Chinese made LED diy

Request new hardware or ideas for the controller
KRavEN
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by KRavEN »

Was thinking the AD5282 would work fine. i2c is pretty easy: gnd, 5v, sda, scl come from the RA i2c bus. Stiffening cap on AD5282 vcc line. Hook up the dim+ and dim- on the drivers to the appropriate resistor and wiper terminals. Then just find or write a new arduino class to control the AD5282.
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lnevo
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by lnevo »

Wow, sounds like a great solution.
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lnevo
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by lnevo »

How would you control multiple fixtures? I'm guessing you'd need a few of those and give each one their own address? Ir would you be able to wire multiple pots to each channel?
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Dctrojan
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by Dctrojan »

Sacohen wrote:Dctrojan; I just wanted to see how you are liking the light still?

The only thing I noticed about them when I looked at them on Ebay is there is no reds, pretty much just blue, whit and a little green.
Im still liking them they work great . Everything in my tank is growing like crazy. Im still wanting to add a actinic strip of royal blues to the system eventually. I also thought about adding a red or two as well.
I havent been able to do much research on the red leds yet and if I truly would need them.


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Sacohen
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by Sacohen »

Thanks I was thinking of adding 1 4' strip from Buildmyled.com of their 14000K lighting.

You just have the Meanwell drivers connected to the lights and you are getting dimming control, correct?

I keep see these post from KRavEN that looks like he is doing something much more elaborate.
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Dctrojan
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by Dctrojan »

Yup mines just wired in right between the wall outlet and 5he fixture. I just removed the old one power supplies and wired the meanwells in. I would take a picture but its a mess and I haven't had a chance to clean it up. The drivers dont dim all the way to 0 only to about 15 before the fixture cuts off. I tend to only run my whites up to 60% throughout the day and the blues are at 100 %

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Sacohen
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by Sacohen »

Cool. thanks for the info. I'm still leaning towards this setup, just need to get the money together.
Every time I'm able to save some money something "important" comes up and I have to pay a stupid bill or get food for the family.

Jeeze they don't really need to eat 3 times a day every day do they???
KRavEN
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by KRavEN »

lnevo wrote:How would you control multiple fixtures? I'm guessing you'd need a few of those and give each one their own address? Ir would you be able to wire multiple pots to each channel?
That chip is a dual channel chip. The way my light is wired is I have 3 drivers on one pot and 3 drivers on the other. I could go with 3 of these chips and control all 6 individually but the way the led layout I don't think it's worth it. I'll just replace the 2 manual pots with the dual digital pot.

Yes, multiple fixtures multiple chips with different addresses. The address is set via pins on the chip being pulled high or low.
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lnevo
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by lnevo »

So this would work to replace any manual dimmer then?
KRavEN
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by KRavEN »

Should. I still need to get one and try it out.
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lnevo
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by lnevo »

You think it could be wired in series so the original knobs would still work? I know..asking a lot here :)
KRavEN
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by KRavEN »

In theory yes, as long as the original potentiometer goes down to zero. I haven't used one of these digital pots before though so I'm not certain.
KRavEN
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by KRavEN »

Found a library for the chip. https://github.com/RobTillaart/Arduino/ ... ies/AD524X

I need to check my light pots to see what their value is so I order the right part. I need to put in a mouser order tonight and I'm in Dallas so I should have parts by Monday. Hopefully I'll have enough time to play with it next week but work is killing me right now. Need to hit a deadline before I go on vacation week of thanksgiving.
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Sacohen
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by Sacohen »

I just ordered my lights.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/300915148718?ss ... 1439.l2649

and I got the LED Drivers from Rapid LED a while back so I'm all set to go, once they come in.
rimai
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by rimai »

Can someone post how you get the meanwell drivers connected to these lights?
I'm having a hard time understanding.
Doesn't the light come with internal driver?
Roberto.
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Sacohen
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by Sacohen »

The only one I know that has done this is DCTrojan and this was his post...
Dctrojan wrote:Okay everyone the LED drivers I bought from rapidleds dim my LEDS! :) I hooked up everything this morning and It seems to be working great so far. All i had to do is cut the old 36V transformers from the line and i replaced it with the meanwell Drivers. I only bought 2 drivers to test before i committed to buying 4 of the drivers, I only hooked up the whites to the drivers. here's a link to the lights and drivers i used.

Ill post a picture and a video of the fixtures once I get the other drivers.

http://www.rapidled.com/mean-well-eln-6 ... le-driver/

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aquarium-LED-Li ... 0915148718
KRavEN
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by KRavEN »

Should be possible with 4 of the meanwells. Cheaper option would be 4 LDD 700mA LDD drivers and a 48v power supply. http://www.ledgroupbuy.com/meanwell-ldd ... ed-driver/

Boards that hold the ldd drivers here: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showp ... count=2298

You can send those files to itead and get 10 boards for a little over $20 in just a few weeks.
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Sacohen
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by Sacohen »

I actually have 4 boards and one already made up with 4 1000ma LDD drivers on it and a 400W 48V (meanwell knockoff) power supply that I bought used off someone who started the project and decided to go a different direction, kind of like I did.
rimai
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by rimai »

Yes, but is the fixture just a led string with no drivers?
Roberto.
KRavEN
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by KRavEN »

rimai wrote:Yes, but is the fixture just a led string with no drivers?
Fixture has 4 700mA drivers inside. I think I read they actually put out only 600mA but the LED's are capable of 700mA. 14 LED's on each driver. Simply cut out the old drivers and replace with LDD drivers. LDD can do 52v max. Most LED's have a forward voltage between 3.2v and 3.7v. So worst case: 3.7v * 14 = 51.8v. The math works out. The older ELN meanwell drivers are only rated to 48v so you might be overloading them depending on the LED binning. The 48v power supply that is used with the LDD drivers can be turned up to 52v via a trimpot.
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Sacohen
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Re: Chinese made LED diy

Post by Sacohen »

I hooked mine up the way DCTrojan did back on page 5 and it works fine. Rather than cutting the end off the 36v ps that he did I got a size M male connection from Radio Shack and just ran a wire from the output of the Meanwell drivers, put the male adapter on it and plugged the lights into that.

Image

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lnevo
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Chinese made LED diy

Post by lnevo »

Reef Radiance now sells a kit for their DM-155e which is similar to the current Evergrow D120/D2040 lights. They tested with the fixture that I own and confirmed it will work. I went ahead and placed an order. Let you all know how it goes soon.
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