Kessil A350

I'm seriously considering using some a350s in between strips of t5 on my next tank. I'll treat them like mh and have the t5 as supplemental. Personally, to get intensity and solid coverage, I'd use the non wide a350s and probably go one per 24 inches..
Ericung, your system looks amazing! I'd love to know more about it..
Would you consider starting a thread in the sps forum with more info on your system?
I'd be subscribed!!
 
Alright let me float an idea past you guys. What if you could develope a controlable power supply? lets say you set the intensity on the kessil- or dial in the light were you want it and a special power supply is used to allow a third party controller to have a dawn dusk feature or ramp up and down your preset intensity from 0-100%. This way the light is not altered and an additional (or supplemental) power supply is all that is needed. That way the people that already bought the light can allow this feature to occur without buying a new light.
 
is there such a thing as a third party programmable controller that would automatically raise and lower the power supply to brighten and dim the lights?
i dont know that one exists...
would be useful in this application..
 
Interesting...
Thanks!
I didn't realize they worked this way... I thought you still needed a programmed device..
I am enlightened!!
 
Fyi Kessil A350's are not programmable through any controller for dimming. Madean wanted to know if anyone could make an interface to have an A350 and dimmable controller work together. It's been discussed before but sounded complicated and beyond most Diyer's capabilities. (It would also void the warranty) Sorry for the bad news.
 
Todd100,
Thanks for that info..
I thought it was weird that any controller could just somehow reduce the current to a fixture and make it dim...
 
Your welcome. I hope your planning and research evolve into a great tank. There's a million ways to build a tank, but the led with T5's idea makes a lot of sense to me.
 
Currently kessil A350 is manually tunable. I was merely offering up an idea that if somehow kessil modified the power pack, then the light might or could be dimmed through a third party controller. Besides current is not what's used to adjust or dim led lights. Leds are ran off of dc. In a dc circuit current remains constant and voltage is adjusted to ramp the lights up and down. In an ac circuit voltage is constant and current is not constant. Ac power is supplied to the power pack and converted to dc to be consumed by the light. Look up how meanwell drivers work. There are plenty of threads on this. Ideally you could manually tune the light where you want it to be at 100% voltage. Change the power pack or make an addition to it, whatever, that will accept a 0-10v dimming option like meanwell drivers. That way you are not modifying the light or ****ing off existing customers because they bought a first generation light.
Its just an idea people. There's nothing to it but my opinion. Its just an idea. Its not available, well not that I know of.
 
if we control the 350 thro' power pack, it can be dimmed, but we cannot control the B/W ratio just like any modern LED fixtures do, still a major draw back
 
Yeah my idea would be to set the color spectrum via the potentiometers and then just ramp up the intensity of what you set from some set point, say 1-100% of your set point.
 
madean said:
Currently kessil A350 is manually tunable. I was merely offering up an idea that if somehow kessil modified the power pack, then the light might or could be dimmed through a third party controller. Besides current is not what's used to adjust or dim led lights. Leds are ran off of dc. In a dc circuit current remains constant and voltage is adjusted to ramp the lights up and down. In an ac circuit voltage is constant and current is not constant. Ac power is supplied to the power pack and converted to dc to be consumed by the light. Look up how meanwell drivers work. There are plenty of threads on this. Ideally you could manually tune the light where you want it to be at 100% voltage. Change the power pack or make an addition to it, whatever, that will accept a 0-10v dimming option like meanwell drivers. That way you are not modifying the light or ****ing off existing customers because they bought a first generation light.
Its just an idea people. There's nothing to it but my opinion. Its just an idea. Its not available, well not that I know of.
Click to expand...

LEDs are dimmed by adjusting current. The forward voltage of the LED dictates how many volts it draws. The current is changed thereby changing total power consumption and brightness. The 0-10v signal is just that, a signal that tells the driver what percentage of the max current to run at.

I don't mean to tear your post apart but basically that is not true. Alternating current has a constantly changing voltage. It ranges from around +115V to -115V 60 times a second in the US. Direct current is a constant supply of steady voltage. Current can vary in AC and DC circuits, as can voltage.
 
Last edited:
Jerpa you are correct, I wrote that down incorrectly about ac and dc. I don't know what I was thinking. For some reason or another I explained how parallel and series circuits work and interchanged ac and dc with that. Thank you for correcting me.
 
Given that the Kessils already have two dimming pots (knobs), the fixture already has the dimming circuitry built-in. My guess is, the Kessils are dimmed the same way other LEDs are dimmed, i.e., a voltage range is used to drive a PWM circuit which dims the LEDs.

In my mind (have to admit I'm very rube goldberg-ish in my thinking sometimes, and may not always think of the most efficient way to do something :-)), couldn't someone just open one up and measure the voltage range downstream from each pot? If we're lucky, the range is already 0-10 volts and one could just take the pots offline then wire an Apex Dimming Module (or equivalent) right in. If not, build a circuit that takes a more standard 0-10v input, and outputs the corresponding Kessil range (after doing some conversion).

Then, take the pots offline, and insert the circuit above? The fixture shouldn't know the difference between the voltage coming out of the pots versus that coming out of the interface circuit.

Would definitely void warranty, but would this work?
 
It would work. More than likely the Kessil uses a 0-10v dimming signal but verifying it would be wise. Assuming a 10v signal you would simply hook the apex in place of the potentiometers and have a controllable Kessil, without a warranty.
 
What are some thoughts on running the A350 on a 10g Sps Tank? Frags will be 10 or so inches below the light on racks. Also 350 or 350W?

Running a A150 on a 40b with softies and all is going well.

Thanks
 
So what about the power pack also having a 0-10v inputs on it. Basically it would need to be a driver as well. I'm just trying to think of a way that will allow current kessil owners to upgrade with buying a new light, and kessil could keep their current customers happy and included.
 
madean said:
So what about the power pack also having a 0-10v inputs on it. Basically it would need to be a driver as well. I'm just trying to think of a way that will allow current kessil owners to upgrade with buying a new light, and kessil could keep their current customers happy and included.
Click to expand...


Just a guess, but it likely wouldn't work because LEDs aren't dimmed that way. Dimming LEDs works completely differently from dimming incandescent bulbs. In the latter you just vary the voltage driving the bulb - the lower the voltage the less bright the bulb will be. Your suggestion would work for an incandescent bulb, but not for LEDs.

LEDs are diodes (the "D" stands for diode) which means they only have two distinct states - on or off. If you don't send enough voltage to the LED, it won't light, and once lit, sending more voltage to the LED won't make it brighter. What this means is there is a fixed amount of voltage and current that is needed in order to light a set of LEDs. The Kessil's take an input voltage of 24v, and that's because the set of LEDs they use (and the manner in which they wired them) require that much power to light.

To your point, simply lowering this input voltage won't cause the lights to appear dimmer, they just won't light up at all.

The 0-10v referred to previously isn't being used to drive the LEDs themselves. Instead, it is being used by the dimming circuitry to define the mix of "on" and "off" states thereby producing a range of brightness for the LEDs. Which is why I suggested in my previous post that the best way might be to insert into the Kessil's dimming circuitry, and that's via the pots.

Hope that makes sense!
 
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