One of the software/hardware projects I’ve been working on recently is a microcontroller-based system for controlling the lights and various other ancillary devices in my salt water fish tank. After some online research I decided to build this using an Arduino microcontroller, because it can be programmed in C, has a very active user community, has a pretty extensive set of add-on boards (called “shields” in Arduino-speak) and is reasonably priced (I bought mine from Sparkfun for less than $30, not counting taxes and shipping).
The Arduino code (“sketch”, in Arduino-speak) is available via subversion at https://svn.olbert.com/AquariumController. You can grab the source anonymously, but right now you’ll get several warnings regarding an invalid SSL certificate. It’s not really invalid, it’s just a shared certificate from my hosting provider, WebFaction. Once I get around to buying my own certificate and upgrading my WebFaction account to use it the warnings should go away. For now, just keep clicking “Accept Once” until the messages stop coming. Or click “Accept Permanently” if you’re feeling especially charitable 🙂.
Rather than post long descriptions of projects in this blog, I’ve set up a Redmine site wiki where you can read about them in more detail. You’ll find it at https://projwiki.olbert.com. Again, until I get my own SSL certificate installed you’ll be warned about an invalid SSL certificate. Ignore the warnings to get into the Redmine interface. The aquarium controller project is located at http://projwiki.olbert.com/doku.php?id=aquariumcontrollerhome.
At some point I’ll set up the problem/ticket/resolution features on Redmine, but that’s not done yet.
1 thought on “Arduino Aquarium Controller”
nice post. thanks.