Brian Ward

OK, both of these are options. I think the arduino even has a library for X-10. Where is the 0-10V output on the AC3?

Has anyone reverse engineered the protocol used on the phone wire to connect the AC3 to the DC4 or DC8? I'm hoping to use this as an input to my LED controller(s) but I need to know what signals to read.

I used to have one. I was initially focusing on triggers but then got interested in butterflies. Unfortunately most butterflies don't convert to captivity easily. copps (John Coppalino, sp?) has an awesome FOWLR angel tank. It's about a 180gal with an unbelievable number of fish for the size of the tank.

I believe the Red Dragon pumps are also supposed to be very efficient.

As the others suggested, a Mag anything will not support the head pressure you'll need. You have to have a pressure rated pump and I believe those are all external pumps. Most basement sumps I've seen utilize a rubbermaid stock tank @ 100 or 150 gallons. That's definitely an option with a return pump to send water up to your display and then set up a 75 as a refugium and use your existing eheim to circulate water into the fuge. Of course, all this depends on how much space you have to dedicate. The plumbing configuration Mike suggested - keeping the pipes as large as possible as long as possible is definitely a good route to go but as he mentioned, you must be sure you have enough room in the sump to hold all the water when the power goes out.

Here's what I have back from them: XPGWHT-L1-0000-00H53 on star board 150pcs

Lloyd Greenberg answered the email. I'll reply and ask for the R5 brightness.

I'm getting a quote of $2/ea for both white and blue in XP-E @ qty 150: XPEWHT-L1-0000-00E01 I've just asked for a quote for the whites in XP-G as well.

OK. I'm emailing with etgtech now to get pricing info. Do I want the bare LED or mounted on mcpcb starboard? I'm planning to mount on a heatsink with thermal grease and a screw. I believe I can do that with the bare LED, right?

Let us know what the minimum run is to get more boards. That's good info on the CAT and sorta what I was afraid of. I'll have to work on my design to minimize power consumption.

That's something I'm planning to tinker with. My thought right now is to actually take the wire that connects the DC8s together for the AC3 and extend that through my fixtures, have the arduino read the outlet on/off signals that I send and change the lighting accordingly. I've got to find out if someone has already reverse-engineered the interface or if I have to do it.

I didn't understand initially what boards you were talking about selling me. Now I see that you had some boards printed that just require components to be mounted to them. I'm assuming you have extras of these that you are willing to sell off? I'm planning to do 4 Arduino controllers - 1 in each fixture - each of which will provide a PWM signal to each of 6 CATs. Instead of POTs, I just want to fix the current @ 1A and use the PWM signal to dial that up or down. I'm fine with skipping the screw terminals and can use a wire harness instead. Not sure if that will be necessary or not. Right now I'm trying to figure out if the 24V 156W power supply is sufficient for each of my fixtures. If I have to step up to the 300W, it could be more cost-efficient to go with the 12V 156W supply and use a couple extra CATs. I'm planning 2 12V fans on each heat sink that require about .5A each. That with the Arduino is getting me close to the current limit of the 24V supply. One thing I'm somewhat concerned about is power use. If I'm maxing out the amount of current the power supply can source am I also using that much electricity? For example, let's say I wire 12 LEDs in parallel, each one off of a CAT to regulate the current. I need 12A to drive all 12 LEDs, but I should only be consuming 36W of power (or slightly more due to efficiency) if I assume 3W/LED. This configuration, however, would max out a 12V 156W power supply (capable of sourcing 12.5A). Is the CAT sinking the balance of the power (~120W)?

Jason, Have you purchased your components yet? I've almost got my design finished so I'll be placing orders soon.

Does anyone have the exact ordering code for the LEDs that are recommended? I know Cool White XP-G and Royal Blue XP-E but there are a lot of options and availability seems to vary. Also, even though the XP-Gs can be drive to 1500mA, everyone is still just driving them at 1000mA or less?

OK, I understand what boards you're talking about selling me now. Is there any major cost difference or functional advantage between buying these vs. using your printed boards? I'm leaning toward doing 6 CAT4101s with an Arduino for each fixture. That will maximize my flexibility for each fixture but I'm still playing with pricing.

They're surprisingly cheaper on eBay ($10 vs $30). Any particular seller that you've found reputable?

I've read that page repeatedly. I don't see what part of it describes one channel except for the Eagle zip file that is linked to and I can't open.

How would I go about opening the file? I've looked at this many times and very much wanted to view the schematic but it's not in a common format.

I see. The recommendation is to go from 3 LEDs per driver to 6 LEDs per driver. That makes sense then.

Chad, Yes, this is what I mean. Robert, Yes, this is what I mean which is why I didn't understand why I'd step up to the 24V power supply to save money?

I'm definitely planning on making it modular. Plan was to do the controller and driver on the same board mounted on top of the fixture. The Meanwell constant-voltage driver (12V/10A, 24V/6.5A, or whatever) would be separate. This would allow each fixture to be used independently or together. Of course, I'm still deciding on whether to use 1 controller or multiple. $1 per LED? How do you figure that? I must be missing something .... Getting the LEDs up on timers and then adding the controller later would be good. What boards could you sell me?

Gotcha. I was just drawing it out and figured that I don't need that much voltage. A 12V/150W meanwell (http://www.meanwell.com/search/NES-150/default.htm) will drive 12.5A. That 10A at 80%. So if I build the circuit shown on the datasheet and parallel them all, I can use this one power supply ($33) to drive up to 30 LEDs if I wire them with the CAT4101 in 3 LED pieces. Since the 4101 is there to regulate the current, I don't have to worry about the current divider breaking down when I alter the actual current through any given set of 3.

As long as they're going off for a long period of time it's best to kill the power to the driver. Otherwise you'll be leaking power and have a constant current draw.

So paralleling .... If I connect the meanwell AC/DC through CAT4101 chips, the chips will handle the current regulation so having 1 power supply split across multiple strings should be fine, right?

This is what I can't find on the RC thread. He references only the 3-driver one and that's a file I can't open.