Controller

So lately I've been playing around with an 8 channel USB relay board. I bought mine from eBay somewhere, but this is what I'm talking about: KMtronic: USB Eight Channel Relay Controller - RS232 Serial controlled - 12V. There are also some bigger 16 channel boards, as well as wireless and other configurations. To give you an idea of my installation and it's capabilities, here are some videos I put together.

The first video is of the actual implementation. The second two are of songs being displayed on a light board. I wrote the application that's driving it and the application is processing the song in real time - the light display isn't pre-recorded or pre-coded. And yes, at Christmastime, that testing light board will be unplugged and my Christmas lights will be plugged in. ;D

So I got to thinking that I could probably use this same rig (or another one) to control my reef. It would sure make things like wake making, lighting control, auto top offs, auto water changes, etc. easier, and at around $100 in all, significantly cheaper than commercial controllers. In conjunction with some various input probes (temp, pH, etc.), could prove to be a really powerful unit. However, I'm certainly no electrical engineer.

So, I'm here to solicit ideas, concerns, comments, questions, etc. about the idea. I'd appreciate any feedback you have. I don't want to burn my house down or grenade my reef!

Thanks,
Jonathan

 

Great work, I'm with you on the engineer part, best of luck

I know the very basics like don't stick your finger in the socket, especially when wet.;D:

 

thats pretty sweet. i was unaware they made usb relay boards like that. thats perfect. you got my gears spinnin in my head now with what i could potentiatlly do with one of those for my reef tank.

yes you could totally use that for wavemaking, lighting, etc. now if you could get a way to use probes off of the same USB device to provide that data back to the pc then you're golden.

 

Well, I'm sure there are some that could be integrated into the same device, but I've not noticed any (I've not looked, either). However, I have found a number of stand-alone USB probes that measure temperature, pH, ORP, etc. I also have a few old computers lying around that could be re-purposed to drive something like this. I don't know that you'd necessarily want these specific components, but for example:

Phidgets Inc. - Unique and Easy to Use USB Interfaces

I was also thinking about messing around with some of the various input probes to see if I could build something that would help me monitor stuff. For example, a water sensor that I could install underneath the tank that would detect water on the floor and send me a text message. Or maybe a light sensor that could detect the deterioration of my light bulbs. The list goes on...

Jonathan

 

This is a cool DIY project. Just an idea, if you go to your LHS, most will have a water alarm if water gets on the floor, like one might have in the case with a sump pump in a basement.

 

looks good! definite possibilities with timer events! like lights, dosing, ato with solenoid valve, moonlights. write a simple gui that would enable programming of daily timer events on/off. to heck with reef controllers, I have a few pcs doing nothing right now.

 

I finally got around to building an interface for this. I'm still going through all of the possibilities to make sure that failsafes are in place, so that in the event something like a power failure happens, I don't drain the entire contents of my tank onto the floor or something. I also have a bit more tweaking to do to pretty some things up and correct some grammar. Anyway, here are some screen shots:

Main screen


Channel Naming


Test


Schedule


Edit Schedule


I still have some features that I'm working on, but at least the core stuff is in place. I also built the software in such a way that it will be a snap to add additional interfaces, via the web or a mobile device, for example, which I plan to do in the near future.

Jonathan

 

Very cool.. I have been looking for this type of board for a little while now. Keep up the great work