Has anyone made an LED driver based on LM3463 6 channel driver IC?

emerald crab · Feb 24, 2014

What is the lead time that you guys are getting from Digikey? I got March 19th and I ordered more than a month ago.

O2Surplus · Feb 24, 2014

emerald crab said:
What is the lead time that you guys are getting from Digikey? I got March 19th and I ordered more than a month ago.

Don't feel bad. March 19th is the back order date for everyone. I've been waiting since December for mine. :headwally:

bigguyuk · Mar 2, 2014

another great thread to follow

Intrested in Some off these dude if you are selling any or the files to have a go at building

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22353710&postcount=217

also the driver boards when you finalize the design like the idea of one driver board for the 4 different values

Just Starting out learning smd work so happy to buy a batch to play

Thanks again Simon

rott · Mar 3, 2014

I guess I missed that whole last page I missed that 5 up board till just today. That's what I get for just hitting last button on the page count

bigguyuk · Mar 3, 2014

rott said:
i guess i missed that whole last page i missed that 5 up board till just today. That's what i get for just hitting last button on the page count

lol

O2Surplus · Mar 4, 2014

Things were slow at work yesterday, so"¦"¦when no one was looking, I closed the office door, fired up my portable soldering iron and got busy. With no calls, or other "œwork" related interruptions I managed to burn up the remainder of my "œwork" day by building 16 new A6211 LDD-H replacement drivers. I built the first 12 to operate at 1400ma and the last 4 to run a 1600ma. I'm going to test the 1600ma version by letting them run for an extended period of time with no additional forced air cooling. Since the A6211 chip will enter thermal shutdown protection at 130C, I think that if the driver does not exceed 100C, we can call it good and I'll release a few of them to others for further long term testing.
Here's a photo of the first 8 completed drivers-

Here's another showing a side view. The copper heat sinks that provide the needed cooling are visible.

007- You see this?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
280 A6211 still in the bag!

If "œwork" gets slow again today, I'm thinking that I'll lock the door again, and get busy some more. LOL
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w

unctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w

oNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w

ontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w

ontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]-->

GiulianoM · Mar 4, 2014

Totally awesome... I'm looking forward to the new boards.

bigguyuk · Mar 4, 2014

Fantastic Them Boards Look well Cool

007Bond · Mar 4, 2014

Oh yeah buddy,...I'm watching. I finality got my controller back in forward motion now, (big thanks to rott) ie. cooling fans come on through the 18b20's...yay! ect. I think I'll make up some of my boards next (- the 6211's of course). How do I attach the little copper heatsinks? Are they set in place and then solder the four outside edges? I looked at the ones rott has but that was all I could see. And did you tell me I SHOULD solder the smd's from the inside area and work my way out? This should be interesting. :lmao: ---Rick

bigguyuk · Mar 4, 2014

when wil you be happy with the board design and driver design O2 and release the files

Or sell some of the made up ones

Thanks Simon

O2Surplus · Mar 4, 2014

007Bond said:
Oh yeah buddy,...I'm watching. I finality got my controller back in forward motion now, (big thanks to rott) ie. cooling fans come on through the 18b20's...yay! ect. I think I'll make up some of my boards next (- the 6211's of course). How do I attach the little copper heatsinks? Are they set in place and then solder the four outside edges? I looked at the ones rott has but that was all I could see. And did you tell me I SHOULD solder the smd's from the inside area and work my way out? This should be interesting. :lmao: ---Rick

Rick-

Here's how I do it-

Starting with an empty board.

1) Solder the A6211's pins to the PcB by HAND.
2) Flip the PcB over and back fill the "via" with solder by HAND. Use enough solder to completely fill the hole and keep the heat applied until the solder flattens out on the "copper sink" solder pad.
3) Grab a copper sink, remove the paper backing, and remove the black adhesive using a finger nail or other tool.(the adhesive comes off easily if the heat sink is warmed to 75 -80F first)
4) Apply Rosin flux to the copper sink and the solder pad of the PcB.
5) Carefully place the copper sink onto the solder pad and hold it down with the soldering iron.
6) When the copper sink warms up enough to boil the flux and melt the solder already on the pad, apply more solder until you can see it sweat out around the heat sink.
7) Carefully remove the soldering iron from the copper sink. IF you've added enough solder during the process, the copper sink will appear to "float" momentarily and align itself on the soldering pad.
8) Allow the copper sink to cool before flipping the PcB back over.
9) Now apply the low melting temp SMD solder paste to the pads of the PcB.
10) Place all of the SMD components on the PcB.
11) Apply hot air heat evenly to the PcB until the solder paste melts and you see the majority of the flux burn off.
12) Allow the PcB to cool to the touch.
13) Inspect the PcB for misaligned components and repair if needed.
14) Wash the PcB using a flux remover.
15) Use a toothbrush to gently scrub the PcB to remove any leftover "solder balls" and other contaminants that weren't removed by the Flux wash.
16) When you're happy with the condition of your PcB, By all means- FIRE IT UP and TRY'ER OUT!

007Bond · Mar 4, 2014

Thanks O2 for the step by step,....would never have figured that out. lol Flux remover,... don't have that yet. will have time to get some, as step #1 is solder the A6211. :lmao:

rott · Mar 4, 2014

Step 11 Apply hot air heat evenly to the PcB until the solder paste melts and you see the majority of the flux burn off

do you use a heat gun or do you use a hot air soldering station?? I have a hot air gun with dual speed but wouldn't you blow the little smd parts off the board trying to get close enough to heat them to melt even low temp solder?

O2Surplus · Mar 4, 2014

rott said:
Step 11 Apply hot air heat evenly to the PcB until the solder paste melts and you see the majority of the flux burn off

do you use a heat gun or do you use a hot air soldering station?? I have a hot air gun with dual speed but wouldn't you blow the little smd parts off the board trying to get close enough to heat them to melt even low temp solder?

I use temperature adjustable (0 - 1000F) 2 speed heat gun for most of my projects. The trick is- I use low melt temp SMD paste (130C) for all the surface mount components and conventional solder with a much higher melting point for any component that is soldered by hand. That's why I solder the A6211 chip and the copper heat sink by hand first. That solder will not reflow when exposed to the temperature needed to melt the SMD paste, so the copper sink remains attached to the PcB and actually provides protection for A6211 to boot. As far as air speed goes- the heat gun that I use has a fairly gentle "low" speed flow, so all it takes is a keen eye and a little practice to keep components from blowing off the PcB. LOL
:dance:

rott · Mar 5, 2014

sounds so easy

I think I will get some scrap boards to practice on

Towger · Mar 5, 2014

O2Surplus said:
I’m going to test the 1600ma version by letting them run for an extended period of time with no additional forced air cooling. Since the A6211 chip will enter thermal shutdown protection at 130C, I think that if the driver does not exceed 100C, we can call it good and I’ll release a few of them to others for further long term testing.

They should have no problems with your heatsink at 1.6A. They have quite good protection, unless you feed them too much voltage :sad2:

I have tested the (ebay) Sure Electronics '1500ma' drivers which also use the A6211 with cheap Chinese 30, 50 and 100w COB LEDs. They use the PCB and vias to dissipate the heat. If you umm... over drive them at 2+Amps (40v input) into a 100W LED they cutout and then restart, slowly increasing the power up to about 50%. If you then cut the power they come back on at 100%. The official evaluation board has no heatsink and the documentation claims it can do the full 3A. I am not too sure what the difference is, a lower value inductor maybe and the diodes used in the Sure (it also has an input protection diode) are in any event underrated for more than 1.5A.

007Bond · Mar 5, 2014

Towger welcome to RC,...glad you choose this thread for your first post.---Rick

007Bond · Mar 5, 2014

Hey O2, ...what kind of flux pcb wash/cleaner do you recommend/use?

O2Surplus · Mar 5, 2014

Towger said:
They should have no problems with your heatsink at 1.6A. They have quite good protection, unless you feed them too much voltage :sad2:

I have tested the (ebay) Sure Electronics '1500ma' drivers which also use the A6211 with cheap Chinese 30, 50 and 100w COB LEDs. They use the PCB and vias to dissipate the heat. If you umm... over drive them at 2+Amps (40v input) into a 100W LED they cutout and then restart, slowly increasing the power up to about 50%. If you then cut the power they come back on at 100%. The official evaluation board has no heatsink and the documentation claims it can do the full 3A. I am not too sure what the difference is, a lower value inductor maybe and the diodes used in the Sure (it also has an input protection diode) are in any event underrated for more than 1.5A.

I designed these little drivers with the voltage and current needs of the "Dream Chip" in mind, so the component values used are optimized for an led with a Vf around 36V/1400ma being driven by a 48V supply. After reading all of the available manufacturer's documentation and using their own design tools, I find that the 3 amp rating for this chip is a bit misleading. 3,000ma can only be achieved under vary narrow operating conditions. The chip will overheat quickly and go into thermal protection mode if the "switching duty cycle" is not low enough. Meaning- the driver can't handle an led load with a high Vf, i.e. 48V into an led string with a Vf of 45V (nearly a 100% duty cycle) and a desired drive current of 3,000ma. That drive scenario will cause it to overheat very quickly. BUT, if the led Vf load was dropped to only around 12V (25% duty cycle) the driver should be able to maintain the 3,000ma current level without overheating. In Theory anyways LOL.

I set one up to drive a cheap Chinese 100 watt chip last night. It ran for about an hour with no forced air cooling and it only got as warm as 100C, so the little copper heat sink seems to do the trick. I then set up a small fan to provide a bit of airflow and the temp dropped to 35C. I checked the drive current and under both temp conditions and the current was rock steady at 1580ma. I think these drivers will be good performers in the long run, so I don't see any need to alter the driver's design any further. I think we have a winner!:bounce3:

O2Surplus · Mar 5, 2014

007Bond said:
Hey O2, ...what kind of flux pcb wash/cleaner do you recommend/use?

LOL- I was about to ask you for some! You gotta remember- I live out here in "The Land of Fruits & Nuts"! We've got soooooo... many crazy environmental laws restricting the use of this and that chemical, that I'm lucky to still have tap water!

LOL- whatever "flux remover" you find on your local shelves will be a zillion times better than anything that I can offer.:rollface:

Has anyone made an LED driver based on LM3463 6 channel driver IC?

New member

New member

New member

Head zoo keeper

New member

New member

New member

New member

Active member

New member

New member

Active member

Head zoo keeper

New member

Head zoo keeper

New member

Active member

Active member

New member

New member

Similar threads