iamdan
Community Member
When connecting to HA you don’t lose the ability to control from reef-pi directly you can still use one of the other
reef-pi :: An opensource reef tank controller based on Raspberry Pi.
- Thread starter Ranjib
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- controller raspberry-pi
- Tagged users Ranjib
iamdan
Community Member
There’s an option now to disable the HA integration ph reading via the reef-pi integration > configure - I disabled that and pull in the ph readings via MQTT and it avoids that problem
Thestooge1
New Member
@Simonv92
Reading through this thread, it seems that you have pretty much gotten the Blurays to work, correct?
I have 3 of the Bluray Pros, but 2 of them have dead airlinks (their ethernet ports were plugged into a switch and they instantly died).
I just finished changing my pool controls over to a raspberry pi running Nodejs-poolcontroller, so I bought a couple of these MOSFET hats to try to build a controller for these lights.
Home, Industrial & Building Automation I/O HATS for Raspberry Pi (sequentmicrosystems.com)
Each hat can handle "Four High Current Loads, 12A/24VDC, Four High Voltage Loads, 2A/240VDC, and PWM at 1kHz on all outputs."
I've worked with switching as well as relays quite a bit, but this is my first project using MOSFET.
I am planning on using Home Assistant as the front end as that's I'm currently running to tie all my home automation together.
Do you have any suggestions before I get started? Thanks so much for documenting all you have. Any suggestions are super appreciated!!!
Simonv92
Active Member
Hi, sorry for the late reply but I was out for holidays.
Yes, I've managed to make it work with Reef-Pi but with a lot of work.
GNC uses a strange way to connect all the Leds on the board. Usually every led series has the + in common and the drivers works on the negative side.
On the Bluray the common is on the negative side. So we have to use a positive side led driver.
The only, rather simple (and probably the same one used on the AirLink - as I managed to do some schemastic drawback) is the LM3409HV.
So I've built from scratch a board with 3 of these drivers with the right current settings for each channel. And I tell you that was not an easy task...
My suggestion is to just control the power state of the lamp with Reef-Pi and use the Air-Link to control the lamp.. If you need I can share the schematic of the board I've made... Hope this help :)
Simone
Thestooge1
New Member
Thank you for the reply... I hope holiday was amazing and involved a beach!
Of my 3 airlinks, only 1 is functional as the other 2 were plugged into an ethernet switch via the rj45 port and no longer power. I looked and they each use 2 types of P-channel MOSFETs for the three LED channels blue, white, red/UV. Two of these are model FQD7P06, and one is ATP114. I imagine that the white and blue channels use the FQDs since there are so many more LEDs than red/UV, but thats just a guess. Regardless they are all P-channel, so they use that + side driver as you stated.
Because I have 3 of these Bluray lights and will need 3 channels each, I purchased (2) 8-channel mosfet hats. They are N-channel and each have Four High Current Loads @ 12A/24VDC (I'm told by the manufacturer that I can go up to 48V on these as well), and Four High Voltage Loads @ 4A/240VDC.
I have asked GNC for the datasheets on these lights, but haven't received any. So, my plan is to take each channel on the working airlink and record the min level voltage and current for each channel set to 10%, then record the maximum voltage and current for each channel at 100%. Then I can take my mosfets and replicate those voltage and current min/max with PWM.
Since I'm using N-channel mosfets, I'll have to put the lights (load) between the drain and the + power supply instead of the P-channel configuration, but if I can replicate the voltage and current on each channel,... and I have a huge SHOULD because I've read your experience so far... that SHOULD produce the same brightness results as when using the Airlink.
I would have built this even if all Airlinks worked because the functionality of (and connecting to) the airlink system is completely horrible.
Anything you can share would be greatly appreciated and I will be happy to as well!
Thanks so much!
ryangonzalezrz
Community Member
Hello everyone, I'm trying to set up the light control for my homemade lamp, where I use 3 W LEDs in series of 3 connected to a 12 V source. The connection board diagram for the reef-pi is as shown in the photo, but the LED doesn't turn off completely, always remaining very weak and doesn't reach the maximum power it should reach if it weren't on the board next to the MOSFET. I'm using the P55NF06L MOSFET and a 1k 1/4 resistor to connect the GND to the MOSFET gate. Does it work like that or did I do something wrong? I tried to follow the tutorial in the topic "reef-pi Guide 5: Light Controller". I don't know what happens because even connected without the resistor directly to the MOSFET, it seems that the lighting varies, it doesn't stay fixed.
the image below is the LED connected directly to the board with the MOSFET and resistor:
The image below is the LED connected directly to the front, without going through the MOSFET or the resistor.:
the image below is the led with the reef-pi configuration at 0%:
Can anyone help me how to set up a controller for my light fixture?
the image below is the LED connected directly to the board with the MOSFET and resistor:
The image below is the LED connected directly to the front, without going through the MOSFET or the resistor.:
the image below is the led with the reef-pi configuration at 0%:
Can anyone help me how to set up a controller for my light fixture?
Hi, I am using these:Hello everyone, I'm trying to set up the light control for my homemade lamp, where I use 3 W LEDs in series of 3 connected to a 12 V source. The connection board diagram for the reef-pi is as shown in the photo, but the LED doesn't turn off completely, always remaining very weak and doesn't reach the maximum power it should reach if it weren't on the board next to the MOSFET. I'm using the P55NF06L MOSFET and a 1k 1/4 resistor to connect the GND to the MOSFET gate. Does it work like that or did I do something wrong? I tried to follow the tutorial in the topic "reef-pi Guide 5: Light Controller". I don't know what happens because even connected without the resistor directly to the MOSFET, it seems that the lighting varies, it doesn't stay fixed.
the image below is the LED connected directly to the board with the MOSFET and resistor:
The image below is the LED connected directly to the front, without going through the MOSFET or the resistor.:
the image below is the led with the reef-pi configuration at 0%:
Can anyone help me how to set up a controller for my light fixture?
With 12v you should be able to connect max 3x 3w leds.
ryangonzalezrz
Community Member
Should it be possible to connect 3 3W LEDs to each piece of this? Well, my project will have 9 3W blue LEDs, but connected in 3 series of 3 LEDs. Wouldn't it be interesting to have 1 piece of this for each section of 3 LEDs? I would like to control the total set of colors of the same LED with the same control. That's why I tried to control it with the MOSFET, because then I would connect all the LEDs of the same color to the MOSFET.
If you use 12V the input needs to be 3v higher that the output so 12 - 3 is 9V, each LED pulls about 3Volts so 9/3 is LEDs 3 max per driver. You can always connect the same PWM output to 3 drivers to control them together.
ryangonzalezrz
Community Member
I see, it really makes sense. Before I buy that board you mentioned in China, I want to try to understand if it is possible to control it through the MOSFET, as Ranjib did. Can you tell me the best way to do it with the MOSFET?
The quide is straight forward: https://learn.adafruit.com/reef-pi-lighting-controller/overview
However with the highpowerLEDs, you will need a driver that keeps the current stable at 700mA. The mosfet keeps the voltage stable not the current.
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ryangonzalezrz
Community Member
I see, so in addition to the MOSFETs, I need a driver for each set of colors, in this case 3 drivers if they can handle the full power? I thought that following the idea of the LED strip used in the guide, it would work, because it seems that the strip he uses does not have a driver.
ryangonzalezrz
Community Member
I did a test with a 4.7k resistor that I had here and the LED lamps reached their maximum power, but they didn't turn off completely, what could it be?
It looks like the voltage of the did not drop low enough.
Another example of a driver on amazon: Amazon product
ryangonzalezrz
Community Member
Unfortunately the image you sent is not available and the link does not go to the driver, would it be possible for you to send it again? Another thing, could it have something to do with the frequency of the pca9685 board?
ryangonzalezrz
Community Member
From what I understand, I will have to use each of these drivers for 3 LEDs anyway? But then, as an employee, would I use the PWM signal directly on this driver or the signal that comes from the MOSFET that I connect to this driver?
@BenB
@BenB
ryangonzalezrz
Community Member
Hello, I found this one and it seems to be more powerful, do you think it works the same way as the one you sent me?
(MOSFET Trigger Switch Drive Module, PWM Regulador, Painel de Controle, 400W, 15A, Max 30A, 0-20KHz para Controle de Brilho da Lâmpada, DC 5V-36v
"https://a.aliexpress.com/_ms7i6iM")
Please read the following to get a beter understanding of how high power leds work: https://www.ledsupply.com/blog/understanding-led-drivers/
ryangonzalezrz
Community Member
thank you my friend
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