactly the same percentage. @Ryan115 is that true? @Ranjib. Yes solving the black box problem should help a lot of users because it must be for more fiscally conservative people one of the most popular choices.

what is the second/middle box from the top, power supply?

 

[Ryan115]

This is what i got so far based on hours of studying your kessil light plus the black box information on the internet and from @Ryan115 . I think i'll need a breadboard right outside of the light, or perhaps it will go inside if i get the confidence. But it looks like my longest three wires could be the two wires from the pca 9685, and the ground to the rasberry pi. @Ranjib Do we really need a ground wire back to the raspberry pi? I'm new to electronics, but it would certainly cut out one semi long cord run for me. Also if i have both a blue channel and a white channel is there any way to get away with one voltage regulator if i want to control the channels separately? It looks like @Ryan115 might be controlling both channels at the same percentage with his reef rpi. I.E. controlling both white and blue exactly the same percentage. @Ryan115 is that true? @Ranjib. Yes solving the black box problem should help a lot of users because it must be for more fiscally conservative people one of the most popular choices.

You should only need one cable running to each BB. I used a 3.5mm stereo plug, which gives you 3 conductors (White lights, Blue lights and GND). If you have more than one light and you want them to all be controlled the same,you could daisy chain one light to the next. I think if you tried to use one voltage regulator you would end up with a voltage divider on the output side and you would get odd dimming results.
I am controlling my channels separatly. I have a 130W BB so there are a total of 4 drivers. I have two of the custom circuits inside, one controls 2x blue drivers, the other 2x white drivers.

Here is a schematic for your light fixture. If you cant follow it, let me know and I will try to draw up a picture.
This would be plug and play to your 4 pin connector the goes to the dimmer circuit, and you would bring in the PWM and GND.

Another thing with the black boxes if the V+ and ON/OFF is set, the fans will spin all the time, even when the lights are not on - So that's basically 6 watts of power that wouldn't be needed for 12 hours of the day.. ... I wonder if we could design a circuit for the black boxes that only turns the fans on when the PWM has some voltage / current - and only then....

The easiest solution for that is to have a timer cut power to the entire light fixture at lights out.
But, yes you could have a transistor in-between ON/OFF and +V and use another control pin to turn them off. I have been thinking about redoing my circuit so that I could completely turn off the White and blue separately. My fans and moon light channel run from a separate supply internally though, so I would still need the timer.

 

[Gareth elliott]

Ok so while waiting on how to actually wire the adapter hooking up just relays, ato, and temperature sensor to a psm with a ground to pi. Also learned i am terrible at soldering, this is an acquired skill.

Waiting on delivery of 5.25” bay panels to complete the exterior of the housing. I did away with the face plate the supplied led screen was a joke. Static “Media Pc” was displayed when turned on lol.
Will attach the 2x16 display to the body itself, just need to remove 1/8” with a Dremel or belt sander.
The reset button works great, this was accomplished by soldering 2 pins on the pi where it says “run” by pushing the button it shorts, safely resetting the pi, this in on all pi b models.

 

[Ranjib]

Ok so while waiting on how to actually wire the adapter hooking up just relays, ato, and temperature sensor to a psm with a ground to pi. Also learned i am terrible at soldering, this is an acquired skill.

Waiting on delivery of 5.25” bay panels to complete the exterior of the housing. I did away with the face plate the supplied led screen was a joke. Static “Media Pc” was displayed when turned on lol.
Will attach the 2x16 display to the body itself, just need to remove 1/8” with a Dremel or belt sander.
The reset button works great, this was accomplished by soldering 2 pins on the pi where it says “run” by pushing the button it shorts, safely resetting the pi, this in on all pi b models.

I do bad soldering all the time.
What I have learned is that if I do a continuity check across all the junctions (check all gnd , individual pwm before and after resistors, power etc) I would almost always find one or two issues. Thankfully the perma proto board or the gikfun protoboard are very forgiving and you can desolder / solder jumper wires (solid core) almost 10 times . But in reality two iteration fixes most circuit

 

[denierlexiese]

OK, I'll use a timer to turn off the fans - that would be the easiest solution, and that's what I'm doing now for the whole light.

3.5mm plug, yeah that's sophisticated, i haven't stepped up to @Ranjib and @Ryan115 level of sophistication yet but let me look into ti. What's the cheapest / good source for 3.5mm cords with 3 wires. It looks like some stereo plugs have only a red and white cord is that true?

@Ryan115 I have a few more questions listed below in your diagram for reference. Thanks for being patient with me!!!