DIY Aquarium Touchscreen Controller

[crowndroyal]

After doing more thinking about the screen size I was wondering could we not just hook the controller board etc up to a bigger LCD screen that has touch capabilities, the connections are pretty standard are they not ?

I have an older 12 inch lcd screen that I could buy a touch screen converter kit for

[Ebay Link Removed] it's around 40 bucks for the touch screen kit.


then I just plug the screen in the board.

[Darkblade48]

I think there was some discussion awhile back about using other touch screens (i.e. iPad touchscreens). I am not sure what this would involve, but you would have to take a look at the specification sheets to make sure that the right voltage/wiring is done to the Arduino (and whether it can handle the increase in inputs that would be required for two-touch, etc). Don't forget that the existing libraries would be unusable, and you would have to write/find them.

Using a non-standard LCD would be more difficult than using the LCD and LCD shield that have already been optimized for the Arduino.

[mistergreen]

I'm making my own aquarium controller using ipad/android/computer as the interface. The project is over on my forum but I'm just starting. You basically turn your arduino into a web server. Any web enable device can be used to interact with the arduino. You're liberated. You can be on vacation and check in.

[Grimnokk]

Haven't seen the OP respond to anything in here in a while. Not anyone else posting progress updates. Did this thread die? Or are there still people working on this? Would love to see updates and/or collaborate ideas.

[kapelan]

Originally Posted by crowndroyal

After doing more thinking about the screen size I was wondering could we not just hook the controller board etc up to a bigger LCD screen that has touch capabilities, the connections are pretty standard are they not ?

I have an older 12 inch lcd screen that I could buy a touch screen converter kit for

[Ebay Link Removed] it's around 40 bucks for the touch screen kit.


then I just plug the screen in the board.

3.2" touch screen has a very good price/quality,
it makes hundreds of people using it.
For a big screen you are along.

[Darkblade48]

Originally Posted by Grimnokk

Haven't seen the OP respond to anything in here in a while. Not anyone else posting progress updates. Did this thread die? Or are there still people working on this? Would love to see updates and/or collaborate ideas.

Other things in life take priority

I haven't had time to look at my coding so far; I have the RTC function up and running, but I want to be able to manually adjust my time as well.

[bigd603]

Originally Posted by Grimnokk

Haven't seen the OP respond to anything in here in a while. Not anyone else posting progress updates. Did this thread die? Or are there still people working on this? Would love to see updates and/or collaborate ideas.

I'm still slowly building mine. I am learning the C coding from scratch, but I am making good progress. I am borrowing from Jarduino and other sketches currently available, but ultimately it will be a custom built controller.

[mistergreen]

Originally Posted by bigd603

ultimately it will be a custom built controller.

yup, this is the case for all controllers I think.

[shift]

Awesome project! I just ordered my self a uno rev 3, temperature probe and a few relay boards to start playing with.

[bigd603]

Hey Guys, a little update on what I have been doing. I decided to go a different direction with my project. After putting together the touchscreen with several different shields and probes and what have you, I struggled to figure out how I wanted to enclose all of it. I didn't what to just leave the the stack of shields sitting next to my tank, and frankly I didn't need all the control that Jarduino and Stillo offered. What I really wanted was something simple to monitor what is going on with my tank. So after looking around for a while, I found Adafruit's Menta. It is an Arduino controller in a mint tin. Very cool. Then I found their 128x32 OLED display. Perfect. So I snatched one up, picked up a DS1307 RTC (Real time clock) circuit from Mouser, and began work on what I like to call my Wicked Tiny Monitor (I'm from New England, we say wicked). Here's what I have so far:







Now I just need to solder all the components into the prototyping area of the Menta. You can't see this in the picture, but there are two waterproof DS18B20 temperature probes. I am going to cut a hole into the back of the tin for their cables, and another for the pH probe cables. The red stamp on the breadboard is an Atlas Scientific pH stamp. Really cool little gadget for only $28. Now i just need a functional pH probe. The one I ordered from e bay for $15 bucks arrived completely dry and useless. The probe connector and probe stamp will likely be placed in a separate breadboard to minimize interference.

The tiny OLED display will fit perfectly in a hole cut between "Curiously Strong Mints" and "Wintergreen" on the lid of the tin. There will also be a button on either the side of the tin or on the top, next to the screen; I haven't decided yet. I am leaning more towards the side, because I would like to leave the lid as uncluttered as possible. I am also not sure how I am going to mount the OLED display. There are holes on each corner of the display board, and I would prefer not having to drill holes into the tin to hold it. Any ideas?

It's been a fun little project so far, and I think it will be neat sitting next to my tank. It will likely be a fun conversation piece for guests.

[geesantoz]

have anyone checked out on this ?

http://www.robotshop.com/arduarium-a...r-arduino.html



It seems more shield to come for this purpose ...

[shift]

Does anyone have some working code they care to share? I finally got my uno in the mail today and would love to have a base to start with

[Darkblade48]

I'm not sure what kind of example code you are looking for; did you have anything in particular in mind?

The problem with the Uno is that there may not be enough I/O pins for the touchscreen + SD card + any other sensors you may want to use. I believe the touchscreen itself uses ~20 pins already...

[shift]

Which board are you using? Anything for code really. It's just nice to have something to build off of


So far I have 2 UNO boards. A screen. Temp sensor and a RTC and a relay board.

My first few projects I want to build is a sunrise/sunset controller for leds and a temperature monitor/auto shut off for the heaters.

[Darkblade48]

Originally Posted by shift

Which board are you using? Anything for code really. It's just nice to have something to build off of


So far I have 2 UNO boards. A screen. Temp sensor and a RTC and a relay board.

My first few projects I want to build is a sunrise/sunset controller for leds and a temperature monitor/auto shut off for the heaters.

I am using a Mega2560 R2.

The problem with your setup is that (for example) my code will not work with your setup (you need to write up some code to pass data back and forth from one Uno to the other.

What screen do you have? The 3.2" Touchscreen uses 20 pins (just checked the specification sheet) for display alone, and another 5 pins for touch input. The SD slot takes up another 4 pins.

This is already more than the number of pins a single Uno has.

However, if you just want to do a temperature monitor/auto shut off, it can be implemented (i.e. if you do not use a touch screen and instead use a normal 20x04 LCD screen (or even a 16x02, etc).

You may want to investigate what type of relay you will want to use (for the shut off of your heater).

Finally, to answer your question regarding sample code, if you are using a digital DS18B20 temperature sensor, the Dallas libraries have some excellent examples that you can just copy/paste into a new sketch. From there, it only takes a few more lines of coding to display the temperature to an LCD screen, much like what I had before.