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Diurnal Reef Controller for Lighting and Tides

Exactly the right lighting and tidal conditions have to occur to induce the spawning of corals (and other sea creatures).

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This is a controller with a real time clock that will duplicate the diurnal cycle of aquarium lightning and tidal conditions - duplicating the environment of any reef on earth. A complex combination of sunlight, moonlight, and tidal activity induces spawning of corals. If we're going to save the reefs, we need to understand and possibly re-create the reef environment better.

We start with a 50W LED

... and we seek to control its brightness digitally with a micro-controller.  Simple, right?  Let's complicate it.

Conventional aquarium lightning is on/off -- not the sun rising and setting due to the earth's rotation.  However, that cycle of sunlight (called the DIURNAL cycle) has been measured all over the world.  As one should expect, it is a normal distribution.  Here is a graph of solar insolation for a summer's day - normalized for a 24-hour day:

... that's funny, the spell-checker doesn't recognize insolation ... here: 

in·so·la·tion

/ˌinsəˈlāSH(ə)n/

nountechnical

noun: insolation

  1. exposure to the sun's rays.
    • the amount of solar radiation reaching a given area.

OK, now we need to worry about timing.  My controller uses a real-time-clock (RTC) with a capacitor backup.  We program it for the local time (where our "aquarium" sits on the Earth).  So, it knows the local time of day to the second.  We stick the DESIRED LOCATION (DL) we want to duplicate into the ROM of the micro-controller (latitude and longitude of, say, Palau, or the Red Sea).  The micro-controller (I like to use PIC24's) controls the brightness of the LED according to the solar insolation curve for the DL, but synced to local time.

Later, we add lunar illumination (using blue LEDs) following the exceedingly complex lunar dance (not just phases, but perigee/apogee and orbital declination as well).

... and still later, we'll add TIDAL effects (corals like to spawn during neap tides) ...

... stay tuned.

new diurnal light (Repaired).pdf

A narrative of different aspects of the project. Not very well organized and written as I get chances and time.

Adobe Portable Document Format - 992.31 kB - 10/03/2019 at 17:23

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  • Progress update 10/3/19

    Philip Cox10/03/2019 at 17:27 0 comments

    I just uploaded a pdf of work to date, including various random bits of design and analysis.  I have a working prototype using a Raspberry PI3

    It is in the "FILES" section of this project:  "new diurnal light".

  • PCB's Arrived

    Philip Cox07/01/2019 at 16:59 0 comments

    The prototype PCB's got here from China:

    ..
    for the topside ....

    here is the backside:

    ... not bad for $8.00 (for 5 boards) ... populating the board with the voltage regulators now.

  • 1.05 kW LED

    Philip Cox06/21/2019 at 21:13 0 comments

    I promised information on my 3 LED prototype:

    3 50 watt LEDs (each the radiantly equivalent to a 350 incandescent)  3x350=1,050 W)
    and here is the backside/upside:

    It has worked for some months ... used it for hydroponic tomatoes for a while (they loved it!)

  • Previous work with 50W LED's and reef tanks

    Philip Cox06/18/2019 at 15:21 0 comments

    I've built and I am using some of these LED's in my reef tank setup.  Most notably, I have a rigged a 50W broadband (chlorophyll absorption friendly) LED over the refugium  of my 55 gal tank.  It's been running about 12 hours every night for the last 6 months:


    This LED uses 115 VAC.  The refugium grows chaetomorpha to reduce nitrates and phosphates in the tank.

    I also have  a three-50W LED prototype that runs on 36VDC over another tank (2 cool white's with a broadband in the middle).  I'll post images of that soon.


  • A word about 50W LED's equvalency

    Philip Cox06/17/2019 at 15:18 2 comments

    Using a chart from Wikipedia (link here), I created the following chart in order to get some equivalency between bulbs and LED illumination:

    The wiki chart only goes up to 300 W (incandescent), so I curve fit the data to get some idea of higher values.   Since the polynomial curve fits show a round off beyond 300, I use the linear fit.  According to that, a 50 Watt LED produces the same radiant power as a 350 Watt incandescent bulb – that should be 106 W for compact fluorescent bulbs. Of course, only the linear curve fit gets to 50W ….

  • PCB's ordered

    Philip Cox06/12/2019 at 20:57 0 comments

    ordered proto pcb's from china ... 5 boards, as described previously, 2-sided, delivery in 14-18 days ... LESS THAN $8 !

  • diruanl curve look-up table

    Philip Cox06/12/2019 at 15:20 0 comments

    oh, here is the look up table for the normalized diurnal insolation curve:

    hour

    8-bit LUT

    1

    0

    2.00

    0

    3.00

    2

    4.00

    17

    5.00

    41

    6.00

    71

    7.00

    105

    8.00

    140

    9.00

    174

    10.00

    204

    11.00

    229

    12.00

    246

    13.00

    255

    14.00

    255

    15.00

    245

    16.00

    228

    17.00

    203

    18.00

    172

    19.00

    138

    20.00

    102

    21.00

    69

    22.00

    39

    23.00

    15

    24.00

    1

  • First eval PCB design

    Philip Cox06/10/2019 at 17:21 0 comments

    The PCB we make will control the current with 8 bits, use a PIC24F16KA controller, and a MCP7940 real time clock.


    The PIC talks to the RTC over SDA & SCL lines using I2C.  Power input (P1) comes from a 36VDC LED driver that plugs into 115 VAC.  Voltage regulators down-shift the 36 V to 12V (for the cooling fan) and ultimately Vcc (which is 3.3 V).  You see all eight current control MOSFETs, and there is a single mosfet controlling the fan speed.

    The diurnal curve previously shown is programed into the PIC's memory as a list of 8-bit integers (from 0 to 255 representing a normalized insolation of 0 - 1.0).  The two-sided PCB is 59mm x 47mm.


    A five-pin header is provided (P2) for programming the PIC.

    This should be sufficient to prove that the concept works.

    Next, I intend to add an I2C flash memory to the bus.

    Then add control for a blue LED (for lunar).

    Then, USB ...

    Then, Bluetooth, so one board can control many.

  • first cut board design complete

    Philip Cox06/07/2019 at 21:24 0 comments

    The first cut design of a PCB to control the 50W LED by digital current control is complete.  Making Gerbers now.  8-bit control gives 256 levels of brightness from the LED.

    It is important when making lights for biological systems to use CURRENT CONTROL ... not voltage/PWM.  An LED controled by a PWM signal only APPEARS to brighten or dim.  It's not really ... it's just fast blinking all on/all off .  The strobing effect is undesirable by lots of plants and animals.  On the AVERAGE, the PWM signal looks analog, but it's really just strobing digital.

    I arrange eight mosfets in parallel - each controlling 1/2 the current of its most-significant neighbor, and twice the crrent of its least-significant neighbor.  The most current is controlled by the most-significant bit in the control word/byte. 

    To control the 50W LED, the most-significant MOSFET turns 25W on or off (b7).  Then next MSb turns 12.5 W on/off (b6), then 6.25 W, then 3.125 W ... etc etc.

    control bit               power controlled

    7                                    25 W

    6                                    12.5 W

    5                                     6.25 W

    4                                     3.125 W

    3                                     1.5625 W

    2                                     781 mW

    1                                      390 mW

    0                                     195 mW

    Voltage is a constant 36 VDC, regardless of current.

    Power level on each MOSFET is controlled by a current limiting resistor on the drain.  The sources of ALL MOSFETS are tied straight to the anode of the 50 W LED.

    50W/36V=1.4 Amps

    36V / 1.4 Amps = 27.5 Ohms resistor on the most-significant MOSFET (a high power beastie, I put two 55 Ohm 12Watt R's there in parallel)

    Number 2 MOSFET requires 55 ohms

    Number 3 MOSFET:  110 ohms

    #4:  220 ...

    ... you see the trend, I think

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mihai sirbu wrote 01/18/2020 at 15:51 point

From where come this:
"It is important when making lights for biological systems to use CURRENT CONTROL ... not voltage/PWM.  An LED controled by a PWM signal only APPEARS to brighten or dim.  It's not really ... it's just fast blinking all on/all off .  The strobing effect is undesirable by lots of plants and animals.  On the AVERAGE, the PWM signal looks analog, but it's really just strobing digital."?
It's a personal impresion or from existing studies?
If for human eye over 25-30Hz light seem to be continuos for plants is not the same?

  Are you sure? yes | no

Philip Cox wrote 01/24/2020 at 04:21 point

there is some evidence that corals, in particular, are very metabolism-sensitive to light bursts (in the millisecond range) - upsetting their internal clock and nutritional uptake.

  Are you sure? yes | no

Philip Cox wrote 01/24/2020 at 04:26 point

yes, led control by PWM produces led strobing.  Is frequency is faster than 30 Hz it appears continuous.  Freaks out some animals, though.

  Are you sure? yes | no

d-portero wrote 01/04/2020 at 23:07 point

Awesome project! I will be following closely and hopefully one day get around to implementing it on my tanks!

  Are you sure? yes | no

Philip Cox wrote 06/12/2019 at 20:50 point

nope, just a random acorpora pulled from google images ... a very colorful one

  Are you sure? yes | no

Richard Hogben wrote 06/12/2019 at 18:07 point

Is that one of your stony coral frags?

  Are you sure? yes | no

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