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Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 1:05 pm
by Paulweck
has anybody hooked up the Chinese led to the RA yet. Im guessing the main question is if your drivers are compatible. just wondering if its been done yet?

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 1:13 pm
by egadgetjnr
Not yet, but I'm currently on the stages of building one. Hehe

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 1:26 pm
by lnevo
Are you referring to the Evergrow models? like the D120? There have been efforts made to do this with the Apex and RFK and should be transferrable to the RA. It would require analog dimming not PWM but I dont' know if anyone has done this successfully. I think this will be my approach when I finally replace my lighting.

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:19 pm
by Paulweck
yes i am talking about the d120 i think . oh analog that sucks as my ra is pwm. would this just be changing the dimming drivers out to help with getting these puppies to work off my ra?

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:21 pm
by Paulweck

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:02 pm
by lnevo
Yeah those are the Evergrow D120.

Take a look at this link:

http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?/ ... _p__501442

You'd be on your own from a support perspective...but for the price you can't go wrong.

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:14 pm
by Paulweck
thanks for the link ill check it out..

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2013 6:30 pm
by rossbryant1956
I followed that discussion as well while it was going on, but I'm not enough of an electrical engineer to attempt it. EVERYONE on that board loves those lights, but no one does those mods commercially.

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2013 6:36 pm
by lnevo
The full spectrum d120 / reefbreeder / evergrow lights are really nice. A lot of led for a great price. I would try this at some point unless another fixture comes through.. It sounds like a straight forward mod.

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2013 9:14 am
by KRavEN
I have a rebranded d120 fixture and I think I can work out the PWM dimming on the drivers. I haven't tried yet because I'm trying to get some docs from the driver manufacturer but if that doesn't work out I'll just attempt what I'm thinking should work and hope I don't let out any magic smoke.

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2013 9:28 am
by lnevo
Kraven check out the link i posted above from wamas. It looks like its analog dimming and you can connect to it pretty easily. Keep us posted!

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2013 4:36 pm
by KRavEN
lnevo wrote:Kraven check out the link i posted above from wamas. It looks like its analog dimming and you can connect to it pretty easily. Keep us posted!
Yeah, I had found that one and if all else fails that should work. There is another dimming connection on the driver board that they did not use and I think is for PWM dimming.

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2013 5:06 pm
by lnevo
Keep me posted :)

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2013 8:34 pm
by Paulweck
can we get a update? im glad others are trying this i just havent had time with getting married next week and everything

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2013 8:36 pm
by rimai
Cool :)
Congratz!!!

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Sep 18, 2013 8:40 pm
by lnevo
rimai wrote:Cool :)
Congratz!!!
+1 congrats! Wish i had an answer though...

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 9:35 am
by scurvyrat
I just got 3 of the Evergrow Nova A8s for my 300DD. They were awesome to work with and did custom layout of different chips. Price and shipping were incredible. PM if you want a contact.

I bought the versions with the rheostat instead of their controller as I wanted to hook it up to the RA. Also, their controller not only adds $ it steps in 30 min increments only.

When I got mine, I immediately took it apart ;) (Disclaimer -- doing the below most likely voids your warranty and there is 120V inside the box when plugged in. You may permanently destroy your lights and there is potential for electrocution -- nothing like 120V & salt water! Please proceed at your own risk. It works for me, your mileage may vary).

Here is the rheostat board

Image

and the other side:
Image

There are 4 pins:
1: On/Off -- reads 0V when the rheostats is off and 10.77V when on
2: +12V -- reads 11.78V, comes from the LED drivers
3: PWM (0-10V)
4: GND

You can see (or not!) in image that there are two connectors. That is because each dimmer board controllers 2 LED drivers. In my lights there are 4 LED drivers in total: 2 white and 2 blue (or whatever mix of LEDs you have). The pins are connected so both drivers receive the same signals.

I shorted pins 1&2 to provide the LED drivers with the signal that the light is on.
I connected pins 3&4 directly to the RA Dimming Module and voila! Let there be RA-controlled dimmable lights!

The only problem I have is that some of the lights appear to dim differently than others. Specifically, if I look at the light from the long end, the left bank of lights (controlled by one white and one blue) is brighter than the right bank (the other white and blue). I don't understand this as both are getting the exact same signals. My only thought is that the LED drivers have a small POT inside them and maybe that adjusts the lower end of the dimmers. Open to any and all suggestions!

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 9:40 am
by lnevo
Would love to know which contacts as there are many suppliers :) Also you did it on the Nova A8.. this is a 22" model?

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:11 am
by scurvyrat
lnevo wrote:Would love to know which contacts as there are many suppliers :) Also you did it on the Nova A8.. this is a 22" model?
I'd PM you'd the contact if I had permission to PM! Maybe some magic can be worked there, Roberto?

The Nova A8 is the 22" x 11" x 2.8" light with 96 x 3W LEDs. So far I'm really impressed with the build quality and the amount of light (I don't own a PAR meter). I have a 300DD so the I need to cover 6' x 3' x 28" or so. If Marineland didn't have the #$#$#@ cross braces, my world would be perfect. As it stands I do get a bit of shadowing from them and going to 4 lights wouldn't help that much.

I did a custom layout and they turned it around in 72 hours and I had my custom lights from Shenzen in 7 days. Extremely well packed. Amazing.

When I get permissions to post images I'll post them up.

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:18 am
by rimai
I fixed the image post :)
You only need one more post to be able to post links!!!

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:54 pm
by scurvyrat
Here are some pictures of the lights. Super happy with the build quality as well as the light output (again, I don't own a PAR meter, so no point asking for measurements :D )
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

I also have a D120, which is the next to go under the knife:
Image

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 5:24 pm
by lnevo
Yeah d120!!! Let's see it :)

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 5:01 pm
by Paulweck
thanks for the update i havent been on in awhile been really busy with the wedding this saturday and all. after the honeymoon im going to dig in to one of my d120 and try to get it running on the ra. i hope when i get back sombody gets a little further then i will be so i can get some more input on the process

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 11:45 am
by Dctrojan
Can someone help me as well? I have a suspected chinese led that i bought on ebay. I bought 2 of the 144w Reefblok reef grower full spectrum fixtures. they grow my coral great I think. I recently bought the reefangel plus (analog) to hopefully accomplish the auto dimming. Could someone please take a look at these and help me determine if I can add a dimmable driver to these units or a possible solution ?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/300915148718?ss ... 1497.l2649

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 11:53 am
by rimai
Can you send us a photo of what else came with the light fixture?
Is there a box with a knob for dimming?

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 3:03 pm
by Sacohen
Tagging along. Those lights look interesting and if you can dim them with the RA them I might consider them.
DCtrojan what do you think of the lights them self so far?

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 3:25 pm
by lnevo
These lights are probably not going to be plug and play. You may have to splice/cut/void your warranty on these lights to make this happen. Even then its not a done deal...just making sure you understand these points before going further...

Skurvey is the only one so far I've seen with success doing this and running a reef angel....

This doesnt mean it cant be done or isnt doable, just setting expectations.

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 5:06 pm
by Dctrojan
I love the lights so far. As I am new to reef keeping approx 8 weeks in and all my corals seem to be growing great. My only complaint is I like a bluer light and ill be adding a actinic diy supplemental kit from rapid leds soon. The lights come with a round knob for each channel to dim them. I understand that opening up the fixture will void any waranty I have. I am somewhat electrically inclined and I live DIY. I believe the limiting factor that rapid leds talked to me about was the fixtures having a driver that is attached directly to the surface board. Each fixture has 2 ,36w wall transformers to power the leds.

Ive attached 2 pictures one with both fixtures full blast and the other a close pic of a frogspawn

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 5:09 pm
by Dctrojan
A open brain I have has grown from the size of a quarter to the size of a baseball in diameter in approximately 6 weeks

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

Re: Chinese made LED diy

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 5:37 pm
by rimai
I still would like to see the knob and how you connect the power supply to the fixture.
Like Rapid LED said, you need to confirm the driver is not inside the unit.