A year ago i went searching for programming microcontrollers, and found this arduino.
Currently i have created a board based on arduino mega, to control lightning in home.
This system i am very pleased to have working, i want to share with you.
At first this was my baseboard.
The board without the arduino mega. As you can see there is a DS1307 RTC on it, a Eeprom(still not used) and two ULN 2803 chips to control the output with higher loads.
and here the lcd controlpanel with inside the IR remote sensor
at the bottom section of this panel there is a LDR and a ds18B20 located.
i have this board removed to expand the system with mosfet's and designed a new board.
The code i created is mainly from this forum, with some changes of my own.
This system is still expanding about every mounth.
It must be very exciting to control your home lights and maybe other devices from your desktop. I am also thinking of creating a similar control centre for the house with Arduino. Good luck with the further steps of your project.
I will soon put some code and schematics of my home control.
Some details of my arduino project.
1-RTC DS1307 was not accurate enough and is replaced by DS3231 (most accurate)
2-PIR's to detect human movement in the hall/stairways to light up the hall when it is dark.
don't think this is too soft to light up the hallway, it's very, very bright.
An impression of the brightness at night
3-Living room lights with ledstrips (ebay seller 49 cm warm white ledstrips and datasheet
these strips you can't look too long into, it's very bright. It toke me more then a mounth to get the right color with enough brightness, these are very bright and to me the best.
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total need 12 pieces to light up a livingroom 40 sqr m2.
4-The ULN 2803 chips are changed by IRF3205 MOSFETs to control much higher loads. (not all are used)
5-A pcf8574A chip is added to control switching some lights for the stairways on sec. and ground floor.
6-A DS-1803 is added as a digital potmeter to (dimmed) control IRF3205 mosfets to light up the livingroom ledstrips.
7- via code the livingroom ledstrips are controlled to dimm up/dwn responding at (light meassure LDR)darkness at the front of the house.
8-A IR receiver is mounted in the LCD panel, located in livingroom. This needs to be expanded to more functions, now it dims up/dwn the ledstrips.
9-A DS-18B20 temperature sensor is added at the front of the house at same location as the LDR.
My new home control centre is now active and works very nice.
Four boards are stacked,
at the top the arduino baseboard V2 with LCD output connector, and some input/output pins.
first level, board there is a PWM output board for all PWM pins (not used currently, but present for future use.
Second level, is a Analog input board, where LDR's potmeters are connected.
The thirth level, is a mosfet outputboard with 3 DS-1803 digital potmeters and a PCF-8574A chip is located. This one drives the high loads.
total need 12 pieces to light up a livingroom 40 sqr m2.
4-The ULN 2803 chips are changed by IRF3205 MOSFETs to control much higher loads. (not all are used)
5-A pcf8574A chip is added to control switching some lights for the stairways on sec. and ground floor.
6-A DS-1803 is added as a digital potmeter to (dimmed) control IRF3205 mosfets to light up the livingroom ledstrips.
7- via code the livingroom ledstrips are controlled to dimm up/dwn responding at (light meassure LDR)darkness at the front of the house.
8-A IR receiver is mounted in the LCD panel, located in livingroom. This needs to be expanded to more functions, now it dims up/dwn the ledstrips.
9-A DS-18B20 temperature sensor is added at the front of the house at same location as the LDR.
My new home control centre is now active and works very nice.
Four boards are stacked,
at the top the arduino baseboard V2 with LCD output connector, and some input/output pins.
first level, board there is a PWM output board for all PWM pins (not used currently, but present for future use.
Second level, is a Analog input board, where LDR's potmeters are connected.
The thirth level, is a mosfet outputboard with 3 DS-1803 digital potmeters and a PCF-8574A chip is located. This one drives the high loads.
note, the DS3231 RTC is placed at the bottom of the board! soldering was very easy, i was scared it would not be easy, but it was!
The powerregulator is not placed, since i used the 4th level of the board also as a power base to the whole project. this power connection is made through the boards by the screws and spacers between the boards. (12V, 5V and Ground)
The Power converter from 220 to 12V is bought from ebay for 20$ in China. it has a capacity for 120Watts. I don't think i will use that much power for my home lights. (search on ebay 12V 10A Switching Power Supply AC DC Converter and you will be supprised of the price) one of this i used
The second level board
The thirth level board
I was playing with the PCF 8575 chip and placed this on the board, but it did not work as i wanted to (scrap)
The fourth level board with power regulators, 5 and 3,3 volt.
