Unless he invited somthing new recently. I was following that thread , and even done diy drivers for DT lighting. But those were CC Cat4101 PWM dimable drivers. Using them till now.
Will be checking for news on RC.
Unless he invited somthing new recently. I was following that thread , and even done diy drivers for DT lighting. But those were CC Cat4101 PWM dimable drivers. Using them till now.
Will be checking for news on RC.
Hmm, maybe I'm wrong. I could have sworn those boards used CV drivers.
Nope, I was right. They're using 24V power supplies on the DIY driver board thread here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... ?t=1759758
look at post 969 for one example.
It is true that for the average hobbyist, using a standard meanwell CC driver is easier, because you just direct connect and solder and away you go, for a setup needing a ton of LEDs (like over 100) then you can run into issues with having many, many of those meanwells. The DIY driver allows you to run many more LEDs off a single driver.
Post # 859 shows his driver board. you can use one or two PSs (the blue connections on the end).
But, this is way off topic.
Not that I want to disappoint you , but ...
This is CC driver. Exactly one I did myself. It uses 24vdc suply. But driver itself is buck type CC . You can change output current via exchanging resistor R3. Driver chip CAT4101 actually is CC driver itself.
First picture shows driver itself and second shows ordinary PSU. Next is Arduino board which sends PWM signal to the driver.
Ok I guess I'm sanding off a little rust, been a while since I went through the motions trying to figure this out. What I was stuck on is that the PS is CV, but thank you for pointing out that the board itself transforms this to a CC source. I guess that clears up a confusion point for me. The meanwell ELN drivers are one piece that supplies CC and the PS on the DIY is CV so that's where I got lost. Most people just use the MWs and when your build gets large, you end up needing quite a few and the $ goes up...
Pooooffff!!!.. guess what that was.
Im gonna take a pic of my driver and have you guys help me pick the right leds.
If I recall right making a cheap LED driver isn't that hard. I think I made some Current limiting circuits awhile back that where adjustable current. With a cheap and easy to get LM317 IC a resistor and a POT. Just add X volt DC supply depending on how many LED's you need to run...as long as you don't exceed the power dissipation limits of the IC. But custom matching the input DC voltage to the number of LED in series can minimize that.
I have seen the DIY drivers like Gigaahxl mentioned, seem ok and cheap enough, but when you can get meanwell drivers for just a few $ more it just isn't worth my time to make a driver. Meanwell makes large drivers that can handle lots of LEDs for under $100ea. I have a friend making a 240 LED light and using 3 Meanwell HLG-185 drivers but he could get by with using 2 HLG-240 drivers more than likely. Both are dimmable via all methods (1-10v, PWM, or internal POT).
This is the cheapest place I have found Meanwell drivers in the US (located in the SF Bay area in California).
http://store.bravoelectro.com/other-c-1 ... 14&sort=2a
The ELN60-48D/P is $22.60 vs $36 at rapidled.
The HLG-185 is $85 vs $115 at rapidled
Another update, after removing screen. Had to turn off LED for pic...
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