Reef Angel Forum

Sorry if my questions here are trivial to most but my knowledge on LED drivers is limited.

My first question is when I hook up my lights which would be connected to the PWM dimming port does the power supply have to be plugged into the relay box?

I have 2 identical fixtures over my tank and I am switching from ELN to LDD, previously i had one ELN driver powering the white channel on both sides and one driver for both blue channels in parallel, 2 drivers total, and now I will have 1 LDD driver per side per color, 4 drivers total, I still want both sides to turn on at the same time, so would i need to have 4 dimming ports or would the 2 which come with the head unit and relay box work for both sets or do i need the dimming port expansion? I am hoping i don't have to buy this expansion yet.

Also with the above situation, will the LDDs set to 100% powering 1 string of diodes be more light/power than the ELN drivers powering 2 parallel strands of the same diodes at 100%? Basically what i am asking is if i will need to acclimate my coral to the new LDD drivers?

What is the percentage of power that I will be able to use with the LDD diodes? I am not sure if this question makes sense so for example right now without the RA using the cheap controller from RapidLED and the ELN drivers, it will range from 5% - 100% in increments of 5% 0% being off.

Thank you in advance and sorry if these questions are elementary.

MDB1029 wrote:Sorry if my questions here are trivial to most but my knowledge on LED drivers is limited.

My first question is when I hook up my lights which would be connected to the PWM dimming port does the power supply have to be plugged into the relay box?

Nope. You can dim to 0 to shut them off.

I have 2 identical fixtures over my tank and I am switching from ELN to LDD, previously i had one ELN driver powering the white channel on both sides and one driver for both blue channels in parallel, 2 drivers total, and now I will have 1 LDD driver per side per color, 4 drivers total, I still want both sides to turn on at the same time, so would i need to have 4 dimming ports or would the 2 which come with the head unit and relay box work for both sets or do i need the dimming port expansion? I am hoping i don't have to buy this expansion yet.

You should be fine with the two standard dimming ports.

Also with the above situation, will the LDDs set to 100% powering 1 string of diodes be more light/power than the ELN drivers powering 2 parallel strands of the same diodes at 100%? Basically what i am asking is if i will need to acclimate my coral to the new LDD drivers?

Depends on the current you had your ELN set to, and what current your LDD's are. ELN's are adjustable (one of the VR's in the driver) and the LDD's are set. You buy the one with the current you want.

What is the percentage of power that I will be able to use with the LDD diodes? I am not sure if this question makes sense so for example right now without the RA using the cheap controller from RapidLED and the ELN drivers, it will range from 5% - 100% in increments of 5% 0% being off.

Thank you in advance and sorry if these questions are elementary.

You can dim the LDD's down to 1%. Even less with a dimming expansion.

--Colin

Actually, the standard dimming channels have 0-10V and the LDD only accept 0-5V
I think it would be best to get the dimming expansion.

Ooops! Forgot about that.

--Colin

rimai wrote:Actually, the standard dimming channels have 0-10V and the LDD only accept 0-5V
I think it would be best to get the dimming expansion.

What difference does the 0-10v and the 0-5v make? Will the LDD drivers not work with the standard 0-10v?

cosmith71 wrote:

MDB1029 wrote:Sorry if my questions here are trivial to most but my knowledge on LED drivers is limited.

My first question is when I hook up my lights which would be connected to the PWM dimming port does the power supply have to be plugged into the relay box?

Nope. You can dim to 0 to shut them off.

I have 2 identical fixtures over my tank and I am switching from ELN to LDD, previously i had one ELN driver powering the white channel on both sides and one driver for both blue channels in parallel, 2 drivers total, and now I will have 1 LDD driver per side per color, 4 drivers total, I still want both sides to turn on at the same time, so would i need to have 4 dimming ports or would the 2 which come with the head unit and relay box work for both sets or do i need the dimming port expansion? I am hoping i don't have to buy this expansion yet.

You should be fine with the two standard dimming ports.

Also with the above situation, will the LDDs set to 100% powering 1 string of diodes be more light/power than the ELN drivers powering 2 parallel strands of the same diodes at 100%? Basically what i am asking is if i will need to acclimate my coral to the new LDD drivers?

Depends on the current you had your ELN set to, and what current your LDD's are. ELN's are adjustable (one of the VR's in the driver) and the LDD's are set. You buy the one with the current you want.

What is the percentage of power that I will be able to use with the LDD diodes? I am not sure if this question makes sense so for example right now without the RA using the cheap controller from RapidLED and the ELN drivers, it will range from 5% - 100% in increments of 5% 0% being off.

Thank you in advance and sorry if these questions are elementary.

You can dim the LDD's down to 1%. Even less with a dimming expansion.

--Colin

Do all these answers hold true other than using the 2 standard dimming ports?

MDB1029 wrote:

rimai wrote:Actually, the standard dimming channels have 0-10V and the LDD only accept 0-5V
I think it would be best to get the dimming expansion.

What difference does the 0-10v and the 0-5v make? Will the LDD drivers not work with the standard 0-10v?

It has to do with the voltage of the dimming signal. The LDD's use a 5v signal, so a 10v signal will probably damage them (being that it's 2x too high).

The dimming expansion (the latest version, anyway) can supply 5 or 10v, PWM or analog depending on how you have it set. You could even have all 6 channels set differently if that's what you needed. I run 5v LDD's on two channels and 10v Jebao cables on two others.

--Colin

Do all these answers hold true other than using the 2 standard dimming ports?

Yes. I just did this same conversion last year.

--Colin

cosmith71 wrote:

MDB1029 wrote:

rimai wrote:Actually, the standard dimming channels have 0-10V and the LDD only accept 0-5V
I think it would be best to get the dimming expansion.

What difference does the 0-10v and the 0-5v make? Will the LDD drivers not work with the standard 0-10v?

It has to do with the voltage of the dimming signal. The LDD's use a 5v signal, so a 10v signal will probably damage them (being that it's 2x too high).

The dimming expansion (the latest version, anyway) can supply 5 or 10v, PWM or analog depending on how you have it set. You could even have all 6 channels set differently if that's what you needed. I run 5v LDD's on two channels and 10v Jebao cables on two others.

--Colin

So i should continue to use the ELN drivers until i can get the dimming expansion?

Yes, if you want dimming.

one last question. The ELN drivers one has i think 650 mA going to 2 parallel strings and the other was something like 1200 mA also to 2 parallel strings. If i use 1 650 ma LDD per string and 1 1000 mA LDD per the other strings, neither parallel, The LDDs will give more power to the strings of diodes than the ELNs were since the ELNs were splitting the amperage, right? So each string before would have had around 325 and 600 mA and now they would have 650 and 1000? I am just not sure i understand this all properly. More of a clarification i guess.

And Happy Easter by the way!

Happy Easter to you, too.

That sounds correct. Assuming your parallel strings were identical, they would split the amperage 50/50. You'll end up with more brightness using the LDD's as you have described. You'll definitely need to acclimate. There's code around here somewhere that can do that automatically.

--Colin

Thank you, i really appreciate all your help.

cosmith71 wrote: That sounds correct. Assuming your parallel strings were identical, they would split the amperage 50/50. You'll end up with more brightness using the LDD's as you have described. You'll definitely need to acclimate. There's code around here somewhere that can do that automatically.

--Colin

If the original PWM dimming from the relay is 0-10v and LDD drivers are 0-5v, could i run 2 LDDs off of one 0-10v signal or does it not work that way and i would just need to have the dimming expansion for the LDDs to work?

You can run multiple LDD drivers off of a single dimming port.
It's not going to divide the dimming voltage in half. the drives will still get 1-10v.
If you have a new dimming modules you can open it up and change the jumpers inside to be 0-5 rather than 0-10v

Sacohen wrote:You can run multiple LDD drivers off of a single dimming port.
It's not going to divide the dimming voltage in half. the drives will still get 1-10v.
If you have a new dimming modules you can open it up and change the jumpers inside to be 0-5 rather than 0-10v

I don't have a dimming port yet and am wanting to hook my LDDs up in place of my ELNs because the ELNs are running parallel strands and I have enough LDDs to run single strands which will bring the power up on my lights. I am just being impatient waiting on funds for the dimming mod and was looking for a work around because I know the ELNs are not giving enough light for my coral.

I believe that the newer relays have the 0-5V jumper in them too.
How old is you unit?

Either way the PWM port is just giving the lights a "percentage" to run at, it is not actually supplying power to the light.

You can set the port to run no more than 50% and that will be 5v or the max of your LDD driver.

I bought the unit and installed it last week. It is brand new, not used.

I don't know a lot about the electrical side of things, I have been told LDDs have 0-5v signal and the ELNs i currently have are 0-10v. I have no idea what would happen if the LDDs got 5.1-10v. And I am willing to change a jumper in the relay but i don't want to open it up unless i know for sure there is one in there to change it.

There is no danger in opening it up (as long as it's unplugged) You won't void the warranty unless you try to modify it.
I'm 99% sure I remember Roberto saying that the jumpers were added to the relay as well.

This is the way it looks on the dimming module.

Only the dimming module can output 0-5V.
If you want to send it back, I can change it to 0-5V PWM so you can hookup the LDDs straight into the relay box.
PM me if you want to go this route instead of getting the dimming module.

Ultimately I will get the dimming module as soon as funds become available. It just seems my coral are unhappy with the amount of light they are getting currently and the LDDs should provide more power per string.

Roberto;

I'm sorry. I thought I read in another thread that you have added that feature to the dimming ports on the relay.
Sorry if I was wrong. I don't like giving out incorrect information.

Sacohen wrote:Roberto;

I'm sorry. I thought I read in another thread that you have added that feature to the dimming ports on the relay.
Sorry if I was wrong. I don't like giving out incorrect information.

No worries. I'm just trying to figure out a way to get my lights working the way I want them as soon as possible.

I appreciate the offer to change the relay signal, Roberto, but I it isn't necessary. It shouldn't be long before I can get the dimming mod.

Yeah, there is a way to change the signal pwm to analog or vice versa, but not the voltage.