Meanwell LDD driver: for those who want to dim to 0 using Arduino
- Thread starter pwreef
- Start date
gilles0181
New member
@O2: can you please answer my question?
Bingo! That's kinda what I was getting at without going into all the electrical technicalities . LOL I've got a Lincoln Arc welder that could be adjusted to power a few hundred LDD-1000H, no problem at all. I could do it, but why not just use the right tool for the job?
Rick-
I know that you're "itching" to order those driver PcB's, but please be patient a bit longer. I want to make sure that your particular PcB design will function as intended and run as cool as possible. To that end, I've ordered a ton of inductors and resistors of various values that should arrive soon. I'll resume testing just as soon as the parts arrive and I'm hoping to hit the 1400ma target on the nose this time around. I'll be using the 5up A6211 PcB that I designed for my own use. It should have nearly identical thermal performance to the PcB that I designed for you. If my PcB proves to run "cool enough" for long term use, then I'll be confident that your PcB design will behave in a similar way, and I'll give you the :thumbsup: to order a batch for yourself. I'm saying all this because I don't want you to end up with any PcB "paper weights" LOL
I'm also going to continue working with the little A6211/LDD-H compatible driver PcB. I'm readjusting the component values on that one as well to make it run as cool as possible. "ROTT" has agreed to become my BETA Tester for those, and will be testing them against some high wattage led arrays in a "real word" situation. Hopefully, the drivers will perform well and we'll have ourselves a cheap and reliable DIY driver option that exceeds the current limitations of the Meanwell LDD-H.
---Rick
TropTrea
New member
The LDD's are a nice idea but you realy need to weight out there cost for your project before you jump on them. Yes the DC to DC driver is less expansive youy need to add a filtered DC power supply though. Yes if your only driving 3-3 watt chips you can get a $5.00 DC power supply, But if your build is in the 300 Watt range or above you can easily spend a big hunk of change on a filtered 60 Volt power supply.
Then you also need to match up your needs with the chips your running. The newer creee LED's are running at 1,500ma for 5 Watts and 3,000 ma for 10 Watts. I do not believe the LDD's are out there yet at those currents.
It was only about 5 years ago that most LED's fixtures ran on 1 Watt of smaller LED's. This is still true with a lot of the comercial fixtures, but most home brews are running 3 plus watt LED's. There are 200 watt multi chip LED's out there today Where will we be in the future? I think the emphisis will be put more on effeciency than total output. Can you picture a 10 Watt LED's with 99% of of its power used for light and only 2% in heat that you can hold in your hand without any heat sinks.
Then you also need to match up your needs with the chips your running. The newer creee LED's are running at 1,500ma for 5 Watts and 3,000 ma for 10 Watts. I do not believe the LDD's are out there yet at those currents.
It was only about 5 years ago that most LED's fixtures ran on 1 Watt of smaller LED's. This is still true with a lot of the comercial fixtures, but most home brews are running 3 plus watt LED's. There are 200 watt multi chip LED's out there today Where will we be in the future? I think the emphisis will be put more on effeciency than total output. Can you picture a 10 Watt LED's with 99% of of its power used for light and only 2% in heat that you can hold in your hand without any heat sinks.
Not true, if you read thru the beginning of the thread, the LDD converts voltage into output current, such that you only need to calculate PSU interms of delivered watts relative to the LED load at LDD drive current leaving a few extra volts of over head. If running a string of 12 or more then Yes only one LDD can be used. but for example: A single 3.5 volt LED running on a LDD 1000 off a 48v power supply will draw somewhere in the ball park of .073 to .1 amps from the 48v psu (I didn't feel like diging up the data sheet for the exact efficiency info for the calc so there's a rough range) the ELN would only ouput 24 volts in this case so that would be .2amps but anyway....... you could run an awfull lot of single LED each with their own LDD of of the one ELN driver.
I would only see this to be a benifit if you already had the ELN and only needed a small number of LEDs but wanted multiple channels of control like for a nano tank or for running supplementary RGB lighting. The ELN is nearly waterproof and is a decent PSU by itself also not teribly expensive compared to other PSU with similar weather and dust proof ratings. Also would allow full off dimming via arduino on a single string and costs you only the cost of the LDD rather then several times that to buy a new PSU......
There are plenty of cases where I could see this making sence even for a new build.
He's already got them, why not use them if it gets things working the way he wants.....
Bingo! That's kinda what I was getting at without going into all the electrical technicalities . LOL I've got a Lincoln Arc welder that could be adjusted to power a few hundred LDD-1000H, no problem at all. I could do it, but why not just use the right tool for the job?
LOL! ....but the technicalities are half the fun........I'd do that if I had a spare welder laying around........
I agree, it is always better to use the right tool or component for the job when possible. But DIY is also about creative re-use of what you've already got and about saving money in most instances, not always about the best and cleanest build to get the end result desired.
Most of my constructions are about getting to the desired result as cheaply as possible. (with a comfortable level of safety) Looks rarely play into things as most of the time the uggly rat's nest is hidden in a box of some sort anyway :beer:
blackchicken
New member
It takes me 14 days to read all this thread. That was a ride. Guys I really love you (or hate you?) I must learned a little bit of eagle, spend a ton of time on ebay watch what is best choice, make a totaly mess in my poor electronics knowleadge and maybe finnaly start to believe to leds in reef aquariums. I have my arduino almost two years. Im so far integrated two temperature sensors and clocks on 20x4 blue LCD. Have no much time and i found that create own menu is really hard specialy for my, but i like to learn new stuff. You show me some cool out of box systems like typhon, jarduino and others (waaaau large coloured touch screen as reef controller, I love this stuff hehe). O2 and others, thanks a lot for your time to create such a great pcb boards, yours flexibility to solve problems and share it with other reefers is avesome. I always do my pcb's at home but create boards in Eagle and send it to company, get a nice clean pcb with prints makes our builds much more profesional, clean and much more enjoiyng. Thanks a lot!!!!!!!!!
Aaannnd sorry for my english :uzi:
Aaannnd sorry for my english :uzi:
TropTrea
New member
This should not be an issue as your looking for a signal voltage rather a driving voltage here. Is all you need to do is use resistors to bring down that signal voltage to the 5 voplt range.
S14Swap240sx
New member
wow great progress on these boards! I love the fan control now.. is there one that I missed that accepted a 1-10v dimmer instead?!
or possibly one in the future
or possibly one in the future
Not on board. The 0-10V Analog / 5V PWM Convertor is still a separate item for now. I may add it to future designs, since it won't add any additional cost to a bare PCB.
S14Swap240sx
New member
I vote yes!
I know I personally would be a lot more comfortable putting the money into a build like this if I can get some sort of board for drivers and dimming all built into one unit.. less chances for me to screw something up and it plays nice with neptune
After a full day of running the new mean well replacement H drivers @36v and 1.4ma all day on a Jarduino controller. Using the test LED function and over a full hour of manually ramping up and down I have to say these little guys I have are rock solid. I used a small cpu fan just blowing across the drivers from the side and had no heat of any kind you could touch them with your bare hand and not feel any heat. I sent some general pics to 02 but his 8up board with 4 drivers on it worked perfect. I put a LDD-1000H on the board next to the replacement driver and the LDD looks big compared to the new ones
