DIY LEDs - The write-up

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OK I'm gonna break this down as much as I can.

I do not have a kill a watt. If someone wants to mail me one, I can send you my home address. Last night, I busted out my multimeter and ran some tests...

On the 120V side, I measured something like .98 amps draw on the white power supply. I knew that getting to the blue power supply to do this would be a pain so I decided to do all of my testing on the 24V side of everything.

STOP FOR A SECOND:

120V x .98 amps = 117.6 watts

CONTINUE:

At this point, I'm working with only 24V. I tested the amperage draw on the white power supply and it read 3.48 amps. I did the same on the blues and got 2.05.

24 x 3.48 = 83.52 watts
24 x 2.05 = 49.2 watts

Stugray: I apologize for using the wrong word. I know the difference in voltage and current. Sorry.

Also, I'm pretty sure that 3.63 is between 3.6-3.7. I'm also pretty sure that 3.29 is pretty close to 3.3.

The amperage draw on the 120V side is different than the 24V side as far as calculating out wattage is concerned. This may be due to differences in inefficiencies, I don't know.

You must be talking about the amperage draw at 120V because I measured .98 amps and you claim that the draw should be 1 amp. If that is the confusion, I hope this clears that up.
 
lynxvs

Just a note if you are going to use a four foot heatsink on a hanging fixture make sure it's light
Click to expand...

.46 lb. per inch x 48 = 22.08 lb. check out my little red house you can see what i intend to hang it from
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14543837#post14543837 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by marspeed
My two cents
first I would like to say thanks soundwave your design is very easy to understand, the components you chose are easy to obtain and by simply adding buck pucks power supply's and leds you can build any size fixture you need it's modular by design I plan to add three or four leds for moon lites and use dimmer pucks with three power supply's so I have the option to turn on or off the led colors at different times, also since I have a rimless tank I plan on using an Aluminum extrusion heat sink four foot long as a hanging fixture. I forgot about the leads that produce shimmer maybe I should add those in to
thanks again soundwave

extrusion model 923
Click to expand...
]

Nice find, but where can you purchase this type of heat skinks because it looks like one can only order by the thousands? I might be wrong. Do you have a source?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14546159#post14546159 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Soundwave
OK I'm gonna break this down as much as I can.

I do not have a kill a watt. If someone wants to mail me one, I can send you my home address. Last night, I busted out my multimeter and ran some tests...

On the 120V side, I measured something like .98 amps draw on the white power supply. I knew that getting to the blue power supply to do this would be a pain so I decided to do all of my testing on the 24V side of everything.

STOP FOR A SECOND:

120V x .98 amps = 117.6 watts

CONTINUE:

At this point, I'm working with only 24V. I tested the amperage draw on the white power supply and it read 3.48 amps. I did the same on the blues and got 2.05.

24 x 3.48 = 83.52 watts
24 x 2.05 = 49.2 watts

Stugray: I apologize for using the wrong word. I know the difference in voltage and current. Sorry.

Also, I'm pretty sure that 3.63 is between 3.6-3.7. I'm also pretty sure that 3.29 is pretty close to 3.3.

The amperage draw on the 120V side is different than the 24V side as far as calculating out wattage is concerned. This may be due to differences in inefficiencies, I don't know.

You must be talking about the amperage draw at 120V because I measured .98 amps and you claim that the draw should be 1 amp. If that is the confusion, I hope this clears that up.
Click to expand...


Soundwave
Unless you have whats called a "True RMS Multimeter" the AC readings will not be accurate. You did the calculations correct though.

From you readings the white look OK if I am correct in figuring out what you read... 3.48 A / 4 = 870 mA. not quite 1 A but close enough. The blues seem to have a problem 2.05 A / 4 = 512.5 mA

You might consider changing the Buck Puck to model # 3021-D-I-xxxx it has a intensity control pot that adjusts from 0-110% you can tweak this to increase your output current. Downside it costs $17.00 vs $14.00.

Can you tell me what PAR meter you are using?
 
Since a large part of the cost of this the driver circuit and pre-wired buck pucks support such a small number of LEDs, I was looking for an alternative. I found the LT3755 with a nice reference circuit shown for a 50W automotive LED headlight driver. I'm not sure this is cheaper once you factor in the supporting circuitry but it looks interesting.
 
Images of your power supply hook-up.

In my mind why would you not be able to wire in series say 3 power sources from [110v standard wall plug]. How many buckpucks [LED drivers] can run off each power supply [from what I am understanding depends on the LED source vs desired output, either 1w or 3w etc]
so then to sum it up...3 power sources that run 700ma and 3 power sources that run 1000ma hooked into one 110v line. or am I way off in understanding? [for a 72"L light setup]
 
Oh that. I need to pull the fixture out of the canopy to do that and I really want to wait until I have some time to not disturb everything in the tank. I'll see what I can do, though.

As far as how many pucks can run off a single power supply, I would recommend that the power supply be able to supply as many amps as the drivers are rated at. What I mean by that is if you have say 4 1000mA buckpucks, you need at least a 4 amp power supply. If you are running a full 6 LEDs on each buckpuck, ensure that you are using at least 24 volts. If you are running only 3, you can use a 12 volt power supply. One LED, 4 volts.

If you can get lucky enough to find a power supply that delivers 12V at 700mA, you can do without the puck and run 3 LEDs on it. However, I don't know if the supplies are regulated to keep the current absolutely constant.

On one of my projects, I used a cordless phone adapter that runs 12V at 350mA. It worked just fine running three 1 watt Luxeons. Like I said, though, I don't know if that's kosher.
 
So is there an evolution based on various posts in this thread that it can be said now to use such and such buck puck over another, etc?

I'm contemplating putting together a fixture for a tank i might purchase in the future, and if t5's are going to cost as much, I'd rather do LED's.
 
Doing a similar project, I used laptop power supplies. Each light
will have a separate power supply of ~65 watts. They can be bought
for ~12 each on ebay. The concept is to create two pendants to go over my 75. I agree the lenses on the solaris reduces the light output.
I also use 10 watt LEDs for a greater shimmer effect. Do you get this
effect with your setup?


24612led12a.JPG


More details here
http://www.clubswam.org/forum/index.php?topic=3297.0
 
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By the way ME2003, i would like to have a better description of all the parts you used for that project.
Thank's
 
Here is some further information let me know if you
have any other questions. The 10 watt LED are
cool white (>5000k) and the 3 watts vary between
cool white and blue. It is still a work in progress.
For my 75, I will probably build two and also use two t5 bulbs. I may also add one more 10 watt led to each light.


The 3 watt leds are driven by the buckpucks and
the circuit is described in the buckpuck datasheet.
The 10 watt is driven by a circuit that is very
inefficient and produces to much heat.
I will be replacing it with another circuit.
It may be based on this article.
http://www.instructables.com/id/1.5A-Constant-Current-Buck-Regulator-for-LEDs-for-/



The 10 watt cool white LED with heat sink I purchased here.

http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Sure-Electronics_Components
They are also available here.
http://stores.ebay.com/led-world2007


The drivers for the 3 watt LEDs
http://www.ledsupply.com/03021-d-i-700.php
http://www.leddynamics.com/LuxDrive/datasheets/3021-BuckPuck.pdf
http://www.ledsupply.com/buckpuck.php

The power supply is a laptop 18.5 volt 65 watt from here. $12.79
http://stores.ebay.com/econnect4u
 
Also, do you have par readings on that?
I don't have a par meter. I may be able to get one
in the next couple of weeks.
 
Big thumbs up for quick respond!
I'm into planning my next system witch will be a 6 or 8 footer and LEDs may be my next route as a DIY project.
 
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