Any Interest in a LED lighting controller ?

[Audi_Guy]

Hey guys...

I'm in the process of designing / building an LED Light controller and was wondering if there was any interest.

The board itself will be based on TI's LM3463 driver and Vishay SUP50N10 as the main MOSFETS.

This combo offers high voltage high amperage combo with feedback to the processor allowing precise Voltage/amperage control for each string / channel.

Some of the features I hope to integrate into the Light Control Module ( LCM )
- 12V - 48VDC Input
- 6 Channels ( *1 )
- High Current Capable ( *2 )
- Full Control ( Analog, PWM or Serial - end user selectable )
- Daisy-chain compatible ( *3 )
- On board Input Voltage and Current Monitor ( *4 )

NOTES:
*1- Channels 1 + 2 and 3 + 4 dim together as pairs. Channels 5 and 6 are independently dimmed.

*2 - The Vishay SUP50N10. This MOSFET is capable of 50A continuous ( 60A peak ) drain current and 100V capable, which is completely out of the scope of this build.

*3 - The processor has a slave output so controlling multiple units from a single point has never been easier. No extra programing required when adding a new unit!! Plug and Play !!

*4 - A total of 3 On board Input Voltage and Current Monitors and each shunt will be 20A capable. A controller like an Arduino will be needed as the monitoring chips stream serial data only.

The only limiting factor here is going to be your power supply :crazy1:
48V 60A can Drive a LOT of LEDs !!
Overkill ?? Maybe... but why spend your hard earned money going from controller to controller or upgrading and being left with a unit that is now collecting dust.

 

[pwreef]

What does this do that a regular Arduino + meanwell LDD does not do? 4 channels is not enough. There are 9 led colors.

 

[Audi_Guy]

The MW LDD can only drive a maximum of 1A and they are $10 a pop.
That doesn't include the Arduino.
This chip accepts an "Analog" dimmer by the means of hooking up a simple pot and control brightness that way.

If you want a more Advanced setup and run an Arduino, you don't have to sacrifice your PWM outputs as this device is I2C compatible so minimal wiring is required.

My main goal for this was to keep it simple and no bigger than a pack of smokes !
I'm estimating the unit around $80-100 ( Design, Material Cost, PCB Manufacturing and Assembly )

 

[dartier]

The MW LDD can only drive a maximum of 1A and they are $10 a pop.

Actually they go up to 1.5A (& 1.2A) now (http://www.meanwell.com/search/LDD-L/LDD-L-spec.pdf pg. 4) and cost about $5.xx/each.

They were in short supply last year, but Meanwell seems to have caught up.

Dennis

 

[pwreef]

1A is the maximum current you want to drive LEDs to. Parallel strings are not practical.

 

[Audi_Guy]

1A is the maximum current you want to drive LEDs to. Parallel strings are not practical.

Thats if your running 5W and under..
For those that want to drive 10W or larger arrays are SOL
10W -> 900 - 1200mA
25W -> 1200-1500mA
50W -> 1500-1800mA
70W -> 2100mA Typ.
80W -> 2400mA Typ.
100W -> 3000mA Typ.

Also...
Keep in mind that series LED Strings are as good as the weakest link in the chain!
you loose 1 LED you lost the chain. If your paralleling them current draw goes up... however, loosing 1 led doesn't matter anymore.
Another point is that on larger "CHIP" style LED's can be had as RGB or Hybrid units which simplify the "scattering" of "layout" of LED fixtures.

 

[Shoe123]

Burada sadece sınırlayıcı faktör güç kaynağı olacak
48V 60A LED'ler bir LOT Sürücü edebilirsiniz !!
Overkill ?? Belki ... ama neden kontrolör veya yükseltme kontrolör giden ve şimdi toz toplama bir ünite ile bırakılmak sabit Kazanılan para harcamak.

 

[Audi_Guy]

What does this do that a regular Arduino + meanwell LDD does not do? 4 channels is not enough. There are 9 led colors.

Still trying to figure out what the 9 Colours are...
Red, Green, Royal Blue, Yellow, White ( 15000K ) and UV ( Purple )

What are the other 3 ???

 

[pwreef]

You do not want to use any LED that is called 15000K. This is a mistake made by someone who decided to mimic MH bulb ratings without understanding what the MH bulb spectrum consists of and how to re-create it using LEDs. Those are very poor quality LEDs that make your tank look dull. Also you do not want to use regular Green (even though arguably one of the best fixtures - Ecotech Radion uses it). This product uses all available colors that are useful for reef tank and capable of creating any suitable color. The link explains why each color is needed:
http://reefll.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=64_76&product_id=143
Also read articles from the guys who created this light:
http://reefll.com/index.php?route=information/theory
Those Chineese COB multichannel chips are also of questionable quality and of unknown ratings as they are not made by any reputable company that provides data sheets. With all that said, many people use them and have successful tanks, but if you care to know exactly what you are buying, you need to go with LEDs that are made by company that binned them and provided test data. Good luck!

 

[Audi_Guy]

Quick update guys...
Plan changed a bit but still making this

Broken the whole system into a modular design:
Main Control board :
Will still be based on the Atmel SAM3X8E ARM Cortex-M3 CPU just like the Arduino Due, however it will be geared more towards this project as plug and play control unit as well as adding an 8CH on board ADC for probe or other analog inputs you may want to monitor. This part is still in the "research" phase and im quite open to suggestions or ideas.

Light Controller:
Now running 2 LM3463 chips side by side as master/master with cascading ports brought to the edge of the board to cascade as many of these as you want. This feature is handy if you want to add "slave" channels if you want to run lower voltage strings.

Each Channel will be able to handle about 2500mA of current per channel along with a maximum of 96V working voltage can comfortably drive even the larger modules with ease. An NTC input will be provided for those that want to be able to dynamically bias your lights and protect them long term and allow the driver to reduce current based on the LED heatsink temperature, which I think is a very useful feature.

Since this is going to be a "broad" deployment board I thought it would be useful to be a "Universal" board and for it to be able to be setup to everyone's needs!
No soldering required !!! Pin headers and screw terminals are going to be on board for ease of deployment and well. Setting the Start-up and Drive current will be done via multi-turn pots to make it easy of ever changing your setup.

I/O Board:
This will come further down the road once the other stuff has been figured out and is up and running.

The way I look at it is build it overkill and build it universal.
All the boards will be 3.93" x 5.51" ( 100mm x 140mm ) and the main aim is to make it easy to fit into this case THIS and will easily house 4 boards with plenty of room to spare for wiring as well in between

 

[Audi_Guy]

Quick Update...
After I lost all my work and then some... Today I finally had some time to sit down a pushed through the initial LED Driver Module.
About 6 hrs of fiddling around ( from devices created in the library, schematic being drawn up to PCB board laid out ) this would be the final result!!
Top Layer:

Bottom Layer:

Size is 58mm x 36mm ( 2.25" x 1.4" )
SW1 - Mode Select ( External / Disable )
D2 - Fault Indicator - signal is also available externally
This board is capable of 6CH TOTAL ( CH0/CH1 and 2CH/CH3 share dimming controls )

Other than that these board will go on a Larger Main board that will hold the power rails and MOSFET's as well as it can house 4 of these modules in Master / Slave configuration. This configuration will give 8CH of control with 12CH of Output. Slave units will be receive data from master via serial and offer an additional 12CH of output. Please bare in mind that each channel is capable of 5A of current as well as operating up to 96VDC. Boards have been sent out and hoping to see the first batch in soon as well as more testing !!!

And then there's more to come!!
Future modules include, but not limited to DC Pump Control Board, Heater / Chiller Control Board, as well as a custom shield for the Arduino Due that would allow plug and play use with these modules.

 

[zachts]

tagging along.

 

[Audi_Guy]

Decided to make a small change...

On the main board I pulled all the controls to a 40 pin IDC so anyone can choose to run whichever way they want...

Run each one independently of each other ?
Want to run 2 x 2 ( 2 Master / 2 Slave ) ?
Want to run 1 x 3 ( 1 Master / 3 slave ) ?
PWM control ?
Serial Control ?
Its all there, and I will do my best to make it easy to setup / run from a novice to an advanced user.

The configuration/personality module will make life easy by routing all the signals according to how you want to set this up even if its a 16CH PWM over serial to reduce the wiring which will be a 4 wires !!

Also you don't have to run all 4 modules, you can run 2 or 1. Right now I'm designing the big board ( will accept 4 modules ) and will do the little board ( 2 module ) later on.

 

[Audi_Guy]

Things have evolved into something a bit more than just a "simple" board !!
Driver Modules them-self were redesigned to facilitate simpler routing on the main board.

The main board does not share a central power source either as each module ( up to 4 can be plugged

into the main board ) have their separate power supplies, which comes in handy when your running LED

strings with different voltages ( 2.4V - 2.7V VS 3.2V - 3.6 ) now doesn't have to be a logistical

nightmare.

Another change is the MOSFET implementation. By adding dedicated connectors for each MOSFET and Reference Resistor now channels can be "Enabled" or "Disabled" by powering down the unit and unplugging the MOSFET module. This was when the unit is powered back up it will check the MOSFET and Reference Resistor and if not found the chip will disable said channel.

All the controls are available on the center of the board via a IDC header that can used as is, or use a number of Control boards that I have designed to be plug and play and offer a number of configurations on the fly.
The I2C board allows one to use a single serial cable to control all 16 dimmers via an NXP

PCA9685. This chip can be "addressed" so multiple units can run simultaneously on the same bus allowing LARGE light arrays to be controlled via a single controller. Currently ther is no on-board power for the chip and will be supplied externally via the I2C header either from the micro controller. I have been thinging of adding in a DC/DC buck converter, but at this time its just a speculation, but it may become reality as this project is evolving.

In the works is an pure PWM board as well as a serial board board. Even though the IDC is available some "configuration" is required via the mode pin.

Currently I'm working on a I2C shield for your standard arduino using 40x4 Character LCD and and a rotary encoder.
Latter on complete controller package will be offered.
This way a simple out of the box solution is available allowing each channel to be controlled independently as well as a single master control.