Commercial arduino based scrubbers

[inky]

There is a DIY reef controller called Typhoon as well, does everything and I think there is a mod that allows extra PWM which could be used for scrubbers.......

[Floyd R Turbo]

Well I can't see the reason to re-invent the wheel when it comes to reef controllers, but I see where you are coming from w/r to building your own power supplies. As for your idea of an interface for light cycle programming and PWM dimming...let's just say that great minds think alike.

[Pulse]

Integrating the Reef Angel would add to much cost and difficulty to this project, but you could easily program the reef angel to communicate with the arduino board in the scrubber.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Well, I'm saying just use the Arduino board on the RA to do what you want, you don't need 2 Arduino boards. Basically turn the controller into the scrubber monitor device instead of trying to invent a scrubber monitor device and then use that to function as a reef controller. I'm not 100% sure that the RA would do what you have in mind, but at the outset I can't see why it wouldn't. The RA comes with many components you would otherwise need to develop interfaces for, and it comes with probes/etc and other add-ons for a relatively inexpensive price compared to other controllers on the market (but, that's a whole other discussion), which is why I was saying why re-invent that function.

I get what you're saying at the basic level, don't get me wrong, and I'm totally with you that having some kind of feedback and control mechanism related to an algae scrubber would be really cool. But you might not need to develop the hardware if there is something out there that already has the necessary inputs and outputs you are looking for.

[Pulse]

Can the reef angel power the lights directly throught the controller with added pwm circuit, or would you have to controll a seperate pwm circuit with a signal voltage?

[Floyd R Turbo]

It has an arduino chip on board. I don't think the # of PWM outputs is the same as the Uno but it's direct control.

http://www.reefangel.com/