Re: Phase A) LED build, Phase B) automation/monitoring Phase C)... Profit?

[fall0n]

Tomorrow I'll fire them up and tune per a multimeter. Hey Todd, I know you are somewhere around .7 A, with my color spread, what do you think would be a safe number to start off at?

Reminder of led color spectrum's:
4 Royal Blue
3 Blue
3 Cool White
3 Neutral White
3 Warm White
2 Red
2 Green
2 Cyan
2 Violet UV

 

[eww]

Nice build Jason. Love it when people actually take the time to do this right with wires wrapped properly and good connector ends for easy plug and play. Keep it up. Curious though... Does the Direct TV remote in the first pic operate it too??? Now that would be hot!!!

 

[fall0n]

Thanks, I take that care with all my "projects". If I'm going to do it, i'm going to do it right. Hahaha that remote doesn't, but arduino does have RF and bluetooth modules that you can add Don't get me thinking.

 

[TJL]

Hey Jason, pretty sure I started mine out ramping up 11-35% without any optics controlled by my Apex and matched as closely as posible with the (2) circuits on a manual POT. Slowly raised them up to where I have them now at 75% and have only kept optics on a handful to spotlight certain corals and clams. I'll have to finally make a visit South again and stop by to check them out.

Cheers, Todd

 

[fall0n]

And for the actual driver, what do you guys think I should target for adjusting the SVR2 (output current) to?

 

[TJL]

700ma... most of the red & green colored emitters are only rated for this

Cheers, Todd

 

[fall0n]

That's what I thought, thanks!

 

[tat2z_21]

700 mA is max which means that it will put out unnecessary heat, which means a waste of energy. So If I was you I would bring them down to 500mA. To add longevity to the chips themselves

 

[fall0n]

Nice, was gonna post to see what you though as well. Seems that you have some experience with this.

 

[tat2z_21]

Just a little, I do have to say that your wiring looks phenomenal. Are you going parallel with these, I think I remember you stating that you were going parallel. If that is true then your amperage is already cut down to 650 (700mA) with the driver at full.

 

[fall0n]

Thanks, appreciate it. For safety as well as visual aesthetics I try to do thing right in my mind. Yeah, they are both in a series, 12 leds on each side, going to their own driver. + to - to + to - etc all the way down.

 

[tat2z_21]

The reason I asked was just to make sure you were not running the full 1300ma through the blues, but I will now be quiet since you obviously have a handle on this. It definitely looks nice and can't wait to see it over your tank. The colors are going to be insane.

 

[fall0n]

Ok, so initial quesiton. tat2z_21 - so from what you see, I should be fine running the driver at full 1.3A as due to running in a series with mixed color leds, the A drop should put it in a safe/usable level? Just want to make sure.

More progress:

 

[tat2z_21]

Not sure if I am following, is the circuit in series, or parallel, series being that you have 1 string of 12 to 14 LED's on one driver, which would mean that the one string would have an amperage rating of 1.3, or parallel meaning that you have 2 strings on one driver splitting the amperage between the two strings of 12 to 14 LEDs, which would be 650mA per string. If you have two circuits for a total of 24 to 28 LED's on one driver I would still bring it down to 500mA per string which would be 1000mA coming off of the driver.

 

[tat2z_21]

Series for the 12 LEDs using one driver

Parallel (but only twop strings in your case)

 

[tat2z_21]

Adfter reading through the post you stated that you are only using 24 LED's, so unless you are putting all 24 on one driver that means you have them in series. And with that being said I would drop the Driver down to 500mA

 

[senji]

fallon has 2 drivers i reccomend having all the whites on 1 driver than all the rest on th other and having all the whites tuned to 1300ma and the rest at 700 as the blues dont have as hight rateing.

 

[senji]

if u do run parallel i recommend fuses and resistors just my opinion.

 

[tat2z_21]

Electrically speaking the fuses should be on there anyways, and the resistors are there for buffering purposes, I believe that if you are going to put them on then it shouldn't matter series or parallel. Fallon if you run those whites at 1300mA on that little heat sink with that many LED's on it, you can expect to have to replace them in a year or so. 1300mA is so close to the max that they are rated at that the amount of heat and no active cooling will cause serious degredation of the chip and ultimately end up in catastrophic failure. It is nice to have all of the whites on one driver, and colors on the other, however that is not the way they were wired. So if it were me I would either rewire them to allow for that type of control, Or I would wire it up to one driver in parallel (NOT FORGETTING THE FUSE, AND RESISTOR) and go for it that way.

 

[fall0n]

Thanks for the info. So in light of that, I'm going to make a pigtail and connect both light strings to a single driver. That'll put the amperage as noted down to 650ma. Now onto the fuse and resister. What am I looking at to properly setup this light bar?