Author Andrei
29/09/2019

This is a great PCB project made by Giannis Vasilakis and posted on Instructables. A DIY guide that will show you how to make your own Arduino aquarium auto lighting system. In this project Giannis decided to make his own PCB that is based on Arduino UNO microcontroller - Atmega328p. On the full post you will find the electronic schematic with PCB layout so you can easily produce it.

The current time can be set for the first time (or when the coin battery is low) via the serial monitor. You can change the lighting change time or led color from code.

He is sharing the PCB files and the schematic and also the full part list so we could make the same project. As he explains, we have to onnect our circuit with TTL to USB module with 5 cables to the programming header. The pins RX and TX must be cross-connected. If you are using the Arduino UNO board make sure to remove the ATmega328 IC from it first and connect the headers RX to RX and TX to TX pins of the board. The RS pin must be connected to Arduino UNO reset pin.

On the post, we can also find the STL files for a 3D printable case that we could print and use with the PCB that he designed. On the PCB we can see the ATMEGA328 microcontroller, the same chip the Arduino UNO is using. We can also see a cell battery that will supply the real tiem clock for a long time so we could have the real time for more than a year. The small IC is the real time clock.

So, a nice PCB to make and control LEDs color. Make with the ATMEGA328 and programmed in Arduino. Get the PCB, the scheamtic, order the PCB and make your own project for your aquarium.

Apart this post, if you have your own project and you need good quality PCBs, consider using the services of JLCPCB.com which will offer you quite good services, I use their services a lot of my PCBs.

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