# Thunderstorm lighting for terrarium



## ThePaintedGecko (Oct 18, 2013)

My brother, who is a thousand times better at electronics than me, is making me a lighting and sound system to mimic a tropical thunderstorm. It still needs some tweaking, but we did a test today with my 20g tank and it looks fantastic already! It's really hard to capture on video, but I figured I would at least try. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFpN02Kw8vA&feature=youtu.be

What do you guys think?


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## Jonas35 (May 31, 2009)

Thats pretty sick!


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## Gro (Oct 30, 2012)

Great job. I do that with my diy leds lighting who is controlled by Babyfish.


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## Styx (Oct 25, 2008)

That is so awesome. Highly envious.


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## zreedman (Apr 8, 2006)

Very cool! 

I got this one: Amazon.com : Current USA Satellite Freshwater LED Plus Light for Aquarium, 48 to 60-Inch : Pet Supplies

I like to turn it on thunderstorm mode while misting. When non-froggers come over I like to show it off.


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## SDK (Aug 11, 2014)

Very creative. That Current fixture looks good as well!


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## loner556 (Sep 18, 2010)

That's awesome. What's he using as hardware?

I've thought about doing something like this with an arduino or raspberry pi.


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## Dart girl (Sep 25, 2013)

Very cool


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Gro (Oct 30, 2012)

With a raspberry pi you can plug a babyfish board : babyfish.fr !


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## ChrisL (Aug 21, 2014)

Right now it's using an Arduino to drive it. I'm thinking about selling them once I work out the tweaks, so any feedback would be appreciated!

I'm also considering building a hub to control the electronics of a full tank (plus modules to control as many tanks as you want).. It'll be like the Internet of Things kits for your home, but this will be specialized for monitoring/controlling anything in a tank.. Still trying to see if there's a market for it, but it'll be a fun little project. 

Oh, and to clear up any confusion, I'm the brother ThePaintedGecko is rearing to.


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## darterfrog4774 (Apr 24, 2014)

That's really cool. I remember watching TANKED on Animal Planet and they did something like this for some amazonian fish... They had the rain system in the hood of the tank


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## loner556 (Sep 18, 2010)

ChrisL said:


> Right now it's using an Arduino to drive it. I'm thinking about selling them once I work out the tweaks, so any feedback would be appreciated!
> 
> I'm also considering building a hub to control the electronics of a full tank (plus modules to control as many tanks as you want).. It'll be like the Internet of Things kits for your home, but this will be specialized for monitoring/controlling anything in a tank.. Still trying to see if there's a market for it, but it'll be a fun little project.
> 
> Oh, and to clear up any confusion, I'm the brother ThePaintedGecko is rearing to.


I started on a terrarium controller a few years ago using an arduino. Had it monitoring temp / humidity and digitally displaying it on a 16 x 2. Had plans for it to control lights, mister etc. based on input control values and got sidetracked as I'm pretty A.D.D. when it comes to projects (someone shouted "squirrel" and I was off working on something else). I need to dig it out and work on it.

You'll more than likely have to use an external voltage comparator to get the desired precision on humidity and temperature measurement - from what I remember the Arduino by itself didn't hack it.

Are you open-sourcing your code?


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## ChrisL (Aug 21, 2014)

loner556 said:


> I started on a terrarium controller a few years ago using an arduino. Had it monitoring temp / humidity and digitally displaying it on a 16 x 2. Had plans for it to control lights, mister etc. based on input control values and got sidetracked as I'm pretty A.D.D. when it comes to projects (someone shouted "squirrel" and I was off working on something else). I need to dig it out and work on it.
> 
> You'll more than likely have to use an external voltage comparator to get the desired precision on humidity and temperature measurement - from what I remember the Arduino by itself didn't hack it.
> 
> Are you open-sourcing your code?


Haha, I know the feeling. I haven't decided if I'm going to expose my code or not since I'll probably sell the finished product. I'll probably make it available so people can build off it if they want. That seems to be how most people are selling Arduino or RasPi based projects. 

Btw, what temp/humidity sensor did you use?


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## loner556 (Sep 18, 2010)

ChrisL said:


> Haha, I know the feeling. I haven't decided if I'm going to expose my code or not since I'll probably sell the finished product. I'll probably make it available so people can build off it if they want. That seems to be how most people are selling Arduino or RasPi based projects.
> 
> Btw, what temp/humidity sensor did you use?


I think it was a DHT11 that I was experimenting with but I'll have to dig it out to be sure. I do remember that what I was testing with didn't go to 100% humidity and was planning on changing it out for something that could read to 100%. 

Looks like the DHT22 would be a simple and decent choice.


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## ChrisL (Aug 21, 2014)

loner556 said:


> I think it was a DHT11 that I was experimenting with but I'll have to dig it out to be sure. I do remember that what I was testing with didn't go to 100% humidity and was planning on changing it out for something that could read to 100%.
> 
> Looks like the DHT22 would be a simple and decent choice.


Hm.. That's one that I was looking at. My only concern is that it's not waterproof. I suppose that it would be safe as long as it is mounted on the top of the tank.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Rad, glad to see more people who can do wizardly things with stuff like arduino and raz pi etc..etc... I'm crosslinking this to the weather Fx and tech find threads to make sure anyone who is interested finds all the good stuff...and this is good stuff ! (More details and yes make it a product! )



http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/pa...um-storm-weather-fx-idea-resource-thread.html

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/pa...ro-daves-vivarium-tech-finds.html#post1948122


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## loner556 (Sep 18, 2010)

ChrisL said:


> Hm.. That's one that I was looking at. My only concern is that it's not waterproof. I suppose that it would be safe as long as it is mounted on the top of the tank.


Pulled my stuff out and I was using a DHT11 for testing. 

I did pick up a DHT22 last week and I've got it going without an external comparator. Adafruit has a library for the DHT series that's really user friendly. 

That's exactly what I was thinking with the 22: mount it at the top and avoid direct spray and I'd think you'd be OK. I was going to recess mine into the hood somehow, but, I don't want to highjack this thread on what I'm doing.

We need more details on your setup! What are you using for sound and how are you synching it with the Arduino?


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## ChrisL (Aug 21, 2014)

Thanks Dendro Dave!

Loner, right now I just have it set up so that you would run a splitter out of the audio source with one output going to a portable speaker and the other end plugging into my circuit. I thought about adding an SD card pre loaded with a clip of thunderstorm audio, but that would add a good bit to the cost and SD cards are a little finicky when I've used them.. Getting it to flash the lights to the audio took way too many hours of fiddling/programming, so until I decide whether I'm going to sell it our not I'm going to keep it a secret. I'll definitely send you the sketch and details if I don't though. 

I ordered a DHT22 and a DHt11 to play with but haven't hooked them up yet. That's next on my list though. I hope to have a video up within he next week or so to demonstrate what I have so far. Made some pretty good progress so far. Can't decide on hooking up a built in LCD screen or just writing a little .net program to control it. We'll see.. Maybe both.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

ChrisL said:


> Thanks Dendro Dave!
> 
> Loner, right now I just have it set up so that you would run a splitter out of the audio source with one output going to a portable speaker and the other end plugging into my circuit. I thought about adding an SD card pre loaded with a clip of thunderstorm audio, but that would add a good bit to the cost and SD cards are a little finicky when I've used them.. Getting it to flash the lights to the audio took way too many hours of fiddling/programming, so until I decide whether I'm going to sell it our not I'm going to keep it a secret. I'll definitely send you the sketch and details if I don't though.
> 
> I ordered a DHT22 and a DHt11 to play with but haven't hooked them up yet. That's next on my list though. I hope to have a video up within he next week or so to demonstrate what I have so far. Made some pretty good progress so far. Can't decide on hooking up a built in LCD screen or just writing a little .net program to control it. We'll see.. Maybe both.


For the sound maybe stuff like the 300 second motion activated thing in this thread http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/pa...um-storm-weather-fx-idea-resource-thread.html

...would come in handy to glean some ideas off of or back engineer it a bit and hook your own version to an arduino or raz pi?... Even just getting sound responsiveness would be cool.. I have severeral led sound controllers but I haven't played with them all yet. Incan say the cheopo tiny black box that hooks to an led strip sux... actually have to thumpnit to trigger "sound response"... got 2 more I'm about to start playing with. 

Basically we just need an MP3 alarm clock built into the light or at laeast the controller and may even phone app that we can use to control it all or to connect with Bluetooth speakers and set off the storm if we are in range or something.


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## ChrisL (Aug 21, 2014)

Motion activation is a great idea and also really easy to add. My only concern was that it would get kind of annoying to have it turn on every time you walked into the room. I suppose a simple on/off setting for the motion activation would solve that problem though. Right now I just have my mp3 playing plugged into one of the outlets that is being controlled, so it turns that and the LED strip on when the effect is enabled. 

I've been thinking about the app side of this a lot actually. I can get the hardware side of it ready but iOS development is something that I haven't gotten into yet. I'll be trying to find a developer though.. Probably going to be posting on here to see if I can find someone with some web/iOS experience.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

If I decide to use the motion sensor outlet I thought i'd mount it on the side or facing up so a hand wave would activate it, but I've also got remote controlled outlets so I figure that is probably the better solution overall... But I'm keeping an eye out for some kinda FX use of that motion sensor.

Does your MP3 player just automatically come on?... I can't do ardunino/ raz pi, so one of the most challenging aspects of these projects is finding some way to trigger sound at the same time and for the same duration as the rain/lighting fx. 

Actually that is where that 300 second motion controlled sound player in conjunction with the motion sensor outlet seemed the way to go. If the same hand wave triggered both then the mist/rain/music and lights would all come on and run for about the same time. I think both happen to turn on for 5 minutes before shutting off on their own. I don't know how the sound quality is on that thing though... one of those toys I haven't gotten round to testing yet, and I've been leaning towards wanting the entire fx/mist setup on timers and/or by remote control outlets but that's where i run into a problem finding something that starts and stops music without me pushing play... so now im looking at MP3 alarm clock apps, or nature sound/mp3 alarm clocks. Then I could sync them to go off when timers set off mist and other fx systems.

If the lighting is all sound responsive then I can just use 2 remote... 1to activate rain/mist, and another to remotely start stop music. Got a lot ideas and can't settle on one... cant decide either if I want all events automated like timed to go off on timers, or would rather initiate everything with remotes and/or motion sensors. I will probably not do fully automated because I don't drill my tanks for overflow... so automated could to easily flood the tank. Eventually though I wanna do a fully automated system with overflow and auto top off...and all these FX. 


...Building up to it. But for now I may have just talked myself back into a motion activated setup if the sound quality is OK on that 300 second motion activated sound loop player. I guess I better dig it out of the toy box


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## ChrisL (Aug 21, 2014)

Test it out and let me know what you think!


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

ChrisL said:


> Test it out and let me know what you think!


I will once I get my PC running again, bad mobo and having trouble getting the new one to post... exact same model so hoping to avoid a new windows install. I need the PC to run the software to load audio tracks on the device... and I'm tired of doing everything from my phone the last week or 2  ...Amazing what u can do though now on a phone... Little akward typing but with my wifi, I got torrents and netflix and e books so im surviving  ...Was just starting to play league of ledgends though, so that's on hold for now 

Anyways... This is the source site for the 300 second usb sound looper and lots of other audio gadgets and other tech components that may come in handy for people...http://www.electronics123.com/kits-and-modules/Audio-Effects-and-Sound-Modules/

Also banggood.com has a crap ton of cheap electronic components (and other stuff).

Amazing how much I still ramble even when doing it all from a phone ;P (I did connect phone to PC monitor with micro HDMI and a dvi adapter so that eases the pain tremendously... and accounts for some of the continued rambling on and on... like just then!)


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