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Super cheap Dimmable LED Driver (cost under $3)

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chris.rogers View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote chris.rogers Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 13 2011 at 9:38am
It's Asad's diagram, not mine, but I'm flattered you think I'm as smart as Asad.  Smile

What are your numbers?  Input voltage from your supply?  What's your resistor?  What's your desired current?
Ils sont fous, ces Romains!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Davidwillis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 13 2011 at 7:19pm
sorry.... I just read the post real quick, and thought you were Asad...

It seems to work with it hooked up the way I showed in my picture.  I have a 0-5 ohm pot for the resistor.  I adjusted my voltage differently for each array because they are different sizes, and colors.  But with it hooked up to the adj pin like in my picture, it adjusts from 200 to 1000ma.

I hope to get some time to put it together this weekend, and I will post pictures.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote chris.rogers Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 14 2011 at 8:50am
That's awesome.

Please do post some pics, I'd love to see them.  I'm convinced I'll be doing my lighting setup like this when the time comes.
Ils sont fous, ces Romains!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Laird Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 14 2011 at 4:41pm
Has anyone built any kind of housing for theirs? If so PICS PLEASE.

Indefinite hiatus from sw aquariums.

Once I have my glorious return I'll set back up the following.
50 Gallon rimless cube.
180 Gallons mixed reef paradise
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Davidwillis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 14 2011 at 7:32pm
I am using an aluminum housing with mine (I got it from e-bay for $5)... I will post when I get it put together

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Davidwillis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 15 2011 at 4:08pm
Ok, I had some time today and got them put together.  First the pictures, then I will report on how they are working.


Inside the control box....



The control box assembled, and the light fixture.





Lights on the tank.




tipped up so you can see the lights...





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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Davidwillis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 15 2011 at 4:30pm
I tried taking a picture of a before and after lighting.  My lights I was using before were 30 watts of t5 lighting.  The difference is incredible, but I can't show it on a camera.  I sold my leds I had on before, and have been using these t5's until I got these new ones put together, but I don't think the light was good enough, and all my sps corals have died, as well as my hammer coral.  So I don't have any corals to compare the lights with, but the fish look much more colorful under these lights, and they look 10X brighter than the t5s.

I am running 3 series of lights.  Two royal blues strings, and one white.  All are dimmable, so I can get a good range of blue or white.

I don't think I have a good enough heat sink to run them at full power though.  At 1000ma they start getting hot.  So I am currently running all the lights at 500ma, and they are still plenty bright, and the color mix looks great.

Power usage:
First I checked the power usage of my t5's.  Plugging in just my three power supplies (not connected) consumes 8W.  With the lights on full power I consume 83W... seems a bit high considering I am only running 19 3W LED's (19x3=57)  That might be why it was getting hot.  At 500ma per series my total power consumption is 40W.  Not bad considering they look 10X better than the t5's that used 33W.

p.s.  My kids love to look at the fish with just the blue lights on... they look like they glow...LOL
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote chris.rogers Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 15 2011 at 5:01pm
I would expect that 1A of current would make an LED run hot - what is their current rating per the data sheet?

I'd love to see the pics, but they're blocked at work, and I'm going camping this weekend - d'oh!  Can't wait to see the pics though.

Weston's not far from Preston, right?  I might have to find the time to come up and see this.

Did you measure the power consumption using a kill-a-watt?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote chris.rogers Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 15 2011 at 5:10pm
Strange, on a refresh all the images show up.  Maybe I'm being watched by IT and they wanted to see the tank too...?   LOL
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Davidwillis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 15 2011 at 5:16pm
The royal blues are rated for 1A max, and the whites are rated at 1.5A max.  So 500ma should be very safe.  But my heat sink is only a 3/4 inch wide strip of aluminum with an aluminum screen frame tube brazed to one side(it is all I had laying around, and I couldn't find anything locally).  Even at 500ma it is warm, and 1000ma it is hot (It will not burn, but it is to hot for my liking).  Although I don't think it is much hotter than my Exoxotic Panorama LED got even at 1000ma, and it is much cooler at 500ma.

Weston is about 15 min from Preston... but a long way from France...LOL

Yes, I measured the power consumption using a kill-a-watt meter, and the amperage using my multimeter.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote chris.rogers Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 15 2011 at 5:38pm
You're probably already know this, but I wouldn't push higher than 850mA on the blues or 1250mA on the whites.  So yeah, your 500mA is just peachy with a little room to grow, even.

France is my wishful thinking location.  LOL  I live in gorgeous Cache Valley.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote seti007 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 17 2011 at 7:41am
Looking good David. I like your control box with the Pots to control the dimming Thumbs Up As for teh heat issue. I would put a few small computer fans to cool it down. That would lenghten the life time of the lights. You can also get some aluminum U channels fairly cheap  from home depot ( or NPS) and use them as heat sinks.

Edited by seti007 - July 17 2011 at 7:44am
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic--Arthur C. Clarke
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Davidwillis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 17 2011 at 9:13am
Thanks, I may put up a couple fans.  How warm does yours get?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Laird Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 17 2011 at 1:06pm
I'm thinking about adding some blue LED strips to my frag tank. I had a lot of help with my first LED build and I know that I wouldn't do a good enough job by myself on something like this.

So, I'm looking for someone who has built some strips to maybe put a couple together for me. I'm thinking two strips of 9 LEDs each on a 18' sink.    I'd pay for help, or give some frags, or I have store credit at a couple different places.

If anyone is at all interested in something like that send me a pm.



Edited by Laird - July 17 2011 at 1:11pm
Indefinite hiatus from sw aquariums.

Once I have my glorious return I'll set back up the following.
50 Gallon rimless cube.
180 Gallons mixed reef paradise
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote seti007 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 17 2011 at 10:27pm
Originally posted by Davidwillis Davidwillis wrote:

Thanks, I may put up a couple fans.  How warm does yours get?
I did the touch test after installing and found that in the winter time the heat sinks were  warm to the touch. For summer time, I only have a swamp cooler and the ambient room temps in the tank room can get in the high 70s so I added a few fans and now everything is running nice and cool.  I also added some fans under the tank to cool down the power supplys as well.  Sorry i didnt do any scientific measurements but the way i thought about it is that if the heat sink was warm, the LED junction temperatures were probably quite high so adding the fans would have lowerd the junction temps hopefully to within the safe operating range. Fans dont cost much and are easy to put in so why not :)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sculpin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 10 2011 at 6:54pm
I have a 225 (6 footer) tank and I'd love to build my own LED fixture like it. That said I have little background in electronics (at least this kind of electronics :) )

Would you be so kind as to, in a super simple way, show me how to build one of these fixtures? The frame work would be a breeze for me but all the electronic mumbo-jumbo is flying way over my head. I'm currently running 3 250W MH's and 2 55w T5HO's over my tank. 

For starters here are my questions-
How many LED's (if using the ones you have) would I need to replace the MH's and T5's?
What would be my electronic equipment list?
Could you show me how to assemble them?

I'm pretty good at following instructions and I'm sure I can build this thing but all the technical stuff is fairly intimidating to me. 

Thank you.

Micah
225 Reef (not really mine but i act like it is)

29 Biocube

My Whole House System Build
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Davidwillis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 11 2011 at 3:29pm
It sounds complicated, but it is really very easy.  To replace what you have, you would want an LED light every 1.5" side to side, and every 3 inches front to back.  I would suggest a 1/3 Royal Blue, 1/3 True violet, and 1/3 neutral white.   You will also need 3 24v power supplies (I like to have one for each color).  You could have one for each series if you want, but it will cost more.  The power supply has to be able to supply the amperage to run all the lights you put on it. 

Then if you need to decide which ones you want to be able to dimm (I like to have them all dimmable).  Dimming is easy, you just need to find some 0-5 ohm 5 W Potentiometers, and a project box.

Also, I have found there really is not even a need for the constant current chip (it may provide a larger range of dimming, but with the trimpot on the power supply, and the potentiometer I have plenty of range.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote wick246 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 13 2011 at 1:51pm
So for a 90 gallon tank I would need about 80 3 watt cree's, 10 or 12 of these drivers and power supplies to run the drivers. Does this sound right? How many and what type power supplies would be best?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Rara Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 15 2011 at 10:22am
Has anyone every tried using a computer power supply to run LEDs? I believe they have multiple 12V outputs, but I don't know the amperage.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Davidwillis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 15 2011 at 5:31pm
The problem with a computer power supply is that it is only 12v, which makes your strings 1/2 the size, and it doesn't have a trimpot on it.  However you can get a 15a 24v (that is 360 watts of power) power supply for under $40, and run a bunch (probably about 15)of series off of it.  As long as each run is the same length, and same type of LED, you can adjust the trimpot to optimize all of them. 


Edited by Davidwillis - November 15 2011 at 5:35pm
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