lnevo November 14, 2014 Share November 14, 2014 I disconnected the connector and just shoved wires inside the pins. But yes i think it best to disconnect the dimmers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lnevo November 14, 2014 Share November 14, 2014 I am hoping to have some news about this kit soon. Will keep everyone posted Btw, the first kit they sent me worked but it had issues. I am finally getting some new ones that should work better I hope. Hopefully will have better news to report soon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon M Profeta November 19, 2014 Share November 19, 2014 I will be attempting this tomorrow. Wish me luck. I'm going to try it first with no led lights it drivers on just to make sure that the voltage is dropped down to 5 volts and it is varying the alc. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon M Profeta November 20, 2014 Share November 20, 2014 So I hooked it up. Just not to the drivers yet. I measured the voltage in a ramp up of two min and it works perfect. Next I will be hooking up the drivers. Just have to find some more time. I have a 3yrold and a 1 yr old. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon M Profeta November 22, 2014 Share November 22, 2014 Here's a pic. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM November 22, 2014 Author Share November 22, 2014 Hey, looks awesome. Hope it actually dims the lights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon M Profeta December 8, 2014 Share December 8, 2014 Ok. I hooked it up just now. The house was engulfed in flames. Waiting for the fire department to put out the fire. Lol. J/k. It seems to be working correctly. I set alc to the right times ramp and intensity. So we will see if it works Tonight. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM December 8, 2014 Author Share December 8, 2014 Nice, thanks for following up! This will be interesting to see PWM directly controlling these lights while run through a convertor board driven from an RLC. Lots of steps, but it gets the job done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lnevo December 9, 2014 Share December 9, 2014 On another front, I finally got my new dimming conversion kit from ReefRadiance. I will be writing up a full review shortly, but i had to come here and report success!!! The new kit comes with a female and male connector port and plugs write into the stock dimmer and the driver plugs right into it. The cable is wired to the cat-5 jack which installs very easily after drilling one hole for the jack and two for screws. Other than that, it maintains stock functionality without a controller hooked up and the dimmer knobs still work. I have full range of dimming from 5-100% which is exactly what I had when using Alan's original hack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon M Profeta December 12, 2014 Share December 12, 2014 I think that I just got the settings right with the ramp times. It does work well. The only thing that I miss is the ability to just turn the knobs. Just thinking if I had to turn the lights on when there off I am gonna have to go in and change the ramp time and ect. But after I get the lights on the proper dimming schedule it should be fine. They just came out with a new modal that is supposed to blow their competition out of the water. Think it's called Archon. You can check it out at www.digitalaquatics.org Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon M Profeta December 14, 2014 Share December 14, 2014 Ok. Now on my rke it does show that it is dimming but It is not ramping down. It just stays at 100% even when it is at 20%. Almost like it needs a ground to drain the power. Weird. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon M Profeta December 14, 2014 Share December 14, 2014 Ok. Now on my rke it does show that it is dimming but It is not ramping down. It just stays at 100% even when it is at 20%. Almost like it needs a ground to drain the power. Weird. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM December 14, 2014 Author Share December 14, 2014 Put a voltmeter across the voltage inputs to the little converter board and measure them when it is supposedly ramping down. When the lights are at 20% the voltmeter should show 2 volts, at 50% it should show 5 volts, etc. Depending on the voltmeter it will show 1V at 20% on the PWM output if the voltmeter is able to average out the PWM to show some kind of average voltage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon M Profeta December 15, 2014 Share December 15, 2014 At 25% dimm The reef keeper measures 2.35 V the PWM out measures 1.15 volts Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM December 15, 2014 Author Share December 15, 2014 Sounds about right. But the lights aren't dimming? Do they ramp up in the morning correctly, but don't dim down? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon M Profeta December 15, 2014 Share December 15, 2014 I haven't really been home during those times. In the morning by the time I wake up and get my kids ready it is already at 80% and you cannot really tell the difference. I am really going to try and monitor it tonight so I can tell if it works. Here is a pic of the other side of the tank. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lnevo December 15, 2014 Share December 15, 2014 Can you manually check at different percentages with the reefkeeper or you have to let it run its cycle? What if you set a one hour cycle and see what things look like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon M Profeta December 17, 2014 Share December 17, 2014 It does work. It's just that I was never there when it was almost night time. I had to change the whites to dim down faster then the blues so it looks like it was turning from day to night. But it looks to be a success. Thanks to all of you guys. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM December 17, 2014 Author Share December 17, 2014 Cool that it's working. The dimming doesn't appear linear when you're watching it. I know my lights at home are going from 40% to 100% and down to 40% from 10:30am to 5:30pm, yet it looks the same brightness to me that entire time. It's only when it starts going below 30-40% that it starts really being visible to me that it's dimmer so my light schedule tends to have a big hump in the middle and then longer tails on each end, almost like a bell curve (or Gaussian normal distribution). In fact, maybe I should make that kind of curve for the Reef Angel and then you'd only need to specify how many standard deviations from the mean you wanted the start and end times to be. 8) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lnevo July 13, 2015 Share July 13, 2015 (edited) Just so that you know what these can do. I finally added lightning code to my ReefAngel. What do you think? I guess I can't post a youtube video? Edited July 13, 2015 by lnevo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lnevo July 13, 2015 Share July 13, 2015 https://vimeo.com/133390599 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM July 13, 2015 Author Share July 13, 2015 Lee, you should just be able to put the youtube link in your post and it will show it as embedded, as if by magic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime July 14, 2015 Share July 14, 2015 I think that's pretty neat. I'm also trying to figure out if that is the theme song to the second season to True Detective coming in at the end, which is why you so hurriedly cut the clip! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lnevo July 14, 2015 Share July 14, 2015 It's just some stock music from iMovie on the iPhone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madweazl July 13, 2016 Share July 13, 2016 Necropost! I recently picked up some black boxes and was wondering if anyone had figured out what was needed for dimming to 0 (off). I found a post on another forum that got the Mars Aqua boxes dimming to 0 with an Arduino based controller and figure it would be the same for these boxes (SBReef) but the details seem to fizzle out. Not sure if it actually worked or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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